How To Start and Market a Profitable Online Business (Part 4)
So here we are at the beginning of a New Year and a another opportunity to accomplish amazing things. I don’t know about you but I’m excited for all the possibilities!
I want to continue our series and give you some helpful information that you could use to start an online business that might change your life, it has changed mine.
So in the last part we talked about creating awesome content based off of the topic you choose from your passion and life experience. Today I want to talk about the how-to of taking that knowledge and formulating a real business that brings in money.
First things first.
Before you start seeing the money rolling in you’re going to have to focus on what you can or will be able to learn how to do first. I listed out the options for making money last week but which one fits best?
Are you going to write an ebook first? Are you going to host a webinar first? In my personal opinion I would say to create a little workbook or audio guide. Think about your topic and how you learned what you know, then think about the best way to get started teaching somebody about it.
Map out exactly how this is going to look from start to finish. One way to really catch someone’s attention right away is share your story. Everyone loves a good story, plus it helps them identify with you and makes them realize you know what you’re talking about. Start with your story and then proceed to the first lessons.
After you have this mapped out start a Word document or record audio on your computer. If you want to know if you’re doing this right, either Google it or check out some other products online that are similar. Once you have something put together that you feel offers tremendous value and will help people, send a copy out to a close friend or family member.
Have them be your “Beta” testing group to see if this is something that you can sell and feel confident about. Once the word has come back that you nailed it, upload the product to a storage and shopping cart website. I personally use e-junkie.com for up to a certain amount of data (more than you’ll need) the cost is a flat rate of $5 a month, that’s it! It will incorporate Google checkout, PayPal and PayPal Pro and handle all your shopping cart services.
You upload your product, you type in all the information about your product and it gives you a custom code that you can copy and paste and put anywhere on your website. They even list your product in E-Junkie’s marketplace and I have gotten a few sales from there.
If you want your product to stand out on your website and all the places you’ll market it, then have a cover designed. If you don’t have the technical skills yourself, you can pay someone on a website like Fiverr.com. That’s right, only $5 will get you a cover or any other variety of services you could be looking for, I’m always surprised to see all the things on that website. Just be sure to check out their rating or talk to someone who has used a person on there.
Have them make you a killer cover for your product, upload that to E-Junkie and get your code, paste that bad boy somewhere and you’re ready to start making money. It’s not easy but easier than you thought, right? If you look at my books and the products on my product page, you’ll see that those are all set up through E-Junkie.
The other ways.
Webinar: So that’s what you do for an audio book, ebook, workbook. There are other ways to monetize your knowledge. You can host a paid or unpaid webinar. This is something that I haven’t personally done but with some of the services out there even the non-technical person can put together something professional.
You can put together a killer presentation, promote it and charge a certain amount for people to attend. You can also kill two birds with one stone by asking for their name and email address and have that go directly into your email list.
You can also do a free webinar and at the end of it offer your online course, ebook, or any other product you created. You get people in by offering them the free content and sell them the more advanced pay content.
Online Course: This one will take a lot more time, research and experience, I would say that this is the last one you work on. You can take your knowledge and package it as a (insert time) certain timed course. Right now my friend Ben is creating an online course on Parenting Pitfalls.
You can outline how you want someone to get from the starting line to a certain end point. If you’re teaching someone how to find work that they love, you would start with identifying what they want to do for work and take them to where they’re happy making good income in that job that they love.
Each week your course would teach them something new that gets them closer to the end goal. You can make it more valuable by adding interviews from people who have successful done this, material on how to make the journey a little bit easier. You can also make your course over the top by offering something free when they buy the course. We will cover more of this in the marketing part of this series, so come back!
Well I think we’ve covered a lot in this post. On the next post we will start to get into the marketing of all of this, how to get people’s attention and get them buying!
Right now is the best time to start your online business, right now is the best time to pursue your dreams. Every where you look you see and hear bad news about our economy and business, don’t believe the hype! You can create something that gives yourself/family a life of freedom and value.
Stop thinking about all the things you want to do “someday”, start doing those things today! Take action and make your dreams your reality! Click to Tweet (Thank You).
What dream do you want to make a reality this year?
