Creator business basics
What you’ll learn
- Create customers out of your audience
- How to make money
- How to treat your work like a business
So you want to turn your creativity into a business? Let’s talk about the important steps to consider when you want to evolve your work from a hobby to a profitable source of income!
Turn your audience into customers
This may sound obvious but before you even think about turning your work into a business, you need to know your audience. You need to know who they are, what they like and what they don’t like. How old are they and where do they live? What are the main challenges or problems that they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis? By knowing and understanding your audience, you’re able to build a business with the end customer in mind.
You can also go a step further by creating a customer persona. A customer persona is a representation of your ideal customer (which includes details on their demographics, interests, preferences and general behaviors).
-
Create a customer persona (include their age, gender, interests, preferences and general behaviors)
Build strong engagement
You don’t need a million followers to start building an engaged and loyal audience. In fact, it has been shown that you can create a successful brand with just 1000 true fans. Once you’ve defined your ideal fan (or persona), create content with that fan in mind. You can use the framework below to help spark some ideas
[Persona] wants [some goal] because of [their biggest pain point or challenge]
Launch products and services
To take your content and work to the next level, you can begin to consider what types of products or services you can launch through your site. You can start with something more simple (like an e-book) or something slightly more complex (like creating a new clothing line). As for services, some options include consulting, teaching or offering 1:1 coaching sessions.
When considering whether to launch a product or service, think about how much time and money you would need to invest in order to get it started. Choose an option that feels reasonable and actionable based on your current state and flexibility.
Survey your existing audience to see what types of products or services they would be most interested in
Diversify how you make money
It’s important to have multiple streams of income so that you can experiment with different methods to figure out what works best for you. Below is a short list of the most common ways to monetize your content:
Advertising: placing ads on your website. You can get started with Google AdSense.
Affiliate Marketing: a way to earn money whenever your audience buys a product or service based off of your recommendation or promotion of it.
Influencer Partnerships and Brand deals: long term partnerships with a brand.
Sponsored content: when a brand or company pays you to feature their name, content or services within a post
Products and services: launching products and services that represent your brand
Define and promote your brand
If you want your work to be a business, then treat it like a business! Define who you are, what specific niche market you are addressing and your unique selling point (what can you offer that is different than everyone else?). Once you’re clear on what your brand/business is, you can start to focus more on promoting.
Promote your products and services through launch emails, social media and advertising campaigns. By being clear on who your target audience is, you can create ads and campaigns that speak to their wants and needs.
The key to creating a successful business as a creator, is to always build and grow with your audience in mind.
