With the sheer dominance of digital platforms, live streaming has become a crucial feature of the social media experience and brands are finding out different ways to implement them. Broadcasting live videos is a rewarding activity in different ways. Creators gain personal satisfaction, and more ways to share information, creative expressions, and generating revenue for the business through digital marketing.
Let’s say, you want to monetize your live videos. But how to get started? What are the best ways to make money by live streaming your videos? When it comes to earning money, there are different approaches to do that. While some of them are direct, many others offer indirect ways to make money. Once you have established a relationship with your audience, you have the opportunity to make money with your live broadcasts.
Here are 7 different ways to make money from live streaming via innumerable verticals.
1. Run Ads on your live videos
The old method, earning through Ads that promote a brand, still works. However, the pre-roll and post-roll Ads interrupt the viewing experience of the users. You should implement some innovative ways to make this intrusion as negligible as possible. The revenue generated is calculated based on the total number of viewers who saw the Ads. To ensure the best viewing experience to the users, make use of best live streaming software solution in the market. You need to create a customized video streaming platform for your business. Traditional platforms won’t help much.
For example, Facebook offers the functionality of Ad breaks during a live stream. The audience see small Facebook video Ad after which the live stream resumes. However, to qualify for these features, you must have a Facebook page with at least 50k followers and over 300 viewers on your current live stream.
YouTube also allows desktop streamers to add mid-roll advertisements in their broadcast. The video creator can click “Play Ad” anytime during the live stream. However, you must notify your viewers ahead of time that a commercial break is coming up. It’s one of the best practices.
Generally, Ad monetization is calculated in terms of cost per mile or cost per thousand views. However, the number of views varies for each topic. Additionally, most content creators point out that Ads are not a significant source of generating income for live streams. As the revenue derived depends on the total number of views and clicks, the pay depends on how many people watched your video. While video on demand is capable of generating a satisfying number over time, earning an unbelieving amount of live views in a live broadcast is not always practical, especially if you are starting out.
2. Fan donations
The primary revenue model for live broadcast is mostly donations where audience donates money to streamers. The way in which fans today are able to support their favourite content creators with tipping is indeed game-changing.
Technology offers some creative ways for fans to support their favourite streamers. With that said, many popular platforms like Twitch and YouTube are adopting donations as one of the revenue models. For example, YouTube offers super chat which allows users to send a direct chat to streamers by donating money along with the messages.
YouTube offers this feature to allow fans to connect with their favourite streamers and support them at the same time. YouTube takes a 30% of commission from these donations and gives out rest to the streamers.
3. Sponsorships from Brands
Finding businesses who are willing to sponsor your live stream can be an excellent way to raise funds. Moreover, having a business attaching their brand to your live event can bring a sense of professionalism and credibility to you as a creator.
Sponsorship is an agreement with a brand. It can be an agreement to display a banner ad in the stream for a couple of hundreds of dollars monthly or having an affiliate link placed somewhere in the description. Work along with your sponsor brands to find creative ways that are unique to your stream to promote your content.
It is true that the more viewers you have for your streams; the more brands will be interested in associating with you. However, there are sponsors for live streams that have just a few hundred viewers. In such cases, the focus will be on how interactive your viewers are with the affiliate links. If you are able to provide high value to your sponsors even with less audience, you can still use sponsorship to make money from live streaming.
4. User subscriptions
Another way to earn a significant amount of money from your live streams is through subscriptions. A subscription gives your viewers access to your exclusive content for a period of time. Just like how ESPN works. If you have a live streaming platform, opt for a subscription model as it provides immediate returns and also offers users with the high-quality viewing experience.
However, subscription requires greater commitment from your viewers. Paid subscriptions won’t attract as many committed users as free broadcasts. For the same reasons, subscription models work the best for live streamers with a dedicated audience base who are willing to pay for your content.
5. Sell your video content
Selling your video content earns a significant amount of money. Ensure you use a live streaming software to build your own live streaming platform and integrate payments. This generates a good amount of income if there are a lot of people who missed the live stream or want to own the content. If you want to sell your live content, make sure your video is professionally shot with right cameras to offer a high-quality viewing experience to your users. It is also important to integrate a payment gateway to your live streaming platform to make it easy for your audience to pay.
6. Crowdfunding
Perhaps the most innovative way to make money from live streaming is through crowdfunding. You can use websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to set up crowdfunding campaigns and ask for donations. Some sites offer rewards to those who donate in a bulk. Make use of crowdfunding campaigns and offer rewards like subscriptions, products, downloads of saved live broadcasts, accessories, etc.
7. Direct ticketing
When you live stream classes, workshops, or seminars, ticketing the broadcast can help to cover the expenses and earn profits. It is possible to set up tickets on your live streaming platform, but you must have payment gateway integrations for processing payments. Pay-per-view ticketing is the most common form of ticketing used by businesses.
For every live event, the viewer has to pay the ticket price for that event before tuning into the broadcast. Alternatively, some businesses also allow users pay for a channel of streams to access an entire set of multiple streams.
Final thoughts
Live streaming can be a great way for your business to generate revenue. As the article highlights, there are N number of ways to generate revenue by live streaming. In this blog we have covered some of the viable options. Naturally, the more methods you follow-the greater your chance of success and the money you make.
Experimenting with a combination of multiple methods will result in great results if you can invest some time and efforts. Keep in mind that only high-quality live content qualifies for monetization. You must ensure that you are following the live streaming basics and focusing on entertaining your audience to keep them engaged.