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7 Ways to Make Money Online With Free Apps in 2018
If you're looking for extra ways to make money outside of your full-time job, consider what's become the tried-and-true method over the last decade: turning to your smartphone. These days, there are plenty of ways to find profitable side hustles and search for opportunities to earn extra dough through websites and apps – all in just a few swipes on your smartphone.
So, if you're looking for some simple money-earning strategies, consider pocketing extra cash with these free apps and websites.
[See: 8 Easy Ways to Make Money.]
1. Participate in a focus group. By joining an online focus group – a mix of people selected to participate in a discussion, often about a particular product, service or issue – you can collect extra money for sharing your ideas. Many companies organizing focus groups for market research pay the participants for their time. Where to find one of these focus groups? There are quite a few websites that aim to help people find paid focus groups, including SideHustleNation.com and FindFocusGroups.com.
"Over the last few years, there has been a huge trend of companies conducting online focus groups. Because of technology and the fact that most people have a webcam, people can get paid for their opinions without even leaving their house. This is a really simple and fun way for people to make extra money online," says Danny DiGiovanni, owner of FindFocusGroups.com. While you may not want to quit your day job, for a side gig, it could work out well. For instance, DiGiovanni says that some recent online paid focus groups on his site have included a focus group about tutors for parents that paid $100, a focus group about taxes that paid $100 and a 30-minute webcam interview about baby products that paid $50.
2. Use your hacking skills for good. If you know how to adeptly hack into websites, put your skills to use with HackerOne.com, a platform that pays their network of more than 100,000 hackers for finding and reporting software vulnerabilities. According to data on HackerOne's website, 12 percent of their hackers make $20,000 or more per year. Approximately 3 percent of the hackers are making over $300,000, and 1.1 percent are making over $350,000, according to HackerOne.com.
3. Sell your photos. Shutterstock.com, a stock photography website, will buy your photos and pay you for photos that their consumers like. "We have a great selection of contributors who are regular people and decided to take on a new – or old – hobby to earn some extra cash," says Paul Brennan, vice president of content operations at Shutterstock.
While you won't make a lucrative sum by selling your photos online (unless you're a gifted photographer with in-demand images), Shutterstock will pay you 25 cents every time one of your images is downloaded, according to its website. If you earn $500, then you'll receive 33 cents per download; if you earn $3,000, you'll receive 36 cents per download; and if you earn $10,000 or more, you'll receive 38 cents for every download.
4. Teach English. Megan Robinson, a financial coach in Blacksburg, Virginia, says that she has made money online by teaching English as a second language at the website, VIPKID, an online education firm offering online English-speaking lessons to Chinese students ages 4 to 12. According to the website, you can make $14 to $22 an hour.
"I made over $10,000 in 2017 teaching part time. The only requirements for teachers are a bachelor's degree and great English-speaking skills," Robinson says, adding: "There's no special equipment required, and teachers can work from anywhere they can get an internet connection."
5. Sell your comic books. If you have an extensive comic book collection, check out the site ComicConnect.com, which is managed by Metropolis Collectibles, the world's largest vintage comic book dealership. ComicConnect.com touts itself as the largest online vintage comic auction house. You can auction off your comics on the site, but you can also sell comics directly to interested buyers. Best of all, site membership is free. The website takes a small commission – on average, 10 percent – for the comic books you sell.
6. Break a sweat. If you consider yourself a fitness junkie or simply enjoy getting fresh air, try Sweatcoin, an app that pays you to walk outside. While you won't make a hefty sum for using the app, if you like embracing the great outdoors (the app doesn't work when you're inside), this could be an easy way to earn extra dough and burn off extra calories simultaneously. Just remember to bring along your mobile device to sync the app with your phone's GPS.
But before you turn to Sweatcoin, keep in mind that you won't be paid in actual cash, says Howard Orloff, a crowdfunding and blockchain consultant in Northbrook, Illinois, who is a member of the site. "Sweatcoin, the app, pays in Sweatcoin, a cybercurrency, which can be exchanged for products and gift cards within the app," Orloff says. In about three months, he bought and sold $2,000 in sweatcoins, he says.
