There are many different ways of making money online. Some are legitimate and others are illegitimate. But beware, many are spam techniques aimed at short-term cash flow.
Turning to the internet for quick, short-term cash is not what this book is about. But do it right and you could be making money faster than you think. For those who are focused on making money online, you should look at the concepts of offline business owners and consider how you may use them to expand beyond the internet.
Even if you want to focus on the online marketing side only, the potential for partnering with offline businesses in your niche is almost infinite. By approaching traditional business owners with joint venture opportunities is something that is rarely done, yet holds massive, passive potential. For those who already operate an offline business, you should read this book with an open mind. If you consider yourself too busy to implement these strategies, or they’re simply not your passion, then consider partnering with someone who can. You will be glad you did.
Advantages of Running an Online Business
There are so many advantages of running an online business. These include:
1. Economic Leverage
You can leverage your business by employing staff or contractors from developing countries that you couldn’t afford in a first world country. You can work with highly-skilled individuals at a fraction of the price. You’re not exploiting anyone when you pay above-average rates. It’s a win-win situation that makes great business sense.
2. Minimal Set-Up Cost
If you have a computer and an internet connection, that’s all you need to get started. Even if you don’t own one personally, there’s always access to one—at the local library, an internet café or at a friend’s house. Other than that you will need some form of hosting and at least one domain name. This should set you back no more than about $80 or so per year. Compare this to traditional businesses with large fixed overheads, material prices and fuel bills; the internet is a business paradise. If you already have an offline business, the potential for expansion through the internet is huge, and likely to be a fraction of trying to expand via normal offline methods.
3. Anybody Can Do It
Despite what you may think, you don’t have to be a computer programmer to run a successful internet business. The internet is simply a means for you to market your business through. In fact, many of the top internet marketers do not know anything about HTML, servers or editing graphics.
The internet makes a level playing field for people of any gender, race, age, social background or education. There are successful marketers who are still in their teens, some from third world countries, men and women, black and white, some who have university degrees while many never even finished school.
There are several multi-tool platforms specifically designed for on-line business owners to easily create their entire online business without having to know anything technical.
You can create multiple streams of passive income and manage them all from one central place (all without knowing a single line of code). An intuitive, simple ‘drag and drop’ interface removes many obstacles. You don’t have to worry about being computer literate or hiring a mass of expensive programmers.
Any modern computer today with a recent browser installed and an internet connection are all that is needed to get started. Bottom line is this – there is no excuse for not being online. It’s time to leave behind any and all reasons you have created for yourself for not taking action before. Ten or fifteen years ago, getting online could have been costly, time consuming and may have had minimal impact on your business. Today it’s very different.
Ways of Making Money Online
There are basically three ways you can make money online: as an affiliate, as a product creator or as a service provider. Everything else is simply a variation of one of these methods.
1. Affiliate Marketing
This includes models such as AdSense and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). They’re all the same whereby you are creating traffic for someone else and either paid per click, per lead or per sale. The fewer variables that you can have in an equation, the more sustainable and passive your business can be (and the less chance there is for failure). Being an affiliate for somebody else’s product can be a great way to get started with minimal setup. However, you are at their mercy.
2. Service Provider
Being a service provider could be anything from offering hosting, to providing copywriting or SEO services. There is a lot of potential in this market, but be warned, it usually requires long-term investment of your time or money. Services can be difficult to scale. For example, if you are a copywriter the only way you can take extra work past your limit is hiring more people to do the work for you. Being a service provider can create great value for your customers and produce some excellent long-term income. However, it does require long-term maintenance. This model is very difficult to set and forget and may not be the best for anyone just getting started. If you get it right though, you will be rewarded. For offline businesses already offering services, then this is not a problem. The trick then is knowing how to leverage what you already have setup, and find ways to use the internet to scale or add backend income.
3. Product Owner
The other option is to own and market your own product. It’s true that product creation is the best way to create sustainable income that’s more likely to last in the long-term. This is because you can control the variables much better and you’re usually not reliant on any third party. You can control your product, the sales process, payment, delivery and your own terms of service. Even if you are totally new to Internet Marketing you can create your own product. Yes, you may feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the idea, but the truth is, it’s easier, more fun and more profitable than you think. One advantage of having your own product is you can leverage the power of having your own affiliates working for you. Affiliates are a great way to get high converting traffic with no upfront costs.
