passive income Archives -

Habit #6: Earn Active Passive Income with Content Marketing

In the previous blog in The Seven Habits of Successful Content Marketers series, we looked at the many benefits of applying the 80/20 rule to your content marketing. Curating and sharing other peoples quality content will serve your audience and keep you sane.

Now we will focus on how you can achieve passive income with content marketing.

The 6th habit is to monetise your existing services to make more money from online products.

Quote by Warren Buffett, AZQuotes.com

Depending on your sector, business size and how big your goals are, you may be thinking of developing an income stream from content marketing. It can be done and done successfully. It might be an extension to what you already do, or it may be the business of the future for you.

Somebody who has managed to completely wiped the floor with this is Pat Flynn. He’s a young man and has had a podcast for four or five years, titled Smart Passive Income. He’s interesting, because he does a daily podcast interview which he’s managed to monetise by having advertisers and sponsors. By turning aspects of it into online training and other products he can sell to people and earn passive income.

Pat Flynn calls himself the “Crash Test Dummy of Online Business”, which is clever, because it makes him really approachable, rather than suggesting he’s an expert that people need to listen to.

He shows us that he has experienced things directly and can save us time, money and heartache. This is what we want from our online teachers.

Pat experiments with all sorts of things, but has worked out how to make a business from this. He also gets the people who come onto his talk show to explain how they’ve made money out of passive income.

What is Passive Income?

Passive income is “income resulting from cash flow received on a regular basis, requiring minimal to no effort by the recipient to maintain it.” Wikipedia

Passive income is anything that you sell on your website or elsewhere online that makes you money, whilst you sleep. It’s a way to scale what you do and reach a wider audience, either geographically or conceptually.

What’s really clever about Pat Flynn and a couple of the other big podcasters is that they share their income, a transparent approach and very inspiring.

Anyone would be impressed by someone who’s made $1.629m in the last 12 months out of basically, a talk radio show.

Which content formats could work for your business?

You can write and sell ebooks, and many of my clients have done this. A printed version can be costly, but the online edition can be sold via Amazon all over the world. People can download your ebook onto a Kindle or a reading device and enjoy it anywhere and at any time. Net income per book may not be massive, but if you really make it big, you can earn a great deal out of it.

With podcasts, some are free and some are subscription based. If you grow a large audience you can attract sponsorship and advertising income.

Are you a natural teacher?

Online courses are an option if you are a trainer or you know how to do something that others will pay to learn. This is a fantastic way to scale what you do and take a successful product to a bigger audience. Our Content Marketing ~ Conquered online programme sets out how, in 6 easy steps, to can succeed with content marketing.

Virtual coaching can be offered via Skype or Google Hangout. You can coach people anywhere in the world in their own timezone. Online payment systems mean you can be prepaid for a series of coaching sessions and earn hundreds of pounds per hour.

Webinars are a great if you need time to educate and build trust in your marketplace. Whilst often free to attend, some are paid if there is a training element. Sometimes the webinars are the on-boarding process for a new purchase or are an integral part of the sales process. If you’ve looked at or invested in any software in recent years, a webinar was likely to have been part of that process.

Webinars are ideal for show and tell, and can be used to demonstrate all sorts of things, from presentations to product demos.

Those produced by Dolezal Consulting are free and educational, but also work as lead generation. I’m a teacher and a trainer, I love sharing marketing knowledge and tactics and have found that webinars are a fantastic way to reach people wherever they are. We now have clients all over the UK and a network of contacts worldwide. We also have invaluable insight into the challenges real businesses and marketers are facing, via the Q&A sessions.

And for the more serious content marketers

Online subscriptions and member organisations, like the Content Marketing Academy, have gated content, where those who’ve enjoyed the free products and know they like what you do will invest further. The subscription cost may be low, but it’s a way to build the numbers and earns you income from something already available.

Another great example is e-commerce, if you have lovely products you want people to see. Content marketing will help you get the messages out there as well as building people’s trust – trust online is at the lowest ever level. Demonstrating that your products are good and showing that customers are happy are all part of content marketing.

What are the “Seven Habits of Successful Content Marketers”?

Tips and real examples from people who’ve inspired me over the last five years. They demonstrate, by using Content Marketing, how it has worked for the businesses they run.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the 7 Habits of Successful Content Marketers. Why not check out the other blogs in the series:

If you like video, check out our recording of this fascinating topic and learn from these amazing thoughtleaders.

Our new online programme Content Marketing Conquered is designed with you in mind. Based on our successful workshop programme and latest strategies, we guide you to the top in 6 easy steps.