Make Money From What You Already Do
Guys, I love love love this topic with my whole heart. Nothing gets me more hyped than thinking about the ideas you can get and the income you can generate from this monetization tactic.
A monetization tactic–or experience enhancer–is something that is going to be an extension of your customers experience. You are likely already doing some of these things–it’s just a matter of implementing a couple things for you to start making money for doing what you’re already doing.
I want to preface this with a little bit of a backstory. I’ve talked about this experience in my blog about upselling, but this applies here too.
If you don’t already know, I shoot a lot of weddings in the state of Oregon in my wedding photography business. People that are getting married here really worry about their wedding day getting rained on–which isn’t exclusive to Oregon, but it happens a lot here. They need a backup plan.
When I was talking to my customers, they'd often say, “We obviously want our photos to look amazing, even if it rains. What do you recommend we do? If it rains, should we get a certain type of umbrella? Is there one that's going to be more photogenic?”
I noticed that I was getting that question a lot. That is a really good indicator of something you can implement into your customer experience–when you hear the same thing, or feel like you're having the same conversation, again and again and again.
And so I was suggesting to people this particular umbrella that you can get on Amazon that was really affordable. And I noticed they would always take me up on my recommendation because they trusted my expertise as their service professional. And they’d be buying more than one–it’d be one for the bride, one for the groom, sometimes for the bridal party, sometimes for the guest–they’d be buying multiple umbrellas based on my recommendation.
I got to the point where I was just like, “Wouldn't it be great if I could make a little bit of money on this?”
Holy cow. What a great opportunity to make money when not only is it something that multiple clients are getting, but they're buying multiple of them. And so for me, knowing that that was a product that I got off Amazon, I knew I could just pop on Amazon really quick and I could sign up for their Amazon Associates Program.
With the Amazon Associates program, I could get a link to that particular product custom for my associates. I started offering the link along with a gallery of photos from past clients who used the umbrella, so they could really envision the whole experience and final product.
So what I did was I created a monetization moment out of something that I experienced with my customers on a regular basis.
This is an experience enhancer. This is something that, knowing that they're going to be asking for it, I could preemptively plan on providing that resource for them. I can provide them with a PDF at the beginning of the experience, or halfway through I can send an automated email and I don't have to think about it twice.
That started a light bulb moment for me, and really jump started a really exciting chapter of my business. This is something that they're actively looking for anyway–not only am I saving them time by providing them that resource ahead of time, it makes me look really thoughtful. It's not like my customers are paying anything extra for that experience to be even better for them.
So step one for creating your experience enhancers is to figure out: what do I recommend to people all the time?
And then: can I find a company that has an affiliate program for that?
When you think about how you can enhance the experience for your customers, you can make both their life and your life so much easier. One, you don't have to feel like you're having the same conversation with all of your different customers.
Now, maybe you really hate Amazon. The good news: you don't have to use Amazon. There are so many different companies that offer affiliate programs that you can find these affiliate opportunities with.
Etsy has an affiliate program, Etsy Affiliates & Creators. It's a little harder to sign up for, but if you want to support small businesses, then this is a great option to look into.
Creative Market has an affiliate program, which is a great option for graphic designers.
There are places like ClickBank that are a hub for multiple affiliate offers. You can also look at the services you are using–they may have affiliate programs that you can share with your customers as well.
The next step is to create blogs with those affiliate links, and post links to the blogs on Pinterest and/or Instagram.
Pinterest is great for driving traffic to your blogs. It’s one of the top search engines out there, so it’s a great tool to use. I have a whole training in my Business Conservatory Program for using Pinterest to drive sales and traffic that covers the basics to some tips and tricks. Click through to join today for free.
On Instagram, a great place to post affiliate links is in your Highlight Reels. One of my students did that, and she ended up making an extra $1,200 last year, just from suggesting a particular skirt that one of her couples could wear on their engagement session, and it ended up blowing up like crazy for her.
Take a step back and think: when would be the best time to show this? When would my customers appreciate this?
I want you to really think about this on an intentional level. Never, never, never am I going to tell you to spam the crap out of your audience. That's just not the way to do it.
You'll find that when you do this thoughtfully and intentionally, you can make a lot more money with minimal effort.
I am just so excited by the possibilities that are opening up for you. If you want to hear more ways to infuse more income into your creative business, my podcast, The Business Conservatory Podcast pulls back the curtain on the tactics used by the top earners in the industry. Come, take a seat. Let’s build your business.
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