What are the steps to monetizing a virtual event, in a subtle way, that is? What are your goals for your virtual event? You may wish to build your opt-in list, grow your brand, and you may be striving to drive traffic to your website. Whatever your goal, one of the options for any virtual event, and certainly one to take advantage of, is monetization. You have the ability to make money directly from your event.
Now there are different approaches to monetizing a virtual event. You can sell tickets to the event. That’s a direct profit. You can also offer sponsorships and charge businesses to have their brand represented at your event. However, one of the best approaches is often the subtlest. After all, you want your attendees to be focused on the value of the event. When this happens, sales are a natural result.
When Monetizing a Virtual Event, Value Comes First
Your goal, first and foremost, is to provide value. You have to earn trust, credibility, and authority, and that means that your live event needs to provide a very tangible benefit. The content of your event will support the value. The more useful it is, the better. That means understanding your audience and their most pressing problems as they relate to your products or services.
The Add-Ons, Gifts, and Takeaways
Part of providing value to your audience during your live event may come in the form of add-on content. For example, if a coach is talking about creating a productivity ritual during the event they might link to a downloadable worksheet that people can use to create their own productivity ritual. The worksheet itself provides value and is relevant to the event.
When monetizing a virtual event, the coach adds a link at the bottom of the worksheet, and perhaps somewhere in the body of the message as well, that links to a page where they sell their coaching services or maybe a book that the coach wrote. You’re not directly selling within the body of your virtual event. Rather, you’re providing additional value to the prospect that includes a call to action that sells products or services.
The same approach can be taken with affiliate products or services. You can add affiliate reports as bonus items. Your affiliate link is included in the report so that if the report does its job and converts, you earn a commission.
The Secret of Subtlety
The definition of subtlety is making use of clever and indirect methods to achieve something. In marketing, it means not hitting your prospects over the head with your sales message. Your audience is probably expecting a sales message, so when you respect their time and provide value first, you earn their trust. They’re more likely to respond to your calls to action positioned at the end of your event or within the body of your add-ons.
