You already know collaboration is a win-win strategy for influencers. You may have even worked with another influencer on a giveaway or exchanged shout-outs. So why not take it one step further and collaborate on some downloadable content?
In a previous post, we introduced you to the travel duo of Damon Dominique and Jo Franco, the creators of the Shut Up and Go media platform. Together, they manage a travel blog, have published an ebook titled Guide to Flying, and offer a budget travel course.
Rich Roll, a fitness influencer, produces The Rich Roll Podcast, where he interviews many other influencers (roughly 300 interviews and over 45,000,000 downloads at last count!). In addition, he partners with Julie Piatt to offer a meal planning app.
The style-fashion-music-art-everything influencers Ami and Aya Suzuki together go by the name of AmiAya, with more than 350,000 followers on Instagram combined.
What do they do? They collaborate on pretty much everything. For example, they sing pop songs and produce albums together:
They create artwork for other bands, such as the Japanese rockers Scandal. In addition, they are fashionistas, appearing in Vogue, ELLE, among other publications. And they are DJs, to boot, spinning tracks at shows for Chanel, Cartier, Vivienne Westwood, and others.
Exhausted yet? Hold on, they have been acting as creative directors for the clothing line jouetie, as well. (OK, now you can take a breather!)
As you can see, collaborating on content with others can be not only fun, but profitable as well.
How Profitable is Downloadable Content?
Downloadable content packs a serious punch when it comes to delivering real value to your audience, therefore encouraging growth and boosting traffic. Even if you’re not selling your product, good content can help you do a dozen other things, like…
1. Grow Your Audience Boost
If you want to expand your reach, you have to increase brand awareness and loyalty. Downloadable content helps you do just that by providing real value to your audience that makes them loyal to you. It also encourages them to spread the word about you, organically growing your audience!
If you send out newsletters, announcements or blog post round-ups via email, downloadable content is a great way to get people to fork over their email address, too!
2. Differentiate Yourself on Google
There are a lot of influencers out there, and many of them are in the same niche, creating the same kinds of content! So one of your goals should be to stand out from the crowd, especially in search results. Downloadable content helps you do just that!
Lots of travel influencers, for example, write about their most recent trip. Few of them, however, offer downloadable travel guides for each place they visit. Adding that extra deliverable makes it more likely that users will click your link first.
3. Develop Future Material
Downloadable content like ebooks or courses can easily be broken up or repurposed into different kinds of content. Not only does this help you continue to push out quality content – it also helps you reach different kinds of people. One audience member may hate online courses but love ebooks! Repurpose that course into an ebook, and bam! You’ve just reached a new audience segment.
4. Make Money
Need we say more? Downloadable content has the power to provide real, actionable value to your audience, making it one of the best ways to make money as an influencer.
Why Not Do This Myself?
Clearly, creating downloadable content is cool, but collaborating on downloadable content takes it 3 steps further:
- A collab allows you to combine your passions and expertise to provide greater value to your audiences.
- It doubles your audience and reach while saving time and effort.
- It brings together two brilliant, creative minds to create content that is truly innovative and unique!
Have we convinced you yet?
If collaborating on downloadable content sounds challenging, don’t bail on us just yet! Perlu makes collaborating with other influencers ridiculously easy. We help you connect with other influencers in the niches you’re interested in and give you a no-nonsense way to find or create your own collaborations!
To get you started on your content collaboration journey, take a look at what these influencers are doing. Then, work together to figure out how to take your downloadable content one step further by collaborating with other creative minds.
Templates
Templates have been taking the web by storm in recent years. Why? Because people are on the search for anything that makes their life easier and more enjoyable! And templates do just that by either 1. making a task easier or 2. providing entertainment.
If you and your co-collaborator have similar aesthetics, you could create Lightroom presets that help your audience members curate a better Instagram feed like lifestyle influencer Jeanne Grey.
Or you could create downloadable templates for social media like social media influencer and creative Joey from She The Spy.
