5 builders who never spoke to each other

Sell the gathered audience something other than ads

An audience assembled by publishing can be monetised through services, events, training and commerce rather than by renting attention to advertisers, and on some brands the shop eventually dwarfs the media revenue entirely. Where advertising does carry the business, sell the same audience across the site, the podcast and the conference so no single format has to hold it up.

The method

1. 01

   Monetise a niche trade news site by selling marketing services and events to the audience it gathers, rather than by selling ads against the articles.

2. 02

   Sell the same audience three separate advertising products, on the site, at your conference and on your podcast, and split the revenue roughly evenly between them.

3. 03

   On a recipe or lifestyle brand the shop will eventually dwarf the media revenue, so treat commerce as the main line rather than an add-on.

4. 04

   Run paid training sessions and speak at events as the top of your funnel, because attendees who have already paid to learn from you become candidates for the larger engagement.

5. 05

   Aim the attention your content earns at separate revenue lines that sit beside it rather than selling to the audience directly.

What it returned

• 5000

  Daniel Ceniceros runs Connect CRE, which covers individual commercial property transactions and sells SEO and web development services plus events to that readership. The company reached the Inc 5000 twice, most recently in 2021, which requires millions in revenue and typically over 50% growth across three years.

• 90%

  At Blockworks advertising sales made up 90% of annual revenue, divided about equally between display on the site, sponsorship of their conferences, and podcast reads, with the last 10% from conference ticket sales. They had over 100,000 email subscribers, cleared $13m in 2021 against an $8m to $10m forecast, and expected $20M in 2022.

• $120

  Food52 turned over about $120 million in 2021 with 85% of it from commerce, which still leaves roughly $18M a year from advertising, affiliate and similar. The homepage evolved from a straightforward recipe blog into a mix of content and store.

• Training work was Swagemakers' main lead source and it is what convinced her to productize.

Sources

• 20 Successful Blogs And Their Latest 2024 Revenue Numbers - Detailed.comDaniel Ceniceros · detailed.com · Connect CRE : Millions Per Year, “2021 is our best year ever” · 2022-01-23
• Episode 91: Going From Employee → 6-Figure Freelancer → Productized Service Provider → Selling Digital Products — In the TINY Dutch Market! With Kim Swagemakers - Double Your FreelancingKim Swagemakers · doubleyourfreelancing.com · AI-Generated Summary: · 2023-11-13
• What I learned from Sahil Bloom about building a creator flywheel – Jakob GreenfeldSahil Bloom · jakobgreenfeld.com · Monetization · 2022-08-07
• Friday Feature: Houck's NewsletterMichael Houck · sparkloop.app · #2 - The Newsletter 'Trojan Horse' Strategy · undated
• Inimitable Product is the New "Make Great Content" - SparkToroRand Fishkin · sparktoro.com · So Content Marketing is Dead? · undated