The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was an eye-opener for the 9-5 generation, which had its work hours, and income, brought to a grinding halt. In Asia alone, a whopping 80 million job losses were recorded during the end of 2020, and although most lockdowns and travel restrictions have since being lifted, it has left a deep impact on the livelihood of many people all around the world.
But even during those difficult times, the digital world flourished, with tech companies all around the world scoring all-time-high profits, largely due to a new booming work-from-home culture. Online revenue streams like digital marketing had started growing in popularity prior to the pandemic, putting them on a meteoric rise ever since.
What makes these financial online opportunities so enticing is that anybody can get a slice of it. Including musicians who often have a hard time generating enough income by playing music alone. Finding flexible side hustles can free you up to have the time you need to pursue your dream career as a professional musician. We’re here to help you figure out how you can generate a large enough revenue stream to make that dream a reality, from home or on the road, and at times that won’t interfere with your music.
Marketing for Musicians
An Introduction to Digital Marketing
Digital and online marketing signifies a promotional strategy that deals with the internet as the prime medium. In other words, the marketing that uses the internet as the medium to leverage conversions for businesses is termed digital marketing. Various digital channels such as search engines, social media platforms, email, websites, and more are employed to connect businesses with prospective customers all around the world.
Digital marketing is indeed one of the most efficient ways to reach and target larger audiences. From specific targeting to higher conversion rates, the online marketing strategy is flooded with all sorts of advantages. Additionally, the entirely measurable nature will enable you to incorporate desired modifications in the marketing strategies at any point in time.
The internet holds the solution to almost any query, and the same goes for money-making opportunities. It might come as a surprise to many, but earning money online is a genuine possibility, provided the appropriate approach is known. Digital marketing is one of those feature-ready mediums that bags plenty of opportunities.
Digital Marketing is a widely extensive field that is seeing constant growth over time. Using the online marketing methodologies alongside the reach and efficiency of the internet these days, you're a step closer to earning some extra cash or even secure a full-time income.
So, without further ado, let's get in to it… Here’s Band Pioneer’s top 7 ways to earn additional income to help support your music career.
1. Start a Blog
Blogs have been one of the most popular methods of earning online money, and it continues to be so. Considering the scenario we’re all in, it is pretty evident for you to be aware of the term “blog” in case you don’t, a blog can be defined as an online journal that displays information about any subject. Creating a blog is an easy task; however, optimizing a blog and earning money from it can be challenging, mostly because of the prevailing competition. This is where the practice of digital marketing clicks in.
“Content is the Kings,” you might have heard it multiple times, and the scenes are no different with information-based websites. The success or failure of a blog depends on how valuable the content is and the extent to which everything is optimized. Irrespective of the niche you’re writing on or the audience you’re intending to target, making sure you put in your time doing qualitative research is vital. Talking about the digital marketing channel that helps in this respect is majorly Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Having the SEO sorted will help rank your blog higher in search engine result pages and eventually help you earn some extra cash.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is another promising way to earn extra money from home. The method is pretty much similar to writing blogs, but with a more specific intention. While blogs, in general, are very vivid in nature, affiliate marketing intends on selling products. In other words, affiliate marketing is a strategy where you'll promote someone else's product online, and on successful selling, you'll earn a commission for it. There are several platforms like ClickBank, Digistore24, and more where you can find numerous products that are ready to provide you with handsome commissions.
Although you can always use your social media platform to promote affiliate products, the outcome is readily disappointing in most cases. Instead, selling products needs to have a structured approach. Just like how things work in a blog, the necessity of content for getting your first sale online is relatively significant in affiliate marketing as well. Better SEO implementations will help you generate organic sales and earn commissions. You can also employ search engine advertising methods or SEM and have your affiliate marketing campaign on talking terms.
Besides sticking to the written approach, bringing the video content into the scene is also promising to get real-time conversions. This introduces us to the third efficient way of earning extra money these days, YouTube.
3. Start a YouTube Channel
The growing popularity of YouTube as a video-sharing platform alongside being a medium to earn money has made a formidable number of individuals think about starting a YouTube channel. From affiliate marketing to paid promotions, there are many ways that YouTube can help you get some extra cash; the most basic one, however, is from the advertisements. You might have come across multiple sources that claim the method of earning through YouTube to be a simple process, but is it? The answer is a straightforward yes, unless you don't make full use of the digital marketing strategies.
To get yourself approved as an advertising partner, your YouTube channel needs to meet a few requirements that include 4000 hours of watch time and a minimum of 1000 subscribers. Having said that, you can't expect to upload a random video and start earning the next day. You'll rather need to have a structured approach where your content is aptly optimized. Talking about optimizations, the major segments to take care of while uploading a video (besides being valuable itself) are title, thumbnail, description, and tags. These factors, collectively known as the YouTube SEO elements, critically decide the fate of your video and how it will perform over the future.
