Dr Destini Copp: Five Ways For Influencers To Monetize Their Brand
Sell a low-cost digital product — this could be a digital book that you self-publish on Amazon or a mini-course where you provide video training and a pdf workbook
As part of my series about “How Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Destini Copp.
Dr. Destini Copp is college marketing professor turned online entrepreneur and a wanna be, Serena Williams-like, tennis player. She is the host of The Course Creator’s MBA Podcast and the Creator of the OneClick MBA membership.
More than 4,700 online entrepreneurs use her time-saving templates, swipe files, and marketing training to help them grow their online business.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. What is your “backstory”? What brought you to this point in your career?
I’ve always wanted to have my own online business since back in the 90s right after college.
I remember going to a website called ediets.com with my AOL dial-up Internet access and thinking I want to launch something like this. This type of business is perfect for me. I can help people and run my own online business out of my home. As a side note, I’m not even sure if they’re still in business today. But it was like Weight Watchers online if I recall correctly.
In the 90s, launching online businesses was not as easy as it is today. I didn’t have any coding experience and could not build my website. Easy website builders like Squarespace didn’t exist. I also was cash poor in my early twenties and didn’t have the thousands and thousands of dollars that it would take to launch something like ediets.com.
Because I had to support my family, I took the corporate route and did that for several years working in marketing starting as an Asst. Product Manager and after several promotions was a Director in Marketing responsible for an $800M product portfolio.
By this time, I was completely burned out, had two small children at home, and wanted to do something different. I left corporate marketing, took a year off work, and decided to do something different. I even bought a $2,000 coaching certification program and thought about coaching, but still had roadblocks on getting the website and everything set up.
I knew I wanted to work out of my house, and I loved teaching and helping others. This was around 2005 when the online education industry was just taking off. I saw an ad for a college marketing professor which I qualified for based on my graduate degree in marketing. The position was teaching online, and I could do it out of my house. The bonus was I’d be helping others achieve their dreams and I could support them in their goals. Bingo! It was perfect.
I started as an adjunct faculty and worked at the university for 15+ years. After several promotions and continued education including earning a Doctorate in marketing, serving as a College Dean and an Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, I decided to finally explore my dream of launching my own online business. Things were very different. It was now 2017–2018 and starting an online business was relatively easy.
I took some time and learned the tech stuff. I built my website, set up my email service provider, the LLC for my business, and went all in on my new online business. It’s been a roller coaster, to say the least.
I would say my biggest regret is that I didn’t start sooner.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you in the course of your career?
I don’t know how interesting this story is, but it was rough for women in the 90s and early 2000s in a male-dominated business world. I remember using my breast pump in the restroom while people were coming in and out. All the guys would go golfing during business hours with clients and we’d be stuck in the office working. There weren’t a lot of female mentors, so you had to rely on your peers for support. In one of my previous positions, my male boss took me aside and told me they were promoting my peer and I’d be working for him. He said they were doing this so he could get management experience. I thought, seriously!? I left that firm soon after that conversation.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I’m a teacher at heart. I’ve taught at the university level for over 15 years teaching thousands and thousands of students. I’m blessed to be able to continue teaching and supporting entrepreneurs to help them bring their dreams to reality.
My goal is to support 1M+ entrepreneurs during my lifetime. I don’t want lack of knowledge, support, or time to be a detriment to their success. Our motto is “Do Less and Earn More.”
I’ve also been blessed and privileged to use my income to support various charities. My family is a strong believer in giving back and donating 10% of our income to help others.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?
If you’re in this to get rich quick, you may want to think about another path. I’ve interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs and I’ve never heard an overnight success story. It’s been just the opposite. The entrepreneurs and influencers talk about how hard they’ve worked and sacrificed to make their dream a reality. The one thing they had in common was they felt their blood, sweat, and tears were all worth it in the end as they loved what they do.
None of us can achieve success without a bit of help along the way. Is there a particular person who made a profound difference in your life to whom you are grateful? Can you share a story?
I would say that I’m most grateful for the support I’ve had from other women throughout my career. Even now, I schedule weekly business “touch base” calls with my business friends. There are so many of them that I’m entirely grateful for. They have been my biggest supporters and cheerleaders along the way.
I would recommend that every business owner have a few people they trust, and they can call with questions. This doesn’t have to be a coach or mentor that you pay. The best advice I’ve ever received was not from a paid coach, but from business friends who I consistently meet with, who understand my business and me. Their advice is invaluable and I’m thankful for them.
So what are the most exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
Like many others, I’ve had self-publish a book on Amazon on my bucket list for some time. I said that this year I would make it happen! My book, Launch Your Online Course Business in 90 Days or Less is scheduled to be self-published on Amazon this summer. The book is designed to walk aspiring entrepreneurs through the exact steps they should take to launch their online business where they sell digital products like online courses or a membership.
