Dual revenue streams cater to the online Guest
Consider a dual revenue stream strategy for just a moment...as an online Guest friendly and smart alternative to monetizing your digital assets.
As you'll learn, I tend to look at business...all business...from the eyes of the online Guest. For the sake of broad generalizations and to convey an idea, companies generally launch a new product based on a couple of premises:
1) Build the next great thing and then spend money and time to highlight the features and benefits of what you've created.
2) Stop and observe what people do often or are trying to do...and try to fill that need or enable a better way of doing it!...I have always preferred this approach as it demonstrates listening to the online Guest and being functionally focused!
So with that premise in place, consider offering BOTH Ad supported content for the Guests who don't mind watching ads to get what they want for free...and also consider monetizing your digital assets via micro payments so that a Guest can enjoy the content without ads if they choose. In other words...give the online Guest the option to experience your brand/product as they choose and not as you'd necessarily drive them to do.
Examples from the sports world - combining people watching and love of sports. There are many people who love to watch sports and there are even more people who love to watch people. Why not combine the experiences and allow the online Guest to people watch their favorite athletes?
Golf Tournament - allow your online Guests to pay a small fee and watch their favorite golfers. The cameras are rolling anyway...streaming video is being captured. So now I sit and watch the Masters on TV while watching my favorite three golfers on my laptop. This way I get to see the outcome of the Masters and people watch at the same time.
Baseball Games - have you noticed how the 12 year old kids in little league seem to mimic the tendencies of the big leaguers? A big leaguer starts to swaggle his bat (think Gary Sheffield) and the next thing you know you have a legion of 12 year olds swaggling like crazy! OK, so allow your audience to watch their favorite player...
Get the point?