The ‘Smart’ Way to Make Millions From Content
Very few have mastered it
Amanda Rach Lee has been producing content since 2013.
However, she didn’t discover her niche until 2017.
I’m sure she didn’t expect a video titled ‘My Bullet Journal Setup 2017’ to get millions of views. Especially when the video she uploaded before that has 25k views.
She zeroed in.
A ‘how-to’ video she uploaded for calligraphy and hand-lettering, 6 months later, has 14 million views!
No looking back from here.
She continued to produce content in the ‘journaling’ and ‘calligraphy’ niche.
It wasn’t even a niche before that. She created that niche. As a result, she amassed millions of followers.
Creators with millions of followers come out with T-shirts and caps with inside jokes printed on them. That’s their idea of monetizing their audience.
Amanda went a step further.
Yes, the people who follow me like ‘me’ and ‘my brand’ but they also love ‘journaling’ and ‘doodling’.
She discovered content-product fit.
It’s the perfect product that sits at the intersection of the audience and the creator.
So, she created an online stationery store.
It is a huge success because everything is perfectly aligned. She made content about a passion of hers.
That led to people with the same passion discovering her. They eventually formed a community around her and she found a perfect way to monetize their collective passion.
There is beauty in it.
Maybe I’m the only one that finds this beautiful. But I do.
From a practical standpoint, ‘content-product fit’ has these unfair advantages:
- Reduced Risk
She already had the demand before launching the products. People were commenting on all her videos to come out with these products. So, she didn’t have any risk investing in building these products.
2. Authenticity
The products she creates aren’t commodities. They are authentic to her and her audience. They have the back story and the personal touch. So, she doesn’t have to compete on price with other products in her category.
3. Loyalty
Most brands would pay a ridiculous amount of money to keep their customers loyal to them. She pays nothing for it. Her content takes care of it. As long as her followers keep consuming her content, they’ll stay loyal to her products.
4. Quality
She uses her category of products more than any CEO of her competitors. They don’t know enough about their own niche to compete with her. She can produce the best quality products because she is a fervent user and has created a community of genuine users.
5. Agility
Big brands are slow to adapt their products to consumer needs because they’re so far from the customers. She is the closest to her customers. She gets feedback from them on her content every day. This allows her to capitalize on each new trend fastest. It also allows her to make changes immediately.
All of these are shadowed by her biggest advantage: She has permission.
All other brands need to interrupt the consumers to get their attention.
They run ads in different mediums to even get a chance at discovery.
And we all love ads, don’t we?
She, on the other hand, doesn’t need to interrupt anyone. She has permission from her audience to talk about her products in each video because they are part of the video.
Perfect harmony in each stage of the product cycle from research to development to sales.
All this at close to zero cost and zero risk.
This is the future because it’s much better than the old model. We’ll see thousands of niche businesses like this created in the next decade.
I’m all for it because they’ll be created by people who love that category. People who love a category create beautiful products within it.
And why create products that aren’t beautiful?
Fruit
