More and more people are understanding that e-commerce, internet marketing and on-line business is becoming a very real growth trend.
As part of this growth trend, at least some of you are serious about tapping into the opportunity sensing that your next big move may be to starting your own business on-line.
In order to successfully make the transition to running your own on-line business, you need to accomplish the following:
- A market – people who want what you will offer
- Products or services to offer your market
- An ability to successfully reach and convert your market into customers
- Growth plan that allows you to grow and scale your business to reach a broader market
We work with aspiring entrepreneurs daily that are working through this exact transition, some start part-time while others throw themselves into their new pursuit with everything they have.
One of the major challenges that new entrepreneurs who seek to build their own on-line business face is answering the question “But what do I sell?”
In some cases they may already have an idea or an offline business they hope to transition to on-line, but in many cases they either want to start from scratch or augment their current income with new products and services.
4 Things You Can Sell To Make Money On-Line Now
Here are 4 examples of products you can sell on-line to get your business moving in the right direction.
Affiliate Products
Affiliate products are simply products that are available to you to resell in exchange for a commission on each product sold. Popular affiliate programs you may have heard about include: Amazon, Clickbank (Ebooks and Information Products) and Commission Junction (manage the affiliate programs for many on-line e-commerce sites)
In most cases, setting up an affiliate product to sell on your blog, website, social profile or via ads is as simple as signing up (sometimes requiring acceptance), setting up important information such as terms of how you want to be paid and obtain your link(s) that act as your gateway into their e-commerce sites.
The great part about affiliate products is that they are both simple to access, can pay a nice commission ( Example, you may earn up to 50% on some information products while physical products often pay in the 3-10% range), and can be a great way to test a market to see what sells well and what doesn’t
The downside of depending solely on affiliate products include the fact that they are under the control of someone else (and so may change or disappear at any time), you compete with thousands of others selling the same items, and it is hard to build a very large business based on small commissions.
Sell Your Own Services
Another terrific way to get started with your on-line business is to market your services to a global audience growing your reach and income potential exponentially over what you could have done just a few years ago offline
Services can be anything from web design to personal training, from relationship counselling to turnkey graphics design or virtual assistance.
Marketing your services on-line gets you started FAST and gives you global reach with incredible abilities to target your specific customer subset helping to differentiate you from others offering the same services.
One of the challenges with an on-line business based entirely on selling services is around how you scale when your core business is selling time…unless you can build a large team of equally adept and skilled people, you will have capped out your ability to scale your internet business
Sell Knowledge/Advice Information Products
In this category you have any non-fiction, information-based products that include: ebooks, reports, books, guides, courses, training programs, membership sites, video courses, webinars, coaching programs, etc…
Billions upon billions of dollars are exchanged each year as hungry markets eagerly pay information product publishers high prices to access information that will lead to positive transformations in their lives.
Topics vary widely from health and fitness through relationships, financial on to hobby or personal development and improvement programs.
Creating and publishing your own knowledge products is a powerful platform upon which you can build your on-line business:
- Highly profitable, an ebook or course you spend a few weeks developing can be sold for $47-$397 or beyond depending on the content
- Gives you leverage as others will seek to sell your product as affiliates arming you with a global sales force of thousands that will be actively promoting your products bringing you in regular profits while you work on other aspects of your business
- Your knowledge product bears your name meaning that you gain the branding, publicity and higher profile in your market of choice – benefits that cannot be bought…your signature knowledge product can be the catalyst to launch a highly successful internet business
- Sky is the limit when it comes to profit potential. We have dozens of knowledge products across various niche markets and continue to grow the portfolio based on customer demand. We have grown our team from ME into the dozens to scale the business
No matter what other methods you choose to make money online in your internet business, you want to consider seriously having your own knowledge products as a main stream of income.
Advertising
One of the major advantages e-commerce and businesses see in marketing online is targeting and reaching customers in very efficient and effective ways.
When you start a business on-line that targets and reaches an audience, you have the potential to make money advertising to companies that wish to reach your audience.
You can connect with your market through:
- Blogging or written website content
- Social platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat
- Video platforms such as YouTube
- A podcast (video or audio) that is distributed through Apple and Google platforms
- Streaming shows on Periscope, Facebook Live or Snapchat
In many cases, as you grow your business based on monetization strategies outlined in options 1, 2 or 3 above, you will build an audience in your niche market that can be partially monetized through advertising.
That is your choice to make, and can become quite lucrative over time. You can choose to post Google Adsense ads on your sites or blogs, choose a particular ad agency and develop custom pricing, advertise through YouTube for your more popular videos, etc…
You have many options regarding what you can sell to kick start your e-commerce or on-line business.
Figure out what best fits your objectives, skills and abilities.
Most important of all, don’t be trapped into an endless patterns of analysis, wishing and dreaming, make sure you get started with at least one of these methods, you can always add additional monetization strategies in the future or pivot entirely as you build your audience.
If you can use help, you can refer to our fast-track system for on-line entrepreneurs that provides extensive, practical training and advice around both building your on-line presence as well as monetization strategies including creating and publishing your own products.
What’s holding you back?