He's keeping most of the sweatcoins, since they might go up in value, similar to bitcoinand other digital currencies. Currently, a typical user walking 5,000 steps a day would be earning about $4 a week, according to Orloff.
7. Shop online. You can spend money online (and earn cash back) at some websites and apps, like Shopkick, where the more you spend, the more reward points (or "kicks") you'll get, which you can redeem for gift cards. Here's how it works: After you connect your debit or credit card with the Shopkick app, you can shop online or in stores with Shopkick's retail partners, which include Target, CVS, Marshalls, Best Buy and Amazon.com. The catch: It will take some time to pocket a significant amount. While you might get 500 points for buying an item or doing a task, like walking into a store (you can earn kicks just for simply walking into some shops), 500 points may translate to a $2 Target gift card. With that said, if you’re looking to gradually grow your savings by shopping at retailers you already visit, it may be worthwhile to download the app.
How To Make Money Online – Fast Way To Get Rich Fast 2018 [PROOF]
How To Make Money Online – Fast Way To Get Rich Fast 2017 & 2018 [PROOF]
Top 14 ways to Earn money online | Best ways how to make money online in 2018
Make Money Online
You may wondering about how to make money online in 2018, There are many ways to earn money online. Here I discussed Top 20 Best ways to Earn money online …..
- Freelancing:
Freelancing is a profession of freedom. Freelancer is the term commonly used for a person who is self employed. Freelancer is not necessarily committed to a particular employer in long term. Freelance workers work independently or use professional associations, sometimes use websites to get work. There are some Freelance Market online like Upwork.com, fiverr.com, guru.com, freelancer.com etc.
- Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing is a kind of performance based marketing to get a business rewards for one or more affiliates for each visiting customer brought, through the affiliate link by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. Popular affiliates are Amazon, click bank, ebay.com etc. Affiliate marketing is one of the top ways to make money online ever.
- Uploading Videos:
Anyone can earn by uploading video on some video sharing platform by monetizing videos to show ads on it. Such video uploading sites are YouTube.com, metacafe.com, dailymotion.com etc.
- Selling Images, Vectors & Videos:
Photographer or Graphics and video creator can sell Images, Vectors & Videos in different market places like shutterstock.com, alamy.com, istockphoto.com etc.
- Android Apps Development:
If you know android apps development then you can earn a lot of money by either selling apps or monetizing apps with ads and upload them in Google Play Store.
- Web Design:
Web design is a great skill by which you can earn a lot of money. You can create and sell website themes in deferent market places like themeforest.net and also work as a freelance web designer in upork.com or fiverr.com.
- AdSense Blog:
If you have a personal website or YouTube Channel or Google Blog then you can apply for AdSense by Google to show google ads on your personal website or YouTube Channel or Google Blog. Through AdSense you can earn money by showing ads to the visitors. AdSense is one of the best ways to make money online.
- By Shortening URL:
You can earn by shortening url and share those url to click and show ads on it. Different market place has different Payment for per 1000 clicks. Markets are oke.io, shorte.st, linkshrink.net, adf.ly etc.
- By Uploading Downloadable Files:
You can earn money by uploading downloadable files on some website like dollarupload.com, Sharecash.org, clicknupload.org etc. they shows ads before download and pay Some $ for per 1000 downloads.
- Video Editing:
Video editing now a days on top demand, if you now to make animated video, motion graphics and cartoon videos then you can earn a lot of money from frelance market place like fiverr.com, upwork.com etc. Or even you can make your own professional website for selling video editing services.
- Graphic Design:
Now a days graphic design is needed everywhere. People needs graphics design for their website, online ads, t-shirt design, logo and many more. You can earn money by creating graphical content for clients in different freelance market place mentioned above.
- Content Writing:
Articles are the most important things of a website. So you can earn money by writing SEO content for website owners. You will find a lot of article writing tasks on freelance market places.
