Monetizing Your Activism

Monetization at its most basic level is the act of earning revenue from the content you create and/or from products and programs that you create. Essentially you turn what you have created into a revenue stream to support and your work going forward.

Photo by Karim Sakhibgareev on Unsplash

The Purpose of Monetization

Monetizing your activism is key because it allows you to be able to pursue your activism, but not be hampered by financial constraints. Monetization allows you the freedom and independence to pursue your activism on your terms. Many times activists have to rely on outside sources, funding, etc., in order to support their efforts. 

However if you are creating content, products and programs based your activism, then monetization allows you to earn revenue streams that will prevent you from having to choose between taking care of your needs and fulfilling your calling for activism. In the past, activists, even some of the greatest of our time had to rely on organizations, or donors, or benefactors, or perhaps even day jobs in order to support themselves and their families while they engaged in activism. Monetization is the key to avoid this dilemma.

How to Monetize Your Activism

The steps to monetization include first figuring out what you are already creating every day, or your activities that you are already engaging in everyday. Then, you decide how you can package that product, service or content in a way to serve and sell to others. Then you determine what market is in need of that service, product, or content. Next you figure out how to get your package to this audience. Afterwards, you price it, make it available and finally sell to this market. Thus, you have essentially monetized your activism!

Creating Your Offer

Every day you are creating content, a product, or providing a service already. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Instead figure out which content, product, or service you ant to package or turn in to your offer to your customers. Creating an offer is merely putting what you’re selling in a format so people can buy it from you early and often. The more the better. You want to create a seamless transition. You want customers to be able to see what you offer, make a decision and purchase right then and there. You want them to be able to see the value you are adding to them. 

In setting up your offer you want to let them know how the product will help them solve a problem situation or circumstance that they are struggling with. For instance, “This product will help you to…” or “After taking this course, you will be able to…” This points the customer directly to the benefits of your offer. You also want to make sure your offer is clear and concise. If it is a service, when will you provide it monthly, annually, or more frequently. If it is a digital product, where is it available, how will customers access it, will it be available for unlimited downloads, or only for a certain time. If it is a course, how long is the course. If it is a membership program, what all is included in the membership. The more clarity the better. 

You want to be able to quickly and succinctly state your offer. This also avoids confusion on the part of the customer, so they know exactly what you’re offering and are not misled about what you are not offering. This will also help with your marketing efforts. The more focused and clear your offer is, the more focused your marketing efforts can be and are tailored to sell your offer. This helps in messaging, branding, and so many other ways to communicate your offer to your customers in a way that they can understand and most importantly buy.

Defining Your Audience

Once you have your offer, you want to make sure that it is available to your audience. To be clear, your audience is not the entire world. Your audience can be as small and curated as a few people or a few hundred people. The truth is, depending upon your offer and your pricing strategy and model, you don’t need a million customers or even a thousand. Chances are your customers may range in the few to less than a hundred, but that can be sufficient to sustain your product and /or program and buy extension financially support your overall mission and objectives. 

Also, when you can easily identify your unique audience, it can make it easier to understand their unique needs, wants, and pain points. This can be the key to your creating even more products and programs. This way your customers can’t wait for your next offer. Repeat customers and business is the golden key to your business. Moreover your customers can help you grow your audience by spreading the word, and helping grow your audience organically. Some experts will indicate that you should clearly identify your [ideal customer] or create an [avatar] for your customer. This will help you figure out how to tailor your offer to your ideal customer and increase the changes that they buy from you over and over again.

Marketing Your Offer

Once you have your offer packaged, then you can figure out how to get it in front of your audience. Some of this will be done through marketing efforts that will be discussed in a future post, but some of it is also figuring out where your audience is located or will be located. What do they watch, who do they listen to, where do they go for information, or entertainment, what are they interested in, how can you reach them. These are all questions that will help you get your offer over to your audience consistently, so much so that they look forward and even come to depend on it. You have taken the time to create the offer. 

Now honor that time, and create a mechanism to get your offer to your customers. Set up the system that you need to do so. This would include things like setting up a free offer that you can then obtain your customers’ email address from their opting in, using a landing page to capture these addresses and send the free offer, then marketing consistently and directly to your customers, until you give them the call to action to purchase your offer. These components are repeatable and eventually can work like a well-oiled machine to get your offer to your customers so that they can buy from you.

Launch Your Offer

Once you have your offer set up, packaged, and ready to deliver to your customers, you can then price your offer and sell it to them. Pricing your offer is somewhat of an art, but here are some things to consider. First, make sure that your price represents the effort and time that you put in the create the offer. Also, make sure that it is high enough so that people will not discount it just based on the price being too low. Furthermore, make sure that you price it equal to the value that it would provide to your customers. In other words, don’t sell your offer short on price, because of what you think people will believe it took to create it, but price it based on the overall value to your ideal customers. This can help you set an accurate price point for your offer. Now, Sell, Sell, Sell, and Sell some more.

Now, to show you that I practice what I preach, here are my free offer and my call to action: To assist you on your journey, be sure to get your free goals roadmap here. Make sure to subscribe to our Blog here. Also, make sure to sign up to receive our free newsletter here. Also be sure visit us at our website, to find more information about products and programs that you can take advantage of.

Until next time, remember keep fighting!

For Civil Rights,

Brian

Brian K. Leonard, is a civil rights attorney, author, activist, and founder of Civil Rights University, and Civil Rights University Press. Civil Rights University helps civil rights activists, attorneys, and social entrepreneurs, build rewarding careers and sustainable organizations and businesses, by teaching them how to make a difference and a profit at the same time. Go to civilrightsuniversity.com, and follow Civil Rights University on twitter, @UniversityCivil.