So now… the reason you should become a product owner before becoming an affiliate… As a product owner you build a list of buyers, build authority and create credibility. You also have sales funnels, autoresponders and mailing lists. All of which can be leveraged to make your affiliate promotion efforts exponentially more successful than trying to be an affiliate without them.
Benefits of Creating Your Own Digital Products
Why own your own product and why make it digital? Let’s take a look at these five main benefits in more detail…
1. Leverage
When you have your own digital product, you own an asset that you can leverage over and over again. You’ve already done the hard work in creating your product in the first place. To turn your existing digital product into a different medium to make a new product is very easy. Provided you drive traffic to your product, it will go out and work on your behalf 24 hours a day, 7 days a week while you get on and create your next product.
2. Instant Authority
Just like an author gets instant credibility for writing their own book; you too will gain instant credibility when you have your own product to put your name to. You will be seen as an expert in a specialist area and you will be viewed as a credible source. Note that authority and credibility is not the same thing, however they do often go hand in hand. Credibility with authority will give you the best potential in business. This is something that many offline businesses in particular do not take advantage of.
A massage therapist for example, may take advantage of their qualifications to build credibility. However, a massage therapist who has a product (such as a book or DVD training program) will also have authority. If asked to choose between the two, the answer is simple for most potential clients. The therapist with authority will win 9 times out of 10, and can usually ask for more money too. We are preconditioned to expect to pay more for services from an authority.
3. High Return on Investment
Creating digital products doesn’t cost much; in fact, production costs are minimal. In contrast, the amount of money you can make with a physical product (compared to what you put in) can be very high. What you mainly need is your laptop and some good software. Perhaps the biggest advantage of physical information products is the increased perception in authority. The author of a physical book will command more respect than the author of an e-book. I recommend you make the most of both.
4. No Packaging or Postage Headaches
With physical products, you have to pay and organize your product to be packaged and then shipped off to each customer. Even if you have a company taking care of this for you, it still costs. With a digital product there is nothing to package. The only thing you need to send is a download link to your customer’s e-mail. (This can be set up so the e-mail is automatically sent after they’ve purchased.)
5. You Build the List
As an affiliate, building a list can be difficult though not impossible. However, not all lists are created equally. When you’re the product owner, you build a high value list of customers (the most valued of all types of lists); and convert the best both for your own future products and for affiliate products you may choose to promote later on.
With digital products, building these lists can be very easy. With physical products, it will depend on the channel you are selling through. If you are selling direct then this is a lesser problem. If you are selling through an online service such as Amazon, they will take the order, the payment for you and ship the product out to your customer; however, you may not get the customer details to add them to your autoresponder list. Check to see if they will send you the customer details—many do, or will if asked, but some don’t.
Every successful person you meet, hear or read about has failed, without exception (and not just once either). Often the best learning comes from experiencing firsthand what not to do. You cannot follow someone else’s path to success exactly; we all have our own personal variations. Don’t be afraid to experience things firsthand. Unfortunately many people who fall over complain loudly to everyone about their ‘bad luck’. Worse still they stay put where they’ve fallen and don’t get up. Imagine if we had done this as children learning to talk, walk or talk—where would we be today?
Sometimes falling down will hurt. Every successful person has fallen, and every single one has gotten up and continued walking. When you experience failure, pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes and then just keep on going.
Secrets to a Successful Mindset
1. Strong Desire
Right now does your life suck? If so, this may be a good thing and almost essential to help you move forward. Don’t complain about it or use it as an excuse, instead use it as motivation. If you could give anything to change your financial situation right now, this is good motivation to put your head down and start doing something differently. Do you want to quit your job? Do you want to travel more often? Are you feeling unhappy that you can’t live life how you want to live? Think about all the things you hate in your life. Then use this as ammunition to strive for something better. You deserve it!
2. Owning Your Results (good or bad)
When you experience success, you cheer; and when you experience failure, keep going. Part of owning a success mindset is not blaming anyone. Ultimately, you alone are in charge of every success and failure. When something goes wrong in your business, don’t externalize the blame on someone else. Take responsibility.
