www.puppeteersuk.com - PuppeteersUK
Posted 26/08/2023 in Features

Using your Creative Content to Make Money Online


Using your Creative Content to Make Money Online

Image above:  Lee Thomspon - Puppeteer

Performances, workshops, and training will always be important sources of income – but increasingly, puppeteers are looking to other tools to help grow their income and diversify how they earn.  Recently, Collette Knowles of Rough Magic Theatre opened an online shop.  I contacted her to ask about her decision to being selling items online and she mentioned that she had been inspired by Lee Thompson and Lee’s online presence.  I reached out to Lee to ask his advice to those who seeking to create opportunities to use their online presence to earn income.  Lee very helpfully replied with some excellent advice.

Before seeking to create income generating streams online, Lee emphasized the importance of using social media to grow your audience.  “I believe it is important to first build up your social media following, regularly feature your puppetry characters so that your audience can connect with and are therefore prepared to pay for further content”.  

Below are some of the online tools Lee uses to generate income: 

Patreon - (Lee Thompson Puppeteer | Creating Puppet Videos | Patreon)

 Lee says:

"This is a paid for social media service where followers pay for exclusive content that isn’t available on other platforms and early access to content I’m working on. My subscribers can pay either £1, £3 or £5 a month and receive various privileges for these pledges. To the Puppeteer this brings in a regular revenue stream, posts can be scheduled months in advance meaning you don’t need to commit time to this each week". 

Online Shop Lee Thompson Puppeteer - (lee-thompson-puppeteer.myspreadshop.co.uk)

 Lee says:

"By using an online shop provider like Spreadshop or Red Bubble there is no initial outlay or expense. You just upload your images and decide which product you want them featured on and how the final product should look. Once the products are done you don’t need to do anything except promote the shop. Once an order is made the company that hosts your shop creates the item and posts it out, you don’t handle any returns nor customer complaints. Once you’ve created your item your shop provider will tell you the production cost and you set your price to include your profit margin (for instance a hat you design my have a cost price of £10, you then may set the final price of £15, you then make £5 on every hat that is sold)". 

Personalised Messages Celebrity Video Messages - Lee's CelebVM Profile

 Lee says:

"Personalised message sites like Cameo, Celeb VM and Memmo give you the opportunity to use your puppet characters to wish people happy birthdays, good luck messages or create humorous corporate work videos. All you do is decide which of your characters are available for messages, set a price and then wait for the requests. Creating these personalised messages can feel a little repetitive but again can produce a regular revenue stream".

 In closing, Lee added, "I hope the above is useful, again I would recommend focusing on growing your social media channels first and establishing your characters to your audience so that they are wanting to pay for the above services".

Image above:  Lee at Work - Image via Lee's Facebook Page.

 

 

 

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