PDF The growth of digital technologies in the last decade or so has proven deeply disruptive to the content industry. While everyone loves consuming content, it’s vital for content creators to find ways to monetize it.
Let’s first look at the traditional content types, as arranged in a pyramid of ascending value in a recent post by Seth Godin:-
- At the bottom tier is free content. Free content is usually provided as a publicity device for paid content further down the line. Examples include film trailers or preview chapters of a new novel.
- Mass content, which Godin describes as ‘the engine of popular culture for a century’ is content which can be delivered to a large audience due to the affordability of copying techniques. This includes all those films, paperback novels and newspapers that we consume at relatively low price points.
- Limited content takes the form of any content offering or context that is naturally or artificially scarce. Examples would include ringside seats at a cricket match, tickets to an exclusive film premiere or a copy of a limited edition of a book.
- Finally, we have bespoke content. This is custom content, delivered to a small audience or an individual who has specifically commissioned it. A private performance by a well-known entertainer or a unique work of art are both bespoke content.
Content creators used to make their bread and butter from mass content while limited and bespoke content provided the jam and even caviar. It was easy to make money off mass content when access to the means of production and distribution was limited.
Today, virtually anyone can create content and share it with a broad online audience. The cost of copying has plummeted even further – in the digital world it’s not a cost at all. It doesn’t cost anything to produce another copy of your mp3, video or ebook.This means that it takes a lot more to catch content creators’ attention and get them to buy into, let alone buy, your content.
Godin opines that, while the vast marketing layer built around mass content will erode; content creators can make the best of the new environment as consumers of mass content become more willing to move up the value chain, paying for limited or bespoke content. Musicians like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have already explored this ‘freemium’ model of content monetization with some success. Self-publishers who go the ebook route have also notched up remarkable successes, doing away with the traditional marketing layer between author and reader.
In addition, we see a huge opportunity to earn money for content from another market: the corporate sector. Featuring mainly as advertisers on mass media channels in the past, corporates today are learning that they need to become content publishers as well to engage with the new audience. This means engaging in branded storytelling, brand journalism and sponsoring content in more direct ways than before.
In short, the pyramid may have tipped over, but there’s still gold in it for content creators who adapt and move with the times.