Social media templates get your audiences to engage with you on social media and boost word-of-mouth marketing. They work great for individual influencers, but their power is only amplified with a collab.
These templates will put you in front of your co-influencer’s audience; then, both of your audiences will share templates to their own profiles for all their followers to see. From there, it’s a chain reaction that can lead dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of people back to you!
Worksheets
If you don’t have as much time on your hands, consider collaborating on a worksheet. Things like checklists are incredibly easy to make and can be applicable to a wide audience. While you may not be able to sell a worksheet, it does make for a great lead magnet.
Worksheets are applicable to almost any industry, too. Caroline from Unfancy (a blog dedicated to minimalist fashion) created a 10-page printable wardrobe planner.
Melissa, the fabric designer from Polkadot Chair, created this carry-on travel checklist.
Whatever kind of influencer you both are, there’s a worksheet that’s applicable to your audiences.
Let’s say you live in New England; you could create a Best Restaurants in New England Bucket List. That would be cool.
Or you could collab with multiple influencers from all over the U.S. to create a massive Best Restaurants in the U.S. Bucket List! That would be cooler than cool.
Ebooks
Longer content often gets more traffic, so it only makes sense that ebooks would be a hit with your audiences. And they can help you reach all different kinds of goals, from boosting traffic to raking in some dough.
M. Welsh, writer and storyteller, created this ebook to help her audience learn what medium of writing works best for their story.
If this ebook was a hit (it was) and she did it all by herself (she did) just imagine what you could create if you combine forces with another influencer! Your Quick Guide to Vegan Recipes could turn into an entire downloadable cookbook!
Ebooks can take quite a bit of time, though, and sometimes require a bigger financial investment (design services, for example). So, to truly get the best ROI possible, make sure the ebook provides real value (which is easy to do when you’re combining your influencer powers)!
Courses
From schools to HR departments, online courses have been gaining immense traction for learning and training alike. Now, influencers and bloggers are getting in on the trend – some even making thousands of dollars (or more!).
Developing an online course is a great idea for individual influencers, but you can have even more impact with a collab.
You might be a photographer and your co-collaborator may be a lifestyle influencer. You could combine your expertise to create a course that helps other lifestyle influencers use their iPhone and Adobe Lightroom app to take and edit killer photos for their Instagram feed! The Ultimate iPhone Photography Course for Influencers, anyone?
It would appeal to both photographers and lifestyle influencers – a double whammy!
Think Creative Collective, run by small business influencers Abagail and Emylee, has several courses available on their site. Even though some of them are free, they’ve still managed to create a six-figure business.
Online courses give you a platform to repurpose old content and combine expertise to make a value-packed product.
From Teachable to Udemy, there are plenty of easy-to-use e-course platforms to choose from that make the process easy and the product beautiful and user friendly!
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Kits and Bundles
If you’ve collaborated on content in the past, bundling it all into a kit is a great way to monetize! Similarly, if you’ve each made content separately that has a common theme or goal, why not repurpose or rebrand it to make a completely new kit?
Naomi from Roaming the Americas created a kit that helps other travelers start, grow and monetize their own travel blogs.
Pretty sweet, right? You could do something similar on your own. On the other hand, just imagine how much sweeter your kit could be if you combined your resources with another influencer!
If you’re travel influencers, your kit could include packing checklists, city guides, tip sheets, and a downloadable travel journal.
If you are beauty influencers, you could include a nightly skincare checklist, makeup how-to guides, and a guide to cruelty free beauty products. The combinations are endless!
The phrase “two heads are better than one” definitely rings true when collaborating on downloadable content! When collaborating with another influencer, you have a unique opportunity to combine your passion, creativity and expertise. This helps you make a product that is truly unique and have it seen by twice as many people.
There are many forms of content collaboration, and many benefits to downloadable content in particular. Create content with other influencers and grow your email list, expand your reach, gain followers, boost your authority, and make MONEY.