A failure mindset is when you blame your software. Or blame someone for doing something wrong. Or blame your payment processor. That is, you act like a cripple unable to change circumstances. When you take responsibility you take back the ability to respond. It is this ability to respond to each situation that will allow you to create the ultimate outcome you are looking for. Look to the big picture and quit being petty about things that don’t matter in the long run. Someone else is always far worse off than you, and many who were in much worse situations than you have gone on to become successes. You too can rise to the occasion regardless of your current circumstances.
3. Being Detached
This is similar to the last point, but almost paradoxical. While you must own your results you must also remain detached from the outcome. Whether you succeed or fail, it’s important you keep a level head. This will carry you through with grace and certainty. Know that you won’t (and can’t) win every time. But when you do have a big success, all your work will be worth it. You may put equal time, money and heart into 10 projects. Let’s say 6 projects fail miserably, 3 projects break even and one is a whopping success.
It’s hard to know which projects will fall flat and which will fly. What matters is that you consistently go after your goal. Don’t fret and wonder which projects will work or not. Keep going. If a particular project looks promising, run with it. Keep going until there is nothing left that can be done. Too many people give up just before the final breakthrough. You can run a 5000m race, but unless you complete the final meter you will never get a result.
If you are 100% certain that there is no future in it, then let it go and move on. Knowing when to quit can also be a good thing. Just remember, your first success is the hardest to get to. When you keep at it, you’ll be financially rewarded. And once you’ve made it, it’s much easier to create the next success.
Remember to enjoy yourself. Make business fun. Whatever you choose, do it because you love it. Yes, if you chase the money you can be financially successful (despite claims by many ultraistic self-help gurus), but you may not be happy. Choose both. Business is just one part of life—a part of life that will probably occupy a large percentage of your time. It is because of this that often, the best businesses are the ones that are built by people out of passion. Seeing business as a game can help you through the challenges and make it more enjoyable.
To be successful in any sport you must train hard, sometimes endure pain, and face your competitors. In the end though, it is the love of the game that will keep you playing. Victory should be aimed for, but not the sole purpose. Have fun along the way and you will not only be happier, but far more likely to continue in the game and attain your goal. So if your skills involve golf, maybe the best business that you’re going to create involves something to do with golf. Internet Marketing is a tool. It is not an end in itself! The point is not to become another internet marketer who sells Internet Marketing products (unless this is an area you’re enthusiastic about). Internet Marketing is there for you to use as a tool to create your business, or as a tool that your business uses to leverage itself.
Before you get started on your online business it’s helpful to sit back and consider what exactly you want to achieve, and why. A bit of foresight can save you a lot of time, effort and money further down the track. It’s wise not to rush in eager without some form of preparation. Instead position and plan your business from the very beginning. Most people don’t do this; and then, most fail. Be honest with yourself and your goals. What would you really like to achieve? What outcome would you like your business to have? There’s no pressure to create the next Google.
Would you like to own a small business? Perhaps you want to keep your day job, but earn some extra money on the side. If so how much profit will your business need to make? Maybe you would like to create a quick flood of money and then move on to a new business? When you take time out to set yourself up for success and long-term profit, you can plan what to do in your business to ensure that happens. The ideal position to be in is where your product holds authority over your niche—where you lead in one powerful aspect, where no one else can threaten or touch you. As well as setting yourself up for profit you have to be aware of your weaknesses. What are the main challenges that will impact your profitability and your journey getting there?
For many internet marketers it may be a fear your website simply disappears into Google’s ‘sandbox’. Is Google the main barrier to your business succeeding or not? If so, what will you do to minimize the risk of this happening, and what are you doing to prevent this being the death of your project if it were to happen? Some things may be beyond your control, but planning for alternative solutions is not.
Is There Demand for Your Product?
