If you are an aspiring digital media entrepreneur, making money from your own online portal is not all that difficult.

Running a digital media start-up can also be a satisfying challenge, requiring you to collaborate with relevant communications and information sectors, from media analysts to mainstream and new media, including social media platforms.

According to Rian Kristo, the founder and chief executive officer of digital marketing agency Toffeedev, digital media companies can monetize their content by helping other brands leverage their businesses through the digital content platform, using channels other than conventional advertisements.

These methods can also include brands that place their products on the online digital media platform’s podcast program or YouTube channel and are linked to the platform’s website content, according to Rian.

By aligning your media platform with your own YouTube channel and Spotify channel, you can get additional money from Google AdSenseand royalties, in addition to product placements and endorsement fees.

In today’s digital world, wildly different from conventional print media, digital media also has an advantage in terms of precision marketing.

It can help brands and businesses target specific audiences at a specific time and place while helping them to package different types of advertisements to cater to the tastes of specific demographics, according to Desy Fitriani, the business development manager of Asia Pacific media intelligence company Isentia.

Desy gave an example, “Let’s say you want to target beverage brands to place an ad on your online media platform. Before reaching out to your clients and coming up with a strong proposal, you should first use analytics to find out the most recent and popular trends in society by tracking conversations in mainstream and new media alike.”

“For instance, when we searched the word minum [drink] to track social media conversations, the most frequently mentioned subject was kopi susu [white coffee],” Desy said.

Armed with this knowledge, you can help your clients devise a marketing strategy: for example, you could go to a well-known coffee chain brand and propose that it place an ad about its latest cappuccino or café latte flavors on your website then link this with content that your writers have written about why milk-based coffee has become popular again, for example.

Furthermore, digital media has an advantage that print media does not: It can help you target different types of demographics, again, at the right time and at the right place, with the help of media analytics.

“We can also analyze at what time of day people specifically post about white coffee on their social media accounts.” Desy said.

If people typically post about white coffee in the morning, at the time when they have breakfast before they kick-start their working day, then your content planner can publish the article/video on white coffee — tied with the brand advertisement — around that time of the day.

“You can also package a campaign that suits people’s perception of white coffee based on your analytics results,” she asserted.

According to Desy, since these analytics also give you precise information on the demographics of your client’s target audience, you can also create different types of content for the same clients targeting different groups, for example by age or profession.

Grady Esmond, the head of business development of Allstars.id, an agency serving as a platform for influencer marketing in Indonesia, digital media companies can also partner with social media influencers to spread the social buzz effectively in regard to lesser known or up-and-coming brands.

Starting a digital media company can be a very stimulating challenge for those who are interested in the mainstream and new media landscape, allowing them to work in a versatile and agile manner across diverse areas.

Also, if you have a passion for human resource development, building a digital media company can also allow you to train your team continuously to bolster their digital smarts and to further leverage business.

“For instance, on how to use visual storytelling aids and prompting the audience to take action upon seeing your digital campaign,” Sunshine Digital founder and CEO Indran said.

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