How to Monetize FREE Content (& Not LOSE Your Audience)

People are overwhelmed. They don't want more content from you. What they want is for you to help them meet people who are navigating the same transition. That's it. Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini, and this is People Magic, where I show you the easiest way to create a $1 million community. Let's get started.

Hey, Gina, I'm worried about how to charge. People are used to getting all of my work for free. Are you telling me that I need to go to them and tell them that they have to pay for the same thing that they've been getting for free from me? How do I make that shift without losing my audience or creating resentment?

Yeah. So I'm assuming, and just clarify this for me. You're talking about your work for free, your social media audience. So you've been posting on social media, and you have audience, and they are viewing and they're commenting, and you've never charged for anything. Is that. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, Gina, that's correct.

Great, great. Just wanting to confirm. So I'm going to say something provocative here, which is that fundamentally, in that question is, oh, my gosh, I'm going to make people pay to. To access me. And for some people, that's real easy to do. But if you've built a fantastic audience, you've had opportunities show up, you've had brand deals because you've built an audience for free on social media. I want to offer a different perspective or just a different way to think about what charging means. Don't charge for things that you're offering for free. Like this. You never want to go into a situation where you're like, hey, everybody, the thing that's been free, now you're going to pay for it. You want to offer something different. Now, it may be that you keep doing the thing that you've been doing for free. If you love doing it and it gives you energy, it may also be that you choose to start charging for something that. That's where you spend more and more of your time. That is. That is something we've seen a lot. We have a lot of examples of that. I've also seen a fair number of examples of people who have been running a free Facebook group, and it's exhausting. And they have just gotten paid in thank yous, and sometimes actually no thank yous. They're just. They're paid in toxic dynamics and behavior and fights and just stuff that is, like, made the whole idea of charging people seem like something that is totally out of reach. So the thing you are actually charging for, if you want to create a community and monetize it with a membership or courses or challenges or events, you are charging for the that person who is paying you to get results in their life. It is not about charging people to consume your content. Flip that on its head. Flip that on its head. It's about people paying for something that you have set up so that they can get results in their lives and so that they can meet amazing people who they are going to learn from. And your job is to create a framework for them to go and build those relationships and apply your ideas in their life. So what does that mean? It means, number one, people pay attention to what they pay for. The data on that is so clear across everything that we know and have learned at Mighty Networks. So if you want higher engagement, people building relationships with each other and less work, you want to charge. You want to charge. But again, you're not charging for the thing that you're giving away for free on social media. You're charging for them to be able to participate in an experience virtually or even IRL or in real life. They're paying for an experience for them to meet other people who are on the same path, navigate a transition in their lives. That's, that is where people are the most motivated. Niches. I have found them to be confusing. When I talk to people, they are like, yeah, yeah, my niche. And then their niche is like all people of planet Earth doing things that are about humanity. And so that's not a niche. So a much easier way to think about creating something that you can charge for for the first time is how you are creating something that is about helping people navigate a transition and get results and transformation they can't get on their own. Or as I like to call it, your best year ever. And so that's the way to think about it. And then there are nine specific pillars. That's it. Nine things to do that let you set up a program. Think about it as like color by numbers or connect the dots. You just follow. You want to bring people together in a transition. You want to offer them results in transformation or their best year ever. You pitch your new paid membership or paid course by talking about who you're bringing together and, and what they're going to get for being a part of it. So I bring together people who are in a transition, that particular transition you're focused on so that we can, that's the, that's the trigger in people's brains that will have them be listening for what's in it for me or what's in it for that person who's in that transition. Right? That's your big purpose. And then what you're going to deliver is not a bunch of content that you used to offer for free, but you're going to deliver monthly themes, a weekly calendar and daily polls and questions that is all about how to create that framework for your members to go and apply in their own lives. And people pay attention to what they pay for. If you nail the the transition, you will get really excited, really engaged people. Final three things you have, your offer, your launch and your magical first experience in your offer. The way that you're going to price is not, you know, this is, this is another