Seven Ways Teachers Can Earn Extra Income By Building Their EDU Brands Online

Are you looking to turn your thoughts and ideas into income-generating activities to support your family?

You have come to the right place.

For many educators, the summertime is a fantastic time to spend it with the family in the warm weather or taking long walks on the beach. (right?)

However, for many 10 month employees, the summertime is also an opportunity to take a step back and begin work on building their educational brands.  This may include starting a website or recording a podcast to support an online hobby or interest.

With all of these activities available to teachers, one question often comes up … “How do you make money online?”

Over the last 8 years, I have had several opportunities to turn TeacherCast into a tool to support my various online habits and hobbies.  It also has allowed me to support my family by taking care of some of the extracurricular bills that have popped up over time.

There are several things that you can look towards when thinking about making money online.  Some are free and some may require a little bit of upfront cost.  However, none of these are any easier than the other.  They each require planning and preparation before launching a new online project.

Getting Organized

One of the best things you can do before creating anything is to have conversations with friends and family.  After all … just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do something. (Trust me) Your planning and preparation should include:

• Writing down all of your ideas and sorting them out based on time and energy to create
  • Use a pencil & paper for this … try to stay away from planning on your computer.
• Visit other websites that are similar to your idea and learn what they are doing.  Take notes on what you like and don't like.
  • Use a tool like Google Keep or Evernote to save and organize these websites so you can come back to them later.
• Sit down with friends and family to discuss these ideas and get their input on your concept.
  • Explain your ideas and don't forget to show your passions with them.
  • If they think your idea is a little silly … it just might be.
  • Don't be afraid to start over if needed.
• Decide what you need to do before launching this idea.  Your ideas might require you to have items in place that you can do, and it might require you to reach out to others to get their expertise.
  • Domain Name
  • Website
  • Graphics / Logos
  • Social Media Accounts

Creating a Business Model

For many teachers, the idea of “getting into business” is a scary one.  I can tell you from personal experience, I had very little business knowledge when I started TeacherCast and because of it, I have needed to rely on others as well as find professionals when needed. No matter what your business sense is don't worry … it's ok … we all have to start somewhere.

If you don't yet have an online existence, you might actually be better off than someone who already has random content.  One of the first things you should think about doing after you organize your thoughts is to create a business plan.  This will work as a blueprint for your content creation process and don't worry … you can always change it as you go.

In case you are unfamiliar with a business plan, here are some resources to check out:

• 3 Most Common Online Business Models
• 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Business Plan

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Choosing How To Become An Entrepreneur

There are several ways to earn a little bit of extra income online. Whether it is selling a service that takes up your time or selling a physical or digital product, there are always things to consider.  However, it is important to start with one platform and grow your brand from there. Let's take a look at 7 popular options for becoming an online entrepreneur.

Online Courses

Do you have a topic that you are passionate about that people seem to always ask questions on?  Have you ever thought of organizing all of those questions into a logical scope and sequence and creating an online course on the topic?

There are dozens of great platforms available where you can host your online course. Some of the more popular are:

• Teachable
  • Teachable provides an extremely robust platform where content creators can build an online marketplace for their online courses.  What's even better is that Teachable connects with many major email marketing platforms to help you create funnels to help you convert email subscribers into paying customers.
• Udemy
  • Many years ago, I created my first online course on Udemy (pronounced YOU-da-ME) and I couldn't believe how easy it was.  Boasting more than 100,000 online courses with over 30 million users, it is free to create an account and get started with your course building.

Facebook

If you are looking to build an online course based on your podcast or other topics of interest, Facebook provides a great platform using Facebook Groups where you can create online learning modules.

The first thing you need to do is to set your Facebook Group to be a Social Learning Group.  From this point, you can use Facebook as a Social Learning Management System for your online course.

These online learning modules do not give you the ability to charge per use, but they do provide a great vehicle to create warm leads from your users that might then be able to be converted into paid customers through other platforms.