Demand is needed for the success of any business. Without demand for your product, your business will never get off the ground. Unless of course you can create demand, but this is not for the light hearted, nor advised for the beginner. For example if you sell food, people need to eat. That said, a lot of food is luxurious and not strictly needed, so it becomes a want. And it is often food that is ‘wanted’ that sells better than food that is ‘needed’. Using Mark Joyner’s analogy… if you find a thirsty crowd, you’ll instantly have customers if you sell them water. If you‘re the only person selling water, you don’t need to create a sales letter. They’ll buy from you the moment they know you have what they want. This makes business a whole lot easier!
Type in your niche directly into the keyword tool to find out if there is a potential demand for it. See how many people are searching for your key phrase, for example ‘poodle grooming’ (or similar related phrases). You can also get an idea how strong the competition is (this strength of competition is based on the number of people advertising on Google AdWords for a particular search term). In an ideal world you would have a high search volume and low competition. Just be careful though as this could mean that a keyword or niche is simply not profitable. Competition is not necessarily a bad thing. While this tool is not 100% accurate it can give you a good idea of a niche’s potential.
Scalability
Look at the size of the market itself, and what you can sell on the back end. It’s the back end where you can make the majority of your money. If you can find a way to continually sell to the same customers, then you can make more money with less effort. Many businesses will spend the same (or more) money on getting a customer as they will make in profit from the first sale. You cannot compete against this type of business if your entire profit comes from only one transaction.
Think of the soap you use. When it runs out, you’re most likely to buy the same soap you used previously. Typically we’ll use the same product time and time again (unless something drastic forces us to change our choice). Peer into the future and think how successful your product is likely to get? What impact will your product have on your niche? And should your market die, will you be able to change tact and still profit? Successful companies take advantage of new opportunities within their niche and change accordingly and quickly. They take their existing customers with them, as well as picking up new ones along the way.
How to Understand Your Competitive Position:
You need to consider which factors are going to influence your business. On which levels can you compete on? And if you can’t compete on those levels, can you compete on a different level? (And if not, perhaps you need to consider another business model or niche.) Here are three aspects to consider in helping you decide whether you can compete or not…
1. Pricing Influence
Perhaps the most common way for businesses to compete is on price. Undercutting works, but may not be the best tactic. Although this may sound counter intuitive, sometimes increasing the price can also increase the number of sales. Take a look at not only how much your product costs, but what influence your product has on your customers.
If your product can save your customers a lot of time and effort in doing something, what value are you going to price that? You must educate your customers about why your product costs the amount it does. Break it down and spell out exactly what the benefits are.
Being the cheapest may just give you low profit margins and poor quality customers. By charging a premium, you can give a better quality product and/or service as well as make a better product. With a higher profit margin you will have more to spend on marketing and advertising, allowing you to dominate more easily. You will also attract better quality customers and leave them much happier for having done business with you.
Remember, one simple way to increase your price point is to create an authority status for you or your company. Alternatively, maybe you have found a way to undercut the current competition. Many businesses have succeeded by finding ways to out price their competition while still providing a quality product or service. If so, make sure you explain why, so that people will understand how you are able to beat everyone else and not cut corners. (Otherwise they may be skeptical.)
2. Quality
How easy is it for another company to come in and copy what you have done—to replicate your business model? You must think about this in the beginning, and assume other companies will copy you. How can you differentiate yourself and make yourself stand out from future copy cats? Your brand plays a big part in this. If your customers believe the experience they have with your product has certain benefits, they’ll be more likely to stick around when new players come in. Think about how you can dominate the industry.
As well as copy cats, be aware of companies who come in with alternative products. Yes, price will be important for a percentage of customers, but not all. The features and/or quality will become more important here. (And a quality product is more likely to stand the test of time against a cheap and cheerful product.) What type of position do you wish to hold in your market? Which strategic benefit will your product have? And which strategic benefits will other companies have, that you won’t?
3. Marketing
In business you need customers. Your ability to get customers will be largely dependent on your marketing ability. Good marketing will not only help generate new prospects, but also to pre-sell them. Ironically this pre-selling is best done through education, not selling. Teach prospects through your marketing why your product or service is best. For offline businesses this is where the internet can provide huge potential. It is also where information products can provide a lot of opportunity for backend products or services. The sad truth is there are many great products out there that never make a cent.
