Here at SPI, we talk a lot about how the riches are in the niches—and Victoria Moll of Contempo Coding is living, breathing proof of the power of niche marketing! Victoria has generated a steady six-figure income and a huge YouTube following in the niche field of medical coding, mainly through her YouTube channel.
Does it get much more niche-y than that?
Early in 2024, Victoria joined Pat on the SPI Podcast to share how she’s built a thriving business that’s allowed her to quit her day job—one she’s running on her own terms.
Big Success in an Unusual Niche: Medical Coding
When you think about potential side hustles, medical coding probably doesn’t come immediately to mind.
It involves taking patient diagnosis, procedures, services and medical equipment data and converting it into standardized codes used for billing insurance, tracking statistics, analysis, and more.
While it may sound dry on paper, Victoria has turned medical coding into a successful focus for her business by injecting a healthy dose of life into the content she shares on her channel and her website. She taps into her background as a pop culture blogger to “bring this different spin” to medical coding topics and pep up what might be a snoozefest in lesser hands.
How YouTube Became Her Launchpad
Though she started creating videos in 2017, Victoria’s YouTube journey really took off during the pandemic, when she was working full-time as a medical coding auditor while running her YouTube channel as a side hustle.
During lockdown, Victoria became a chat-box regular on Pat’s daily “Income Stream” YouTube series, soaking up tips and strategies for teaching, lighting, live streaming, and growing an online business through niche marketing.
“The Income Stream” provided Victoria with a great opportunity to focus on leveling up Contempo Coding.
She set up a proper home office and equipment and started researching how to build and engage an audience on YouTube and take advantage of tools like keyword optimization.
Live streams became a powerful way for Victoria to teach concepts, share her screen, and engage with her audience in real-time. She would often use a document camera—like a lightweight overhead projector—to walk through examples in medical coding books.
She also learned to lean into the “fun side” of her personality in her videos—which, along with her expertise and credibility, helped her channel quickly gain traction. Contempo Coding now has over 100,000 subscribers, and Victoria’s Silver Play Button award takes pride of place in the background of all her videos.
Building a Successful Product Line
While her YouTube channel provides a wealth of free medical coding advice and tutorials, Victoria also monetizes her expertise through online courses and programs.
She’s an instructor for the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) curriculum, which allows her to teach courses for different medical coding certifications. Though annual licensing and per-student fees were required (although she no longer licenses their material), it saved her from developing an entire curriculum from scratch.
On her website, Victoria offers her own specialty certification courses and continuing education programs to help folks advance their medical coding careers.
She’s also branched out into affiliate marketing by partnering with an education company that offers a formal program for people looking to get started in medical coding.
A Decision Filter for New Opportunities
With the success of her YouTube channel and product line, Victoria is regularly juggling ideas and opportunities for new books, courses, channels, live streams, and more niche marketing strategies. As a result, she’s found that it’s easy to become overwhelmed.
She briefly offered online coaching, but it started getting in the way of her content creation.
Eventually, she realized she needed a way to evaluate potential opportunities and pick the best ones—so she developed a simple three-point filter:
- How interested am I in this opportunity?
- How much time would it require?
- How much revenue could it potentially generate?
“If there’s something that hits all three of them, yep, that’s the one I go for,” Victoria says. “If not, okay, what’s the closest thing I can do?”
This new approach has unlocked even more success for Victoria, allowing her to embrace new opportunities without overcommitting or losing interest.
Delegating for More Magic and Less Overwhelm
Victoria brings a healthy dose of self-awareness to her side hustle. She knows she doesn’t want to manage a team and is cautious about scaling too quickly, preferring to keep her operation lean.
But she did hire someone to handle the time-consuming work of editing her videos, which has optimized her workflow immensely—and helped add even more pizzazz to her content.
“It was just so worthwhile to find someone who did it…I’ll make a point, and I’ll gesture my hand out, and, like, sparkles will fly out of my hand… I would have never figured out how to make that happen.”
Victoria’s fiancé, Chuoc, has even gotten in on the business, helping part-time with shipping, reporting, and running the household. As a result, Victoria can maintain her flow as a creator and instructor—without the overwhelm.
Advice for Building a Brand in an Unconventional Niche
Victoria’s success demonstrates that you can build a lucrative business, even in an unusual niche like medical coding. The key takeaways from Victoria’s success include:
- Inject your personality and find creative ways to engage your audience around your topic
- Do keyword research and optimize your content
- Explore different content mediums like video courses, live streams, and podcasts
- Find ways to filter and prioritize new opportunities without overextending yourself
- Outsource editing or other tasks that drain your time and creative energy
- Tap into your networks to find freelance support
Most importantly, Victoria’s journey shows the riches that can be found by serving an unconventional niche market. While medical coding may sound dry, her ability to energize the subject and build a rabid following proves there’s an audience for just about any topic if it’s packaged the right way.
You might say she’s cracked the code. ????
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Ray Sylvester