Methods of monetization of mass media

Launching almost any online platform a priori assumes income generation. That is, the vast majority of people who create a website, an account on social networks and many other services pursue the key goal - earnings. This is true even for platforms whose activities are not directly related to the sale of goods and services. In this case, we are talking about monetization as a process of transforming your existing resources into a source of income. It turns out that with a comprehensive and professional approach, you can get a stable and good profit from your online platform.

Earlier, we already talked about blog monetization, content traffic, crypto channels in the Telegram messenger. But monetization can also affect many other areas, areas, including the media. Sooner or later, absolutely all media outlets face the need to perform such work. They can sell or rent out their own inventory to advertisers, launch an individual subscription for a certain segment of the user audience, prepare advertising materials as part of a partnership, or release an additional range of products to the market. But, regardless of the monetization format chosen by a particular media outlet, difficulties may arise in the process of implementing such an idea, including quite serious ones that can lead to loss of audience and material losses.

In today's review, we will talk in more detail about monetization as such, highlight the working models that are used today in this niche. We will tell you who should think about launching such a technology in practice and which sites can be monetized. We will give an example of how modern media can attract funds. We will highlight a number of negative consequences of improper monetization and tell you how to implement these works as efficiently as possible, minimizing potential risks. The information presented will allow modern media to receive additional profits without any risks and restrictions.

What is monetization as such

The concept of monetization implies the transformation of an existing service, platform, or even the idea itself into a profitable product. As part of this process, existing assets or resources are converted into cash. Thanks to monetization, companies and individual business representatives will be able to increase their own income, earning money from their own activities. The funds received can be used for further development of professional activities or disposed of at their own discretion as an additional source of income.

But monetization does not always imply direct monetary income, that is, it will not always be directly associated with sales. Alternatively, you can make existing material assets work and bring additional profit, monetize your own time. But still, many popular and accessible solutions for converting resources into money are provided by online platforms. Today, the following online monetization options are distinguished in this niche:

• direct sale of goods or services on the Internet;
• receiving income from launching third-party advertising on your own business platforms, be it a website, application, service;
• providing the consumer market with paid subscriptions to your own goods, services, useful information;
• participating in affiliate programs, promoting offers of third-party businesses, receiving appropriate compensation for this, etc.

There are quite a lot of options for organizing monetization in the online environment today, but in order to choose the most suitable option for yourself, you need to directly proceed from the type of business, the audience it is aimed at, as well as upcoming tasks and goals.

Monetization models that can be used in practice

By such a concept as monetization models, we mean methods payment for advertising on the network. Today, there are 3 main types:

1. CostPerMille, i.e. CPM. In this case, the advertiser will pay for every thousand views of his ad. This method is suitable for those who would like to ensure increased recognition of their brand, effectively present goods and services to the market.
2. CostPerClick, i.e. CPC. Here, the fee will be paid for each click on the ad. This monetization option should be chosen by those companies that want to get an increase in traffic to the site.
3. CostPerAction, i.e. CPA. In this case, the advertiser will pay not for clicks, not for transitions, but for specific actions performed by the user on the site. Alternatively, it can be more perfect purchases, registration on the site, providing your data for email newsletters, etc. This option should be used by those advertisers who would like to increase conversion rates.

In any case, the choice of the monetization model will directly depend on the goals and objectives of the advertiser. So, if the task is to increase market awareness of a particular product, service, brand, then the best option is CPM. At the same time, CPC or CPA are mainly chosen by those who would like to increase the influx of user audience to the site, increase the number of orders, sales. But those who plan to earn money on this very monetization, that is, receive income from the advertiser, in turn, must create such conditions on their sites that would satisfy customer requests and guarantee high efficiency of the launched campaigns. There is a simple rule here: if the advertiser ends up in the black, the performer also benefits.

Who should use monetization in practice

Monetization is a direction that many users can use in practice. Here are just the main groups of business representatives and individual categories of users who should use this solution in practice:

• online stores that specialize in selling goods, launching advertising campaigns, participating in affiliate programs in a related product category;
• owners of online platforms, opinion leaders who earn money on direct advertising, sales of goods or services, on subscriptions to exclusive author's content, on affiliate programs;
• lawyers and other specialists who earn money on online sales of their own services, provide a subscription to useful, professional content;
• game developers, software products: can earn money directly from the sale of this category of goods, as well as from affiliate programs, on advertising;
• journalists, writers, photographers and other content authors who earn money by selling their own work;
• internet marketers: can sell both their own services, and promote products of third-party companies, receiving commissions for this;
• affiliates specializing in promoting products of third-party companies, earning a certain percentage of each sale made through their personal link.

