Entrepreneurial journalists must use multiple sources of income.

Those journalists are mistaken who think that advertising is their only potential source of income.
Our training course for journalistic entrepreneurs at Georgetown University will focus today on exploring possible ways to make money except by watching ads. I doubt that many organizations will want to use all these opportunities. Especially if you are a small organization or an individual entrepreneur, you need to carefully choose the options and decide which ones have the greatest potential, given how much time and money they will take. Some of these opportunities are specifically designed for the individual entrepreneur. Other options are better suited for a large organization or at least for an entrepreneur or a team with specialized technical skills.
Here are some of the sources of income that we will discuss in class:

Developments

At the journalism conference Online News Association conference on Saturday, Rafat Ali, who built the successful paidContent business, stated that his four annual events are a significant part of the business model. Well-managed events will not only increase your profits, but also help build a brand, so they can increase traffic and help in advertising other brands. Events - perhaps a new source of income for the media. One of my former newspapers, the Des Moines Register, has been a sponsor of RAGBRAI (an annual seven-day cycle of Iowa) since 1973. This is such a big event that registration is limited to 10,000 participants who pay $ 140 each (plus the fee per day for each participant and for the vehicle, contributions from bicycle shops and other companies serving the ride, as well as the sale of goods).

Products

Some entrepreneurs will find an opportunity to sell products, such as T-shirts, caps and mugs (you may want to use the product you are selling to strengthen your brand). If your product is interesting to someone, maybe it is funny or memorable or is associated with some local event or holiday, consider the possibility of selling it through merchandising. For example: place the “Print on T-shirt” button for a site like “Bashorg” (* note: in the original texts from last ).
')

Deals

I discussed the possibility of direct sales in my article "Plan to build a community." This is one of the best examples of going beyond traditional advertising. Two important sources of income in newspaper advertising are businesses and people selling homes and using products such as furniture and household appliances. Belo Corp., publisher of Dallas Morning News and other newspapers, went beyond advertising by becoming an online real estate broker with Sawbuck Realty . The Ogden Standard-Examiner has gone beyond advertising for second-hand goods with its Quality Consignments warehouse store. News materials provide a lot of potential opportunities for promotions related to content: tickets to entertainment and sports events, coupons or gift certificates from restaurants, flowers with delivery, gifts. You do not have to be a large media organization focused on direct sales. WeKanShop is a local direct selling business directory, operated by the small Ottawa Herald city newspaper in Kansas.

Daily Deals

Business based on selling daily discounts (discount deals) for businesses on the rise with large projects like Groupon and Living Social
But regional players can also succeed, as an example of another of my former Omaha World-Herald newspapers this year launched the Daily Deal Omaha project. This is a business based on transactions where you do not have a preliminary list and the possibility of manual sampling.

Social networks

Entrepreneurs are actively exploring the possibilities of social networks see the importance of social media for news and business. Journalist entrepreneurs should treat social networks as a source of income. For example, could you use Facebook ads instead of placing ads on your site? Think, could you manage your Twitter offers account by pushing local businesses to create tweets about their promotions?

Training and Consulting

My first experience in entrepreneurial journalism was as a freelance trainer. Traditionally, news agencies do not spend a lot of money on training, but if you are an experienced user of digital technologies, in particular, you can supplement your working day or start a new business with conducting seminars. I was able to build a fairly tight schedule of training to turn it into a full day with the American Press Institut in 2005, now it is more difficult. I know several journalists who conduct full-time trainings, although now I think that most of them already combine training with some other sources of income. Similarly, if you have valuable skills and knowledge, and you effectively apply them in the market, consulting can complement your full-time job, or become one additional source of income.

Selling content

Making a living as a freelance content provider is difficult and difficult, although I know people who do it. Freelance work can also be an additional income for an entrepreneur who is trying to do business using several sources of income. An entrepreneur who manages content at the main place of work should look for opportunities to sell content to other types of media sources.

Providing services for other types of media

If you are developing a valuable tool for consumers, do you consider it possible to have an additional (or even mainstream) business selling this tool to other media sources. Businesses such as Serra Media and PaperG serve web publishers.

Production of content as a service

As I wrote recently in discussing possible new business models for news organizations or individual journalists how to build a business that will include professional life-quality stories, ranging from serial writing obituaries and ending with books.

Data

Dan Conover explains some opportunities for data revenue , and my report Be the Answer for Newspaper Next probably explains more. (* note: the essence of Dan Conover's article is that if news is accumulated as information clearly structured in a database with filled properties and with a lot of connections on names, dates, events, coordinates, etc., then its value rises sharply).

Donations

Kachingle offers a tool for business journalists to collect contributions from supporters and well-wishers periodically, as Craig Silverman does on his Regret the Error .

---

* note - translator's note.
I translated the first part of the article written by Steve Buttry in his blog on October 31, 2010 .
This is my first public translation experience. At first I translated it for myself, but then I decided to share it.
It is possible that some definitions are not accurately translated, I apologize, I tried to convey the meaning
Especially long puzzled over the phrase Entrepreneurial journalists, I can not find an established form for it.

---

Steve buttry
Place of work: Director of Community Engagement at TBD (TBD.com - Washington County Media)
His personal blog . Steve on facebook and on LinkEdin