As a trade publisher, your company has a strong understanding of what your audience wants, where its interests lie, and which information is valuable on both personal and business levels. This puts you at a special advantage for revenue development, some of which is passive.
Another big plus is that extra offerings drive in more visitors. When those visitors find something they like, chances are they’ll circle back for the primary content. Most revenue-generating ventures take a significant up-front time investment, but others just need a little routine attention.
Provide Subscription or Downloadable Videos
Videos give your business a personality and face, where other trade publications might only be known by this month’s cover and logo. There is always new industry information; your publication can be known as the one that offers it ”in person” and keeps the rest of the niche up to date. Better, you might gain expert recognition.
Offer valuable industry updates on a weekly basis or monthly, and make videos available through platforms such as YouTube’s paid subscription service, which was launched in May 2013. Alternatively, let visitors purchase them for download. If charging a fee for current news seems awkward, offer new videos for free and charge a fee for access to archived ones, or the other way around.
Extend Consulting Services to Capitalize on Expertise
Smaller businesses and startups need the information your company has earned the hard way. Put it to good use and help another business by offering pieces of consulting advice, one-time consulting engagements, or blocks of time devoted to working with one client for a few days or a week.
Lisa Nicole Bell, Founder and CEO of Inspired Life Media Group, tells Young Entrepreneur Council :
“Complementary brands occasionally tap us for information on how we accomplish various goals. When time and work flow permits, we supplement our revenue by privately working with select clients.”
Offer Training Material Packages
Training materials come in where consulting leaves off, and it’s available 24 hours a day. When your company has vital expertise in one or more areas, it makes sense to condense that information in downloadable form, such as an e-book, and make it available for a fee.
If you really want to step it up, offer training course sets. Expert training builds goodwill, encourages loyalty and drives passive revenue.
Host a Niche Online Job Board
Trade publications draw in a specialized demographic, and those people look for jobs like anyone else. If your publication’s website hosts a job board, like-minded individuals can look for the right kind of jobs in one area instead of sifting through a relentless stream of unrelated postings at other job sites.
U.S. News and World Report states that forgoing huge job databases in favor of job boards on niche sites can yield better results.
A job board needs software that’s purchased, installed, and uploaded into the website template or web-based software that’s accessed online. Of course no job board is worth much without job ads. Employers who want the benefit of posting ads within a niche publication pay your company a fee for hosting the job listing, and the software company takes a small portion.
Revenue development doesn’t have to mean branching out in a whole new way. Focus on what your audience wants, and find a way to offer it to them. Don’t forget that free perks also build goodwill while driving traffic. Charge for as many services or products as you like, but consider giveaways once in a while, too.