As you can see, there are many areas where monetization can be used. It is suitable for all those who would like to provide themselves with additional income, while working for themselves and managing their own time. Monetization can be implemented on almost any site, regardless of its subject matter and existing content. It is enough to show a little creativity to prepare advertising for the appropriate subject and audience. In practice, monetization is often used in blogs, news sites, online stores, information and entertainment resources, forums, social networks, sites providing information on tourist services, etc. Among other things, it is also suitable for the media, which we will discuss below.

Why the media should use monetization

Mass media is a direction that in the long term will not be able to work, and even exist in principle without additional funds, that is, without monetization. This will be especially relevant for those media that are constantly in the process of development, attracting a new audience, developing extraordinary author's content. And the whole point here is in the excessively high costs. These works will necessarily require large volumes of materials and, as a result, the need to pay for the work of specialists.

As an option, you can use the investments of its creator to run a blog, because in this case the main costs will consist of direct payment for the domain, especially if a unique name is required, as well as ensuring the stability of its operation. But even this expense item will clearly not be enough here. It is also mandatory to pay the salaries of all specialists who will work on this project: journalists, editors, photographers, technical staff servicing the site itself, etc. And the more actively a certain media outlet develops, the larger the wage fund grows.

This means that monetization is in many ways the only way to ensure the work of the media, pay salaries to staff, and develop. And even if the editor-in-chief of the publication is extremely negative about this direction, if he is afraid to risk the loyalty of the audience, then it is still impossible to exclude the possibility of launching such a method of raising funds. Let us repeat, but in many cases monetization will be the most accessible solution for ensuring the functionality of the site as a whole. But here, not everything is as scary as it may seem at first glance. Yes, monetization has a number of certain risks, but they can be quite easily minimized by properly organizing the upcoming work.

We will talk about how to implement everything as correctly as possible below.

What monetization methods can modern media use?

All those monetization methods that are available in practice to modern media can be divided into 3 large categories:

1. Subscriptions.
2. Launching additional commercial products.
3. Advertising.

Each of these niches has its own ways of earning money for the media. As an option, a subscription to the media is quite often used in practice. In this case, you can apply fairly strict requirements, in particular, charging a fee for access to most of all the materials that the publishing house publishes. Such well-known world giants as The Wall Street Journal and The Times work according to this principle today. By and large, such a scheme is quite risky in practice, so it is recommended to use it only for those organizations that have been working in this niche for a long time and have managed to establish themselves well in the market, demonstrate their authority, and earn the appropriate reputation. That is, in this case, it is important to be a platform with a long history, a loyal audience. One that other media outlets would look up to.

But even in this case, there is always a risk of losing readers. You must understand that not everyone will be willing to pay money to read news or other information exclusively for money. By the way, when The Times applied this monetization option in practice, the site's traffic decreased by more than 80%. A fairly similar technology is used in practice by the media outlet “RBK Pro”. Today, all materials here are paid, but the difference is that here we are talking exclusively about professional content, including not only publications, but also live broadcasts from various events, webinars. Also, meetings within the framework of the "Investors Club" are held here. But still, if we talk directly about the media as such, then a paid subscription is still provided here.

Another example of monetization through fairly strict subscriptions can be called the media related to the "Akcion" group. Here, access to professional materials for financiers, accountants, commercial directors and other specialists related to this niche is provided exclusively for a fee. Along with access to the electronic version, subscribers also regularly receive printed publications. In order for users to be able to verify the usefulness of the content, the site offers free three-day access to all materials, and then free opening of materials. But you can read the publications to the end only after making a corresponding payment. As soon as you reach a certain mark, a pop-up window will appear with an offer to make a paid subscription.

Practice shows that various niche media can also use this method, but provided that they have already earned an appropriate reputation, were able to show themselves as a strong, confident market player, capable of providing exclusively original expert-class content. It is also very important to offer not only articles, but also third-party materials that contain high value for the audience. Also, to slightly increase loyalty from the audience, you can provide people with some amount of free content per month, and then offer to subscribe. Forbes followed this principle, posting 4 materials per month in free access. But Vedomosti moved away from this principle, dividing its content into 2 separate groups: closed and open. In the first case, users will simply see the title and an icon with a closed lock next to it.

The second large-scale category of monetization available to the media is the release of additional products on the market. Alternatively, this could be providing expert advice in a niche in which the business has certain knowledge, skills, and authority. This is the path taken by the publication Clerk. Its pages offer specialized information in such niches as accounting, law, taxes and other products in the financial industry. They created an additional service "Clerk Premium", where the consumer market can get paid access to online courses, conferences, direct consultations with experts, a large-scale reference and legal system, as well as a regularly published magazine "Analysis of Laws", which examines the most current market trends.