sort of thing that I hear where people are like, make sure you charge what you're worth. I want to challenge that. It sounds so good. People can snap about it, but it doesn't actually help you price effectively. The way to price effectively is to take that transition, what is valuable about that transition for that member. So for example, if someone is able to successfully get their first job or successfully raise an amazing set of kids such that your house is filled with joy, not pain, or primarily like you've created boundaries so you can actually do more than just be consumed by a negative or toxic family dynamic that is incredibly valuable to people. Incredibly valuable to people. And so in your offer, what you are doing is essentially quantifying three Rs results. So what is the quantifiable value of the results that best year ever that your members are going to get? Second is replacement. What else are they paying for today to get those results or not get those results all effectively, but because they're going through that transition. And finally respect what is a price point that you are going to be excited about it. Especially if you're used to doing things for free. Don't look at it as oh, this is what I'm worth or this is what I'm comfortable charging. It's not about you, it's about people pay attention to what they pay for. What are the quantifiable results, what is your community replacing and what is going to be a price point that is going to let them have respect for what they have decided to be a part of and then for you to have respect, to really be investing in it in some great ways because it's fun and it's worth it because it represents significantly more money than what you would be making by giving your content away for free. And it's not about your content, it's about your members transitions. So that's your offer, your launch, start with your people, then go to your people's people and then ultimately your community's people. And a magical first experience. Don't focus on logistics, don't focus on rules. Get, get somebody value as quickly as possible. You do those nine things you can charge and charge comfortably. Now, what are going to be the few critical traps that you want to avoid? Trap number one is thinking that it's about you and your content, that now you're going to offer premium content for them to consume you. And that the more content that you offer, the more value you create and the higher price you can charge. People are overwhelmed. They don't want more content from you. What they want is for you to help them meet people who are navigating the same transition full stop. So it's not about your content. The second trap is, oh my gosh, I have to be the center of the community. I have to be the person that's offering coaching or I have to be in every conversation or I have to create brand new content every week. That's a little bit of number one, but it falls under bucket number two. You do not. You want to be the host of a party and that the party is so great and people are having so much fun and getting so much value from each other that you can quietly go upstairs and go to bed that the party does not rely on you to keep going. The third thing, the third thing is being a host that you are lifting up your members. So if you make the community about you and not about that magical first experience and how members are meeting each other and these things are things we've really invested in and built, you know, built into a mighty network to make it super easy to be able to do this and do this really effectively. You will make it harder on yourself. So that's really the way to think about moving from free to paid is that you're not actually moving from free to paid with the same offering. You are creating a different offering that is about your members meeting and building relationships with each other. And you are utilizing your free content and the free work that you're doing to raise awareness of it. Now it may be that you're doing something that's different than what your free content is about. That's perfectly fine. Open up your contacts. You just need 30 members to create a paid community or membership or course or challenge or event. You see 30 people to get started. It's not you need an audience or you need a thousand people. Don't even do your pricing based on that. Start with just 30 people. Charge a premium. Charge $48 a month. That's what we see as our as our average price that is charged and successfully purchased IDE networks and just start. But a community is so much easier when you just make these few tweaks to what you're doing and how you're approaching it. That is different than building free content for a free Facebook group or social media. And when you make that shift, everything gets so much easier. It's so much, so much more fun. It's, it's just, it's awesome. And for that reason, you don't have to stress you're not trying to charge people that you know you're giving away your content for free today. That's not what this is all about. That's why this podcast is free. That is why People Magic Profit is a free masterclass with nine awesome pillars. Is there is a place for free free content or a free finite course or challenge? Then as people are getting more value because they are navigating transitions successfully, you're golden. You've created something that doesn't rely on you to operate, and that is true freedom. If you found this episode helpful, leave a comment and make sure that you are subscribed so you don't miss next week's episode. If you want to know exactly how to build a $1 million community, click the link in the description to get access to our full free course. I'm Gina Bianchini and this is People Magic.