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40 Ways Publishers Can Make More Money Online

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40 Ways Publishers Can Make More Money Online

February 4, 2024

When was the last time you found new money on your website? If banner ads are still your dominant income producer online, it is time to make your website work harder for you.

Start by identifying new products, content offerings, and revenue streams that fit your business model and play to your strengths.

Here are 40 ways ePublishing clients currently make money on their websites. These ideas represent content offerings you could expand on to lure and engage more readers and ways to boost your advertising offerings with creative packages.


Content Offerings

  1. Sponsored podcasts: Talking to newsmakers and thought leaders as a sponsored podcast also can create a popular, long-term information product
  2. Sub-niche newsletter sponsorship: Sell sole sponsorships to narrow niches in your market and give the advertisers a chance to “own” an audience.
  3. Sponsored special sections: Highlight thought leadership, new industry trends, or emerging technology.
  4. Special reports: Repurpose content from older pieces into special content that focuses on a particular trend, skill, or advice that readers want to learn about. 
  5. Sponsored video: Run sponsor-created videos; allow advertisers to have their own section of your video library or add copy and create video case studies.
  6. Archive access: Monetize subscription access to your archives. 
  7. Sponsored custom content: Create ebooks, custom magazines, or other content products for sponsors and offer them on your site (and theirs) for download.
  8. Syndicate your content: Sell syndication rights and distribute them automatically with NewsML-G2, the world news standard for XML metadata.
  9. Microsites: Create a microsite for a sponsor from one to many pages, including multimedia. 
  10. Continuing education units and education programs: Offer Continuing Education Units (CEUs), which certain professions require to maintain certifications. Tie them to webinars or specific programs. 
  11. Webinars: Host sponsored webinars for your audience or charge for attendance. 
  12. Digital demo: Allow sponsors to show a deep dive into a complex operational or technology product in a live, webinar-like event.
  13. eBooks/Whitepapers: Create eBooks based on timely topics, industry trends, or helpful articles. Sell sponsorship of these and use them to grow your lists. These are both great tools for lead generation.
  14. Product roundups and showcases: Let advertisers to determine the products they want to promote based on their buying cycle.
  15. Site license: Sell group subscriptions to highly specialized content that’s managed by IP address or password access.

    Data
  16. Quizzes: Engage audiences with quizzes. Participants love testing their knowledge about a particular topic, and their entries become leads for sponsors.  
  17. Market data: Leverage your reporting by selling highly detailed market data on national or global customer trends and product usage, for example.
  18. Market forms: Offer all the specialized forms your market needs for a membership fee. 
  19. Market research: Offer customized market research reports in your niche.
  20. Prospects and lead appending: Use content placement and reader tracking to qualify leads for industry marketers by capturing predictive buying behavior.

    Advertising
  21. Contextual ads: Target readers with ads based on topic or keyword.
  22. Classified ads: Take what used to be a big print money-maker – the classifieds – and create a classifieds section on your new site for job listings, used equipment sales and more.
  23. Premium placements: Provide advertisers with the opportunity to choose where they want to be featured within an article or elsewhere on site.
  24. Ad retargeting program: Extend the impressions to your site visitors on other sites to target ads.
  25. Channel sponsorships: Offer advertisers the opportunity to reach a highly targeted audience. Allow them to sponsor a channel tailored to a specific market sector. 
  26. Newsletter advertising: Offer multiple ads or sole sponsorship for your routine email newsletter. You can also include text ads for mobile delivery.
  27. Native advertising: Leverage sponsor-contributed content. Mark it as “sponsored” and run it alongside other articles.
  28. Main menu listing: Highlight sponsors directly on your site. List “Companies” in the horizontal navigation bar with a dropdown featuring articles and other downloadable assets.
  29. Lead-generation programs: Create a comprehensive lead-gen program for advertisers.  Successful options include whitepapers and webinars.

    Subscriptions
  30. Webinar subscription series: Increase the spend-per-reader annually by packaging your topical webinars in addition to selling individually.
  31. Book subscription: Allow access to your library of books over a time period, especially for highly specialized and technical content.
  32. Periodical subscription: Deliver your periodical in print, digital, or both and provide subscribers special access to all or select content kept behind a gate or paywall for others.

    Other Deliverables
  33. Market reports: Package strong evergreen content as PDFs and gated online deliverables.
  34. Buyers’ guides: Sell robust listings for your buyers’ guides, otherwise known as directories, on your website.
  35. Virtual events:  Have a well-known industry leader speak for 15-20 min and take live questions. Sponsors get visibility and the attendee list.
  36. Giveaways: Give away a sponsored product in a contest. (Be sure to check federal and state law.)
  37. Recorded conference content: Repackage speaking presentations from your conference for those who couldn’t attend.
  38. Ancillary products: Offer branded items to keep your name in front of readers and make them feel part of “the club.”  Mugs, T-shirts, hats, or specialty items can be winners. 
  39. Back issues of magazines: Clean out the closet. Some readers still want back issues 
  40. Sponsored photo contest: Allow sponsors to host a photo contest. Advertisers gain submission data, while publishers can increase their subs and marketing lists. (They can even create a calendar from the photos!)


Regardless of the tactic, your content, audience data, advertising, marketing, and sales efforts must work together. With ePublishing’s solutions as your foundation, you can increase revenue, improve efficiency and grow engagement. Request a demo today to discover how ePublishing helps publishers maximize and diversify their revenue potential.