Video Tutorials

One of the easiest ways to monetize your digital brand is through YouTube.  Did you know that YouTube is the worlds second largest search engine and that it receives more than 400 HOURS of video footage every minute!  That's an incredible database of content.  But with a little research and help from a few applications, you can quickly set up your own YouTube channel that makes you some sweet passive income each month.

Coaching

If you are good at creating websites, designing graphics, or even cooking in your Instant Pot, you might consider creating an online coaching business.  All you need to do is set up a website showcasing your subject knowledge and then create content that attracts users to your website.  By using scheduling software such as Book Like a Boss, you can easily capture customer leads and turn them into paying clients.

Web Development

If there is one thing that the last few years have taught me, it's that if you look around your local community, you can probably find a small business that is looking to get their company online.  One of the first things I did when I moved to North Jersey was to grow a little website business that has turned into a pretty nice source of side income called EducationalWebDesign.com.

The nice thing about many of these types of website jobs is that they don't require a ton of work and the clients are extremely happy once the site is built and you can often get a referral clients from it.

Public Speaking

Does your EDU Brand have a specific niche that you find yourself presenting at conferences?  For many public speakers, their journey to the stage began with a single blog post … and then another blog post.  After a while, you might be seen as an authority in that field and find that you are getting invited to conferences to speak on that topic.

Your Website

As we have discussed in our previous blog posts on Building Your EDU Brand, your website should truly be looked at as your Digital Hub and the central point from which you should be creating your content stream. You can use your website as a digital store to sell products or create an affiliate site where others can shop from.  (Amazon is a good example of this)

Additionally, your website can be used to sell your own services based on the hobbies you enjoy doing.  For example, a friend of mine uses her website to discuss quilting. This has led to quite a bit of online orders.  She didn't create an online store and she didn't create any social media presence, but simply by writing some content and saying “let me know if you are interested in having a quilt of your own” she has been able to make a little extra income through her beautiful quilts.

**Bonus: Start a Podcast!

Podcasting has been one of the biggest income generating tools that my family has.  It has not only allowed me to connect with educators and edtech companies, but it also allowed me to travel across the world and support my family while doing it. If you are looking to start your own podcast, please visit Educational Podcasting Today!

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Building An Online Income All Starts With Your Email List

Once you have an idea of how you want to begin to build your online empire, the next thing that you need to think about is your email newsletter.  Your newsletter is one of the best ways that you can not only Build Your EDU Brand, but build a community that knows, likes, and trusts you and your message.

As we discussed in this recent post, there are several things that you can do to attract readers and podcast listeners to your newsletter:

Conclusion: What Will You Choose?

For many educators, the months of May and June are scary.  While you are looking forward to spending time with your family during the summer months, you are also coming to the realization that your paycheck is going away until September.

One of the best ways you can bring in extra income for your family is to create something online that has revenue-generating potential.

If you are interested in learning more about any of these ideas in greater detail, please don't hesitate to contact me and set up a coaching session . . . We are all in this together!

Enroll In Our FREE Online Course Today To Learn More!

If you are visiting this post, you probably fit into one of two categories:

1. You have a passion project you are working on and would like to get it to the point where you are making money from it.
2. You have an idea for a passion project and would like to learn how to make it profitable.

Does this sound like you?

If so .. we would love to invite you to join us for our Build Your EDU Brand Online Course. Through this course, you will not only be able to interact with me 1:1 but will be given a host of additional worksheets and videos to help you with your goals.

Download Our FREE Branding Checklist

When building a brand, it's always important to have all of your thoughts in front of you. For this reason, we created a pretty awesome Branding Checklist. If you haven't yet had the opportunity to download it and go through it, you can access it by signing up for our online course (above).

Let's Work Together To Turn Your Dreams Into $$$'s

If you haven't had the chance to fill out our Branding Survey, please take a moment and let us know a little bit about yourself today. In our next email, we will be looking at the reasons why you need to have a website for your brand and will discuss several key ingredients that go into turning your average website into a digital hub for your business.

Don't be afraid to reach out with any questions you may have. We are all in this together!

I'm excited to be a part of your journey and look forward to working with you!

See you soon,

Jeff Bradbury