Also, another big project is the launch of our monthly membership, OneClick MBA. In the membership, we provide monthly time-saving templates, swipe files & simplified, MBA-like training to help members grow their online business.
Each issue takes a marketing topic and helps entrepreneurs quickly and easily implement it in their business. My audience loves quick wins and they don’t have hours and hours a day for training. Examples of the monthly issue include an Ad Starter Kit, Podcast Pitch Bundle, 5-Day Challenge Toolkit, and The Lean Business Plan.
What are your “Top Five Ways That Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand” . (Please share a story or example for each.)
Influencers are often frustrated by the time, energy, and effort they spend in creating content, but not seeing a financial return on their investment.
The good news is you don’t have to wait for years after you’ve launched your brand to start monetizing your content. I’ve tested and tried all the examples below. Here’s a bonus: these options don’t require a ton of upfront investment!
Launch a podcast and secure sponsors
There are several ways you can use a podcast to monetize your brand. One is to secure sponsors who pay you to read an ad in your own voice. This is a powerful advertising message for sponsors because your audience trusts your feedback and is more likely to try out a product or brand that you’re promoting.
If you’re just getting started with your podcast, sign up to be an affiliate for a product that you know and love. You can include your affiliate link in your podcast show notes (you’ll need to follow FTC guidelines for disclosing that you’re an affiliate). For anyone who clicks on the link and purchases the product, you’ll receive a small commission.
Create a paid membership community
This option is very similar to my OneClick MBA membership. Each month, we publish a new issue for our members. The issues include time-saving templates, swipe files, and simplified MBA-like training for modern entrepreneurs. We also offer coaching with Ask Me Anything sessions and support directly in the membership.
What I like about memberships is the monthly recurring revenue they provide so you have a consistent income coming in every month from your membership.
Affiliate marketing with brands and products that you love to promote
I’m also a huge fan of affiliate marketing. An example of this is a blog post that I have on my site that covers 21+ Low-Cost Tools for Growing Your Online Course Business. Throughout the post, I’ve highlighted several tools that I use in my business with affiliate links.
When promoting through affiliate links, I always make sure I have an appropriate disclaimer on the post or website, so readers are informed. It looks like this:
“Note: Some of these links are affiliate links, which means I may get a commission if you try them and purchase. However, none of the fees have been increased to compensate me.”
Sell a low-cost digital product — this could be a digital book that you self-publish on Amazon or a mini-course where you provide video training and a pdf workbook
This is another one of my favorite ways to monetize your brand. I truly believe that everyone has a story inside of them to inspire and motivate others. This makes self-publishing a book on Amazon an attainable goal. In fact, for my book that I’m publishing this summer, I took much of the content I’d already created from blog posts, social media posts, and podcast content and used it as a basis for my book manuscript.
Launching an online course is easier than most people think. When you start with a mini-course where you provide your audience a quick win and you price and position it as a no-brainer type of offer, this provides you with an ability to monetize your content.
Host a live virtual event
There are two options here:
You could offer a paid 2-hour training where you walk your audience through a specific topic where they can get a quick win.
Another option is to host a live virtual summit. This could be a 1-day, 3-day, or even a 5-day summit. You invite speakers to help build your authority and solicit summit sponsors. You can bundle the speaker presentations into a paid All Access Pass where they can access the presentations after the live event.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I don’t want money to be the reason why someone doesn’t start their own business. Unlike how it was in the 90s, today, you can get started with almost no upfront investment.
As an influencer, you’ll want to pick your platform for your content. If you love writing, start a blog. If you prefer audio, consider podcasting. If you’re great on video, start a YouTube channel.
Remember your content is how people will find you. It’s a great way to expand your sphere of influence without paid advertising. You can use your content to invite your community into your world by inviting them to join your email list.
It’s not just a clique. The money is truly in the email list. It’s not how many followers you have on social media. The fastest and best way to monetize your brand is by building an email list of loyal followers.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. 🙂
I’d love to have coffee with Amy Porterfield. Years ago, when I knew I wanted to start my own online course business, I saw one of her ads which was an invite to a masterclass in which she was promoting her Courses that Convert program. I believe I still have access to the course. Knowing what I know now, I was probably targeted by Facebook due to research I had been doing online. When I attended her masterclass, at that point, I did not even have my website yet, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Years later, I still contribute her guidance to getting me started in the online world.
What is the best way our readers can follow your work online?
The best place to find me is on my website at https://destinicopp.com/. If you are into podcasts and love hearing stories about other online entrepreneurs, subscribe to The Course Creator’s MBA Podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Dr. Destini Copp: Five Ways For Influencers To Monetize Their Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.