Another large-scale category of monetization available to the media is the placement of paid advertising. But here, work can also be implemented in different ways. As an option, you can publish partner materials, marking them with a mark like "On the rights of advertising". It is also possible to simply place advertising blocks in the form of banners or other elements in certain parts of the site. Basically, a fairly large horizontal block is provided at the top of the active window or side placement. But in order to hide such advertising, the site can offer the audience to sign up for a paid subscription. In this case, it is possible to receive double benefit: from the advertiser and from the reader.

If you choose monetization by placing advertising, you can look for a customer directly by contacting the advertisers themselves, or place a corresponding request in advertising networks. The second option will be more convenient and easier to work with, since it does not require the media to connect their own resources. In this case, the advertising network itself connects its player to you, after which the advertising begins to be displayed. But in order to work directly with the advertiser, you will need to attract the appropriate specialists who will launch advertising and supervise it. And this is an additional wage fund, which a priori should pay off.

Experts recommend using advertising networks also in order to minimize your own risks. Such platforms automatically filter customers, removing everything that may contain malicious, illegal content. There is also a special selection system that sorts advertisers based on relevance to a particular media outlet. Thanks to such a comprehensive approach, advertising risks are minimized, which in itself increases the efficiency and profitability of monetization.

But again, we want to draw your attention to the fact that monetization of mass media is an area that should be considered only by those sites that already have a certain weight in their niche, those that have already formed a loyal audience and stable traffic on the site. If you do not have a flow of people, you will not have the base for monetization. There is also little chance of getting orders for advertising placement for those media that are little known, because such a campaign will not provide the advertiser with the desired coverage and transition to his site. In addition, the presence of a subscription in most cases simply scares off the few readers.

There are no strict standards, recommendations, requirements. But if you analyze all the media that use monetization, then they began to implement these works on average after they formed for themselves at least a 100-thousand audience of unique users who are regularly active. If you already have such a base, then you can safely move on to such events.

What consequences can there be for incorrect media monetization?

At the stage when the media realizes the need to launch monetization, chief editors often still try to delay the launch of these works. And this is true for absolutely everyone, that is, for subscriptions, advertising, and often even for the launch of additional commercial products. But still, advertising and subscriptions raise the most doubts, since this is what can reduce loyalty on the part of the audience. At the same time, from a technical and financial point of view, such a solution will be simpler and faster to launch.

Practice shows that such fears are the results of negative experience, including other media. But in most cases, such problems are associated with an incorrectly chosen monetization scheme or significant errors made at the stage of its implementation. So, if you do not approach this task as comprehensively and professionally as possible, you may encounter the following problems:

• A drop in traffic to the site. The fact that most of the audience will not take the information that they will have to pay to access the content very positively is a completely natural phenomenon. The fact is that modern people live in the era of the Internet, which means they are accustomed to the availability of content. That is, if any restrictions appear, then with a high degree of probability they will simply be indignant and go look for the relevant information on other sites, where all this is presented in the public domain. Will they react negatively if advertising banners appear on the publisher's website? Most likely, not very much, at least if everything is implemented as correctly as possible and advertising does not interfere with studying the presented material. But we must not forget that the work of modern media is often associated with third-party risks. The audience may leave your site if you unsuccessfully change the concept, if you launch a new but uninteresting direction, if a more creative competitor enters the market, etc. All this can be minimized only through a comprehensive and professional approach.
• Increasing negativity from the user audience. Editors are very often afraid that after the launch of monetization, they will face a huge amount of negativity that will appear on absolutely all sites belonging to this publishing house, be it the official website, social networks, accounts in messengers, etc. And here the reason for such concerns is the same as in the first case: visitors did not appreciate the desire of the media to monetize their work. But here the negativity may relate not only to the result itself, but also to the decisions that were made. Alternatively, the audience may not like the subscription format or the presence of restrictions, an excessive amount of purchased advertising or its content.
• Illegality of actions. This aspect is relevant primarily for monetization launched through advertising. Alternatively, the website or other platforms may publish advertisements about illegal services, unlicensed goods, writing scientific papers, selling alcohol, drugs, tobacco products and everything that is prohibited from being advertised at the legislative level. And here the media can really suffer seriously. In the best case, you will face a serious fine, but you can also incur significant reputational risks. And this is what can reduce to "nothing" all the previous work of the publishing house, its efforts to win the loyalty of the audience, and build a reputation.
• A reputable advertiser's refusal to cooperate with the media in the future. This may be the result of the negative effects we described above. Advertisers may leave your site because traffic to it will decrease and, accordingly, the number of clicks to their resource will decrease. And the negativity that your media outlet will face may automatically be distributed to its brand. Advertisers will probably not like the fact that their ad will be located next to a prohibited ad or that you will prepare an overly provocative video or banner for them. That is, a major advertiser leaving you is something that becomes the result of mistakes made by you. At the same time, your chances of establishing reliable partnerships and participating in special projects will decrease.
• The emergence of a conflict of interest between the site and advertisers. A person who plans to place an advertisement for their business on your website or in social networks will in any case have their own idea of what kind of material it should be, how the information should be covered in it. But their vision may be radically different from yours and not fit into the general format of the site. In this case, a conflict of interests will arise, which may lead to a refusal to cooperate. It is also important to think about your readers. If they constantly see only advertising publications, they may get the impression that all the content is paid for, which means that the level of trust will significantly decrease.
• Technical problems with the site. This is what can provoke the appearance of a large number of advertising blocks placed on the site. As a result, an increased load on the resource is formed, as a result of which it may become completely inaccessible to the audience. Also, such an overload can worsen the site's operation. Various errors will begin to appear more and more often, causing dissatisfaction among the user audience and, as a result, a refusal to interact. If the publisher does not optimize the work of its platforms, does not reduce the amount of advertising so that the technical capabilities of the site allow it to be processed without problems, does not select the most reasonable formats, then technical problems will definitely arise.

