That’s right. If you’re making video for the web, you must retire the use of the label “filmmaker”. Hear me out.
What’s more valuable: your brand or your content? I say brand. In the context of web video, building equity in your brand starts with releasing video content for free and finding an audience allows you to eventually capitalize on that brand through a variety of different methods. It is close to impossible to squeeze money out of your video content online – and the producers who are successfully charging consumers for content are the producers with established brands that probably existed in the old media world, like television or film. We’ve had more than 50 years of free video content playing on the tube, it makes sense that consumers expect and to some degree almost have the right to demand free content. This is not a bad thing. In fact I think it’s quite exciting.
More often than not filmmakers and producers ask me how to monetize online video, or how did I make money off of OzGirl. I really think the broader strategy for online producers should be to build equity in their brand and capitalize on it through merchandising, tiered content, licensing, partnerships – the sky is the limit when it comes to what is traditionally known as “ancillary” revenue.
In this new digital landscape, ancillary is the new primary. The internet allows you to be really creative with how you go about making money. Video is an enormously powerful tool to pull an audience and engage consumers in a way that no other medium has the capacity to do (this is why the “audio visual” industry is so strong). We need to stop thinking of ourselves as filmmakers and think of ourselves as entrepreneurs. Video is simply the first block in the long term strategy to build a franchise and a brand. What comes next is up to you, and this is where we are afforded the ability to be truly creative. It could be something as simple as creating a Cafepress T-Shirt shop, or teaming up with a band to sell digital audio downloads with a revenue split. My advice to producers, or should I say online entrepreneurs, is to consider all of this from day 1. Capitalizing on your brand is not an afterthought, it should be part of your long term business strategy.
Web video must be seen as an entry point for consumers to engage with your brand, it is simply a promotional tool to sell t-shirts or MP3s. That’s not to say you can’t tell genuine stories through online video. On the contrary, in fact the more effective your storytelling, the higher your sales will be. There is some serious money to be made on the internet. I’ve stopped calling series like OzGirl web series, or shows. They are ventures and start ups and we, my friend, are entrepreneurs with a powerful platform and marketing tool: web video.