They are well priced, offer great value and are even in demand. Yet they fail to thrive simply due to poor marketing. On the opposite side there are plenty of average or poor quality products that do well simply because of a good marketing department. (Don’t become one of these.) Think about the power each of these factors has. How can you structure and improve your business so you maximize the potential of each of these key areas?
Marketing your digital product online is easier than you think. There are three things you have to do. 1. Build a product. 2. Build a list of devoted customers around your specialist niche. 3. Then develop a relationship with the people once they’re on your list. That’s it.
As more people like and trust you, the more easily you will be able to sell your products. Then, the more willing they will be to buy your future products. What Will Your Product Be? Before you start creating your first online business, it’s good to step back and decide what your actual product will be. With a bit of foresight you can plan the future of your product(s), and maximize the sales process.
If you run an offline business, think about how you may be able to apply the specialist knowledge in creating a digital product. I will try to give some examples for each of the following types. The trick here is to think laterally, and not focus too much on specifics, but the general concepts. At the bottom of the scale, text products are the easiest to create, but will make you the least amount of money. And at the other end of the scale, software products or services are the hardest to create, but can return you the most amount of money.
The following are the products types for online businesses:
1. Text Products
Text products are the easiest, fastest and cheapest product for you to create. Being at the bottom of the scale they will probably make you the least direct profit. E-books are one example of a text product. They take almost no investment – just your time researching your topic and then writing it. (Or the cost of having one ghost written for you.) Or you could create an e-course. This is where you set up a simple opt-in form where customers can sign up to your course. Then you put your content into a series of e-mails that you load into an autoresponder, to send out your course automatically.
Text products are used to build your credibility and authority as well as to generate leads. When you create free products and give them away as lead generators for your other products, you’ll earn trust. They can also be low-cost leader products, to direct prospects on to higher priced products. If you are a florist, consider a book on the art of flower arranging and how to choose the correct flowers for the correct occasion. This could also make a great e-course. You may also want to write a free report on how to make your cut flowers last longer, or the top ten common mistakes most florists make when building a bouquet.
If you are a plumber, think about writing a free report on the 10 most common shortcuts plumbers make to cut corners on a job and what to look out for as a customer. In doing so you will build assumed trust. (People will assume that because you are pointing these out, you would not do the same.) You can use these reports to build lists of potential prospects. This can be useful when you want to offer a promotion at slow times. Essentially this gives you the ability to run almost zero cost advertising with almost instant results when you need it most.
2. Audio Products
Audio products require a bit more effort to create than text products, but are still in the ‘easy basket’. Because audio has a higher perceived value, you can command a higher price point than text products. Take the e-book that you’ve written and simply record yourself reading it aloud. If you don’t like the sound of your voice, or if you want a certain accent for a specific market, you can have someone else read it. It’s easy to do a teleconference call. Organize an expert to come on your call and interview them. Have other listeners ask their questions while you steer the conversation to access helpful information for your listeners. You can conduct interviews over Skype. Ask the person you are interviewing thought-provoking questions while you record the call. Later you can edit it if you need to, or transcribe it as the base for a text product.
Although I have heard this suggested many times, a lot of people ignore the idea, thinking it can’t be that easy. Yes it is. I know many products made this way in just a day or two. Once you have the system in place, audio products can be some of the fastest and easiest to create. If you run some type of coaching program or service, then to create an audio course should be a must. If you run a natural health clinic, then interviewing world experts to create an audio program could be leveraged in so many different ways. You could use it to sell online to customers who live too far away to see you in person. You could sell it to existing clients, or use it as a giveaway on the first visit.
You could use it as a way to build credibility through association (a very simple but effective strategy for building authority). When other people see your name or face next to a well-known celebrity or leader in a particular niche, then some of their authority status will be transferred to you. This happens completely subconsciously and is therefore, an extremely powerful technique. If you run a natural health clinic, then interviewing world experts to create an audio program could be leveraged in so many different ways. The possibilities here are endless.
3. Video Products
Video products are once again another perceived notch up the scale in difficulty from audio products. Until you are familiar with how to create video products, it can be more time consuming (unless you outsource the work). But it’s more a psychological barrier that stops many people from attempting video products. With the easy-to-use tools that are available these days, using video can be a fast and easy way to create a digital product that you can sell for a lot more money.