Monetization models: memberships, ads and sponsorships

Hi all,
New here.
Currently testing my content on Medium and it’s at the stage I want to move away do my own thing on my own blog and custom domain.

I never seriously considered memberships because of my own personal bias, I am subscribed to Netflix and Spotify only. These are behemoths obviously and so the value is there. I thought I’d never go out and pay a small-time content producer because I did not see the value, if I were to do it, it’d mostly be out of supporting them.

That’s what I thought anyway until I remembered I was once gifted a membership to a particular content producer and I really enjoyed it. I just keep forgetting to go back and sign up myself.

So maybe my thinking is wrong and needs some more exploration.

That in itself, gifts, is one marketing method, gifting paid memberships and subscriptions I suppose…

My thinking with web-based content, written word especially, is that monetization with ads or sponsorships just makes more sense. It’s easy to turn on for starters, at least with ad’s anyway, no formal relationships need to be had and you can kind of run it passively. But there are absolutely and undoubtedly cons too. For instance, you constantly have to look for the best-paying ad networks and or sponsors and then you have the issues of well do you really want people clicking away from your site and content or do you want them engaged and reading your stuff? It is absolutely a double-edged sword.

So like the girl in the Taco ad,

I just wanted to get peoples thoughts on this.

Is anyone out there doing both? A paid membership model and either ad placements or sponsorships?

I know others out there in the wild are doing this, but would love to hear from people using Ghost.
Cheers

I’ve not done both specifcially for a newsletter, I have done both for a community (where a newsletter/content is a strong core of what I do). There’s no reason why you can’t mix them all up.

It’s not just about membership or ads either. You could opt to sell digital products. Host events/workshops, offer services, etc.

I’d say as you grow it will become almost impossible not to mix and match opportunities.

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