As you can see, most of the errors are related to the human factor, namely the inability to correctly organize the entire monetization process, as well as the desire to get the most out of monetization even at the expense of user convenience.

How mass media can correctly build high-quality monetization

If you are already at the stage when it is time to think about monetizing your media, then you need to approach the implementation of these works as comprehensively and professionally as possible. In particular, you need to choose the best way to attract additional funds and launch this process in such a way as not to harm the work of the platforms and not to cross out all the efforts that were previously made to form a good reputation, attract a user audience. This is what will minimize various risks and avoid negativity from the user audience and advertisers.

For the most correct implementation of such an idea, we recommend using the following tips:

1. Monetization through advertising blocks is one of the simplest and most effective mechanisms to implement. It will not require additional efforts and resources from you, especially if you use specialized advertising networks. The only thing that will be required from you here is to ensure the appropriate technical condition of the site, as well as its adaptability, which will allow you to publish advertising blocks. And one more argument in favor of working with advertising networks is hidden in their algorithm. We have already mentioned that here the system itself selects the most relevant advertising. This means that such ads will look as organic as possible on your site and will give a good result, since they are clearly aimed at the target audience. And remember that in this case you also avoid the risks associated with violating current advertising laws, which could negatively affect the reputation of your media outlet as a whole.
2. Choose an advertising network very carefully. All the advantages we talked about above will be characteristic only of reliable platforms, those that already have their own reputation, effectively implemented cases. It is worth checking what other customers the network you have chosen works with, what tools it uses in practice. Then, most likely, you will just have to rely on your own intuition and determine for yourself what exactly you expect from cooperation with such a platform.
3. Conduct preliminary testing, which will help you determine the most correct ratio of different types of advertising. This will allow you to evaluate in advance the effectiveness of such events and, in principle, understand the prospects of their launch. Moreover, you will understand which option you should choose. Unfortunately, studying other people's experience, cases, reviews will not allow you to get the most correct data. Here, a lot depends directly on the features of your platform. When evaluating the effectiveness of different advertising options, be it video format, banners, Push or any other, it is imperative to pay attention to metrics. This is the only way to understand which format is more appealing to the audience and causes a positive reaction.
4. If you consider yourself a major media outlet, if you have already established yourself in the market in a worthy manner, then you can offer advertisers special projects, individual affiliate programs. But in this case, it is important to select clients very carefully. They should correspond to the subject of your media outlet, fit its format, and the materials that are planned to be published should not contradict the Advertising Law.
5. If you are still thinking about opening a subscription and launching restrictions on access to certain materials, you should understand that your publication should have a large loyal audience and unique expert content. That is, people should know what they will pay money for. Therefore, it is important to evaluate your materials and capabilities in general. If you are sure that you can give readers something that they will not find in the public domain, something that will contain benefits, you can safely implement such a practice. It is optimal to launch monetization through a subscription in narrow-profile niches. In this case, you can also launch additional products, such as seminars, online courses and other events that will also contain benefits for the audience and contribute to the fact that people will pay money for access to them.

As you can see, there is nothing complicated or unrealistic in these works. Do not neglect these recommendations, and you will be able to launch the monetization of your site as efficiently and without risks as possible.

Let's sum it up

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