Hi guys,
I need practical ideas (No Google Adsense) on how to monetize ICANEXAM.com ( It’s a forum I built for students writing/interested in ICAN professional exams). When I attempted the EXAM but couldn’t access study packs and past questions easily, I had an idea of an online community for resource materials exchange.
I also do not have any plan to spend a dime on ads, rather optimise the forum for maximum organic growth via Google.
Note: Monetization is not my priority now but necessary to turn it to a profitable community while giving members the value they want.
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I think you should sell packages of these exam past questions and study packs. Also maybe videos?
@binjoadeniran, thanks but ICAN exam packs and questions come with copyright laws (not be pirated and sold) which I wouldn’t want to delve into.
The video side is one area I have been on for 4 months. I already have a self-paced accounting software video tutorials.
Permit my analysis of the situation as you have presented it. This is how it appears through my glasses.
SEO takes time to grow a platform, though you have a great content that will attract targeted audience in due time.
What is on ground now is a valuable service, you may need a product designer or an idea strategist to model a product out of this. With a properly designed product, you can scale up and expand accordingly.
If you are really going to wait till the forum grows itself organically, you can start taking note of your daily traffic in-flow, the growth in traffic periodically, which content get most engagement and the source of majority of your traffic.
With metrics such as these, you could get a corporate body to adopt your platform as a content marketing channel, much as your target audience is a good market for their product.
I deduced this from why Microsoft bought LinkedIn and what the partnership is turning out to be gradually.
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Paid membership subscription:
This will depend on your target market. If this is the Nigerian market, OYO.
Freemium
Gather the audience (traffic) and establish yourself as an authority. You can now from this position monetize (offer lessons/connect tutors to students)
If you don’t want to use ads then you have years of SEO ahead of you.
Goodluck and may the odds be forever in your favor
Not Nigerians in Nigeria only. ICANEXAM is open to Nigerians in diaspora - UK and Canada.
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If you can answer this question convincingly, therein lies your monetization model:
Why should I use your service?
Please re-frame your question?
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Meaning,
What’s the unique selling point?
Why would I use it?
The forum connects you to registered students for ideas, tips and strategies to pass ICAN EXAM in less time.
Who’s pricing you? @blacquay 
Oh! You want @Ogechi_Daniel_Ndukwe to assure you of straight A’s if you utilize his ICAN Platform? #SMH
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A little bragging if you please, I’m an ACA.
My rhetoric to the OP is that monetization is borne from his ability to make end users see a “need” that needs to be fulfillled.
OP can you just get the forum going first? Burden yourself with monetization this early and you’d miss out on creating a real community.
If as an open forum users get useful contents from browsing through active threads and posts created by the community, converting them becomes easier and hands-free. Regarding what to sell to them, you can take a stab at a number of things; selling discounted ICAN materials, training etc…no hot science behind that really, you can prolly go through a longer list than myself seeing as you already attempted the exam before, however what will work, will work [best] in an active forum.
We have moved the forum to a new domain name - BestAccountingForum.com so that we can expand and serve members from other countries - watch out for more categories.
