How to Monetize Your Online Community: 7 Strategies

Now that you have built a community of people, who share similar interests, hobbies, and values, it’s time to level up your game and turn your passion into a lucrative earning opportunity.

There are plenty of ways to monetize your online community, whether from your blog or various social media channels. By doing this, you can earn thousands of dollars and create a passive income for yourself that helps you make money while you sleep.

This article will suggest ways to monetize your online community without depriving it of value.

Table of Contents

Monetize your online community in 2022

Sell an online course

Since its birth, the global industry of e-learning has grown by over 900%. Online learning is among the top trends picked up during this swift digital transformation. Since you have a community that trusts your knowledge and would be willing to pay you for helping them reach their goals, launching your online course is the best way to get started.

However, you first need to define the problem you will be solving, its demand for a solution, and your competition around it. You can validate your idea by pre-launching it to your email subscribers or people from your online community and getting their feedback. Once you are sure that people are willing to take out their credit cards for your solution, there is no turning back.

See how one of our Graphy members, Pixel Village did this; they launched their online photography course for beginners to advance. The paid course is successful because they have validated the potential of learning photography amongst their target audience and provided the ultimate way to help them polish their skills.

And, if you are looking to build an extensive online course, then Graphy should be your ultimate option. Graphy allows you to create custom courses, with no coding required whatsoever. You can create every type of course here and grow your business seamlessly. Using this, you can also build your branded website and mobile app that help you reach more people.

Over 30,000+ creators have launched their online teaching businesses using Graphy.

Do sponsored posts

Once you reach a certain follower count or your website starts receiving consistent traffic, you can monetize it by doing sponsored ads. Brands are dying to onboard influencers because of their influence on their target audience.

In fact, 80% of consumers trust their favorite influencers and prefer products recommended by them. And, suggesting products that benefit the community isn’t something to be shameful of. However, make sure that you know the product you are promoting, or better try it yourself. This way, you aren’t risking the trust you have created amongst your target audience.

You can either display banner ads side-by-side with your blog content for your website or allow other people to reach your audience through guest posting. And, for social media following, you can post photos, videos, or stories about the product, highlighting what you liked about it and how it helped solve your products.

To get brand deals, you can either reach out to relevant businesses directly or sign up with agencies that can get promotional work.

Sell through affiliates

Many times, when you refer any product to your online community, they tend to go and buy it from the brand’s website. Here, you can make money by providing your affiliate links. So, when they go and buy that product, you get a small cut from the sales. Affiliates are similar to sponsorships, but the only difference is that you only get money when you sell them.

Most brands today offer affiliates to people promoting their products. The catch is that you don’t even need a big audience. Whatever number you have presently, you can market it to them, and if they buy from it well and good.

The commissions are quite high in affiliates; they can range from 30-70%, depending on the product. However, make sure that you refer to products that your target audience genuinely needs; otherwise, earning from affiliates would be challenging.

You can also create affiliate programs for your online course on Graphy & encourage your online community to promote your product.

Launch your merchandise

When you build a significant following, there’s a chance that your community gets emotionally attached to you. They want to show everyone that they admire you by wearing their exclusive merchandise products.

You know its value if you have been following someone for quite some time and have invested your hard-earned money into wearing their branded merchandise. Personalized merchandise isn’t just any other tangible item; it’s the emotion you want your audience to feel.

Merchandise is an excellent way to make your followers feel more dedicated and part of your community. You launch t-shirts, mugs, pillow covers, hats, clothes, and the list.

Create your membership site

Creating your membership site is an excellent way to monetize your online community. At first, you create content for free that helps capture the audience’s attention and gets them hooked. And, after a point when you see significant traffic coming to your site, you add a paywall to encourage users to purchase your membership subscription.

The key to getting more people to sign-up on your membership site is offering excellent free resources to them at first. If your audience doesn’t seem astonished with your knowledge about a subject matter, they will probably not subscribe to your paid site.

For instance, check out the Murali Sundaram community of wellness and happiness. Using Graphy, Murali is able to build a strong community of like-minded people who are struggling with their thoughts and want to be happy. The members of this community get access to premium course content, group coaching sessions, and community support. You can create something similar to this in your niche.

Under your membership program, you can offer-

Access to premium content
24*7 community support5
Free access to exclusive webinars, videos, and ebooks
Consultations and other benefits

You have to make this offer look as lucrative as possible to encourage more people to subscribe to it.

Start your coaching business

Coaching programs are similar to online courses but are more inclusive. When launching an online course, you help solve the problems of a targeted community. In contrast, when offering coaching services, you offer dedicated advice to every individual and help solve a certain problem.

If you have defined your niche and established your expertise online, starting with a coaching business should be your next step. Here, you can make one-to-one consultation calls with users and get compensated for your time.

And with time, you will understand the common problems that your niche audience is facing and then curate an online course. Your coaching business will. Help you collect those first testimonials and get exposure to challenging problems that you might not be aware of.

Sell ebooks to your audience

Selling ebooks to your target audience has various benefits. First, you get a 100% royalty which isn’t possible when you sell on third-party websites like Amazon, where you get less than 70% of it. This is a big profit cut that you will have to bear at your end.

Secondly, offering ebooks to your audience validates your authority in the market. Ebooks are mostly quite cheap, and if people don’t agree to pay such a minor amount, then launching your coaching business or online course is still quite far. You can use ebooks to engage with your audience and make them believe in your knowledge.

Wrapping up

People are the most valuable asset for any company. The more loyal followers you have, the more are the chances for you to monetize it and earn good money. You just have to be patient in this process of giving valuable information for free. And, once you build a community, there is no turning back. The above strategies will help you start and scale your earnings by monetizing your online community.

And, if you are looking to launch your online course to create a passive income side-by-side, then Graph is always here to help.

Over 30,000+ creators have launched their online teaching businesses using Graphy. Join now.