4. Sell Online
Do you have your products to sell? Then why bother about affiliate programs when you can use digital marketing as a medium to reach millions worldwide and bag a few extra dollars every day. No matter if you've physical or digital entities for selling, digital marketing channels can help take your business to the next level. Even if you own a full-fledged retail shop operating with full force, the idea to get online and get a few extra sales each day won't hurt.
Start off crafting a website and doing proper SEO to ensure it ranks higher than your competitor for any user search intent. As SEO is generally a slow process, you can always opt for paid advertisements and bring your business under attention. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc., are also great for improving online sales. Once you incorporate all the digital marketing strategies adequately, sooner or later, you might find your business doing even better online as compared to what you've been earning offline.
5. Create an Online Tutorial or Course
If you hold expertise in any subject and think you can provide great value, monetizing the knowledge is an amazing way to earn money. Just like how work from home became popular in recent times, the study from home scenario has also gained considerable exposure. With that being said, you should never let go of this opportunity of selling online courses and earn handsome revenue. Versatility is the best thing about this age’s online media. For that very reason, you don’t have to think a bit before creating a course revolving around the subject that you’ve mastered. Fun fact, even the tutorials for playing video games are selling effortlessly in 2021.
Several ways can help you create online courses efficiently. Platforms like Udemy offer the most comprehensive solution to set your lessons with ease and forget about them. On the other hand, the manual approach is always available for you to begin with. Start off crafting a course-based website from scratch and then promoting the same with the help of numerous digital marketing carriers. Deal with SEO, run ads, create email lists and make your course reach audiences worldwide right from the comfort of your home.
6. Become an Influencer
Most of us tend to spend hours browsing across social media feeds, uploading photos, gaining followers, and doing similar kinds of stuff. But are you aware that the same activities can let you earn as well? Yes, you read that right; building a personal brand is a great way to grab a few extra dollars every month with minimum efforts. Popularly known as a social media influencer, the idea is to lead your followers into some kind of action.
To become an influencer, all you need is a solid social media profile bearing a healthy following. It might be the subscribers count on YouTube or the number of followers on Instagram. Attaining such desired profile calls the urgency of digital marketing strategies. Right from charging for sponsored posts to speaking limitless forms of gigs, from selling your products to even promoting affiliate links, making money as an influencer is pretty vivid. So next time you visit any of the social media platforms, make sure to make full use of it, at least in the money-making aspect.
7. Work as a Freelancer
With freelancing, we’re looking at one of the broadest areas of earning online. Skills these days are not limited to any 9 to 5 jobs; you can work for companies and individuals all around the world on your own heads. Freelancing goes with the term broad in the sense that the list of skills that eventually help anyone earn a few extra dollars is very extensive. But as we’re focused on talking about money-making opportunities revolving around digital marketing strategies, let’s walk through some skills that are promising enough in this respect.
SEO is a well-known freelancing skill these days, and why not? After all, it acts as one of the essential areas of digital marketing. There are countless companies that are looking for SEO experts now and then. In case you’re confident enough with your SEO skills and think you can help websites get better ranks in SERPs, get over to the platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, People Per Hour, etc. and start setting your profile up.
Apart from SEO, you can take up SEM skills and help manage PPC campaigns for various companies. You can also choose to become an eCommerce expert and serve the needs of businesses that are getting online. The possibilities are limitless; all it needs is an initiation.
But Can You REALLY Make Money from Home?
Whether you decide to learn digital marketing and employ the skills to attain a full-fledged income source or wish to earn extra money from home, both are possible. There are several ways of earning online money, and it ranges from setting up a blog to becoming an influencer on social media platforms. So those who wonder if they can secure an income using the online marketing methodologies, the answer is a straightforward... YES.
Among the plethora of advantages that the digital marketing strategy bags, one that arguably stands tall is its flexible nature. Almost every action that has something to deal with digital marketing channels can be implemented from the comfort of your home. All you need, though, is a reliable internet connection and, of course, a device to operate.
And with that, I'm done walking and guiding you through the seven most promising methods of earning money using digital marketing. To be honest, the online marketing field is a broad topic in itself, and the money-making opportunities are never-ending. In fact, the entire scenario is so boundless that even tens and thousands of words would fail to hold up everything in detail. For that matter, I've tried to share the most potent piece of knowledge that can help you start generating online revenue, irrespective of how well familiarized you're with online earning.
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