As you consider ways to make money online, one of the first places you should look is your own body of knowledge and experience. While you could certainly share tips and techniques on a blog or a platform like YouTube, if your knowledge is of great value, why not monetize it?
Identifying your area of expertise is the easy part. Figuring out how to build a business around your knowledge products is where it gets tricky. Then, you actually have to actually sell those products.
So, where do you start?
5 Ways to create a business selling knowledge products
Rather than waste countless hours trying to throw together a website, bootstrap an ecommerce solution, and figure out how to get it in the hands of your audience, leverage a platform built for that express purpose.
1. Create a course subscription site with Kajabi
Whether you have one course ready to sell or dozens of them, Kajabi is great solution for monetizing your video and written course material.
With Kajabi, you can:
- Create a website to host your course content.
- Upload and manage your own courses.
- Develop subscription packages so that members can pay for single courses, course bundles, or an all-access membership.
Because this platform was made to help people monetize knowledge products like courses, it provides features tailor-made for that purpose.
For instance:
Design templates save you the trouble of build high-converting landing pages for products.
Drip campaigns enable you to trickle out parts of your course, piece by piece, to keep students regularly engaged and give them a reason to return to the site.
Quizzes gamify the experience, further motivating students to stay engaged, complete courses in full, and then sign up for more!
2. Write or film technical tutorials with Tuts+
Envato Tuts+ is a great resource for anyone wanting to gain skills in a technical discipline, especially if it relates to web design. If your body of knowledge translates well into technical tutorial products, think about becoming a Tuts+ instructor.
With Tuts+, you can:
- Build a name for yourself as an expert in web design, coding, game development, video production, and more.
- Let Envato take care of hosting your technical tutorials.
- Work with a well-known partner like Envato and get help from its team of editors as you produce your content.
Tuts+ currently has over 5 million subscribers. If you’re nervous about having to grow an audience from-scratch, leveraging the Tuts+ network to start could be a smart move for you.
This would also be a good choice if you’re excited about the idea of joining the supportive Tuts+ community of teachers and editors. You’ll never be short on inspiration, that’s for sure.
3. Write eBooks with Blurb
One final way you can sell your knowledge products is through Blurb. If you have a topic you’re ready to fully unpack, creating an ebook would be a good way to go.
With Blurb, you can:
- Format and design your own ebook using their ebook creation tool or templates.
- Hire a designer to create the ebook on your behalf.
- Sell your ebook on the platforms that matter — including Amazon, Apple iBooks, Ingram, and even Blurb’s own bookstore.
That’s not all. You can also embed your books on your social media pages or website to expand your reach.
Once you’ve distributed your ebook to your chosen platforms, Blurb provides you with tools to monitor and manage your knowledge products.
4. Host a podcast with Podbean
If you’d rather steer clear of writing or videotaping educational content, why not give a podcast with PodBean podcast hosting a shot?
With Podbean, you can:
- Host your podcast on a stable platform without having to worry about limitations on bandwidth or storage.
- Distribute your podcast to a broader audience and share it on the PodBean network as well as in the iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and other podcast stores.
- Monetize your episodes with ads, premium content, or sponsorships.
Podcasts are informative by their very nature. However, the format of a podcast turns your content into more of a conversation with the audience instead of a one-sided instruction.
If you like the idea of becoming a thought leader with your knowledge products, podcasting would be a really good way to go.
5. Bill by the minute for personalised advice with Clarity
Don’t feel like putting together a “product,” but still feel that you have highly valuable knowledge to sell? Partner with Clarity and get paid per minute to share your expertise.
With Clarity, you can:
- Create a succinct and professional profile that shows off your expertise.
- Choose which specific areas you want to be contacted about.
- Set a per-minute rate that equates to the value of the expert advice you give.
Aside from setting up your profile and managing the requests that come in, there isn’t much for you to do — which may be a relief if you want to avoid having another website to manage. Of course, you should still market your services so that people are encouraged to call you for advice, but that’s the extent of the time you’ll spend working on this.
What’s especially nice about using Clarity is that it gives you another chance to rank in search results and have it directly tied to your area of expertise. In addition, Clarity’s ratings system can be leveraged to improve your visibility both within the platform as well as outside it (as you know that Google loves to promote top-rated “products”).
Knowledge is power (and profit)
Whether you already have a startup and you’re looking to build upon it, or you’re searching for something to build a business around, knowledge products are the way to go. You can create as few or as many as you like — and you have the potential to make good money from them, too.
The only catch is that you have to find the right platform to build them with and distribute them from.
If your area of expertise translates well into any of the ideas above, those platforms should be your starting point. Leverage a tool that works, that’s known, and give your knowledge products a chance to sell well.