- Apps & Software Creation:
If you know how to make apps then you can earn money by creating android apps, IOS apps, windows apps etc.
- Selling E-books:
If you are specialist in one topic or you regularly do research on a particular topic then you can create a E-book on that topic and sell it to market place like clickbank.com, amazon.com etc.
Amazon: E-books Outselling All Print & Ad-Supported Kindle Is Top-Seller
On the same day that the American Association of Publishers (AAP) announced a rebound for print in March, and that e-books had dropped back to third place (behind trade paperback and hardback), Amazon declared that they were now selling more e-books than print books.
Yesterday, I covered the limitations of the AAP figures, namely that they only include a small number of publishing houses, they ignore more e-focused small and independent presses, and they don’t include self-publishers.
Amazon gives us a different, if also incomplete, picture. They rarely release hard numbers, and prefer to talk in general terms.
In their press release on Thursday, they announced that, since April 1, they now sell 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books. Free Kindle books were excluded from these figures.
They also noted that they have been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for only 4. CEO Jeff Bezos stated, “We had high hopes that his would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly.”
In addition, Amazon also announced that the new $114 ad-supported Kindle is now the bestselling member of the Kindle family, despite only being on sale for five weeks.
Amazingly, they have already sold three times as many Kindle books in 2011 as they did in the same period in 2010.
This boom is not just confined to the US. In the UK, even though hardback is growing, customers are purchasing twice as many Kindle books.
Finally, Amazon notes that the Kindle Store now contains almost a million books. 175,000 of those have been added in the last five months.
Analysis
There are a couple of frustrating things about these figures.
First, they lack specifics, and only talk in terms of volume rather than dollar revenue. While e-books outselling all print is a milestone, for sure, they do not tell us the revenue difference.
Print books tend to have much higher prices than e-books. And, as these figures included titles from smaller presses and self-publishers, there will be a lot of $2.99 and 99 cent e-books in the mix.
Self-publishers mightn’t care, as they will earn more from a $2.99 e-book they publish themselves as a large trade publisher would give them from a $9.99 e-book, but the industry as a whole will place less weight on these figures without dollar amounts.
Second, would it kill Amazon to break out self-publisher figures and give us some idea how they are doing?
Third, wouldn’t it be great promotion for them to tell us the actual amounts of Kindles sold?
All that aside, it’s another step forward for e-books. And not the last by a long way.
Overall, it’s shaping up to be a good year for Amazon. E-book and e-reader sales are booming, and they are rumoured to have two tablets in line for a September release, with one, maybe, being a phone.
Other News
I was interviewed by fellow author Dave Cleinman over at his blog (thanks Dave). So if you would like to read that, and see a picture of my parents, you can do so here. He’s got interviews with lots of other authors that are worth checking out. I always learn something from them.
I uploaded Transfection today (hence the delayed and truncated post), and it should be on sale in a couple of days. I’m very excited. I think it’s my best story so far, and I hope to exceed the sales of my last one.
Tomorrow, I will be participating again in Sample Sunday on Twitter. This week, I will be giving a free sample of The Reset Button, the second story from If You Go Into The Woods. If you have a book out, or just want to share some writing, I highly recommend participating.
Business Plan Software Made For Entrepreneurs, Not MBAs
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Truly easy collaboration
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You choose who sees what
If you've got several versions of your business plan, or multiple partners and multiple different plans, it's easy to manage permissions. Allow specific collaborators to see and work on only the plans you want them to see. The plan owner decides who can access what, on a plan-by-plan basis. See Example
Get comments and advice from your team
You don't have to give somebody access to edit your plan to get their insights. Invited users can comment on any section of a plan. You get feedback that you can implement (or ignore) without worrying about somebody actually changing the work you've done. See Example
Share with advisors or investors
Say you want advice from your accountant. Give them instant access by inviting them right from your laptop or even your smart phone. Meet a potential investor at a networking event? They can be reading your plan and thinking about investing in your business—in minutes. With LivePlan, you can write your plan in the language of your choosing and share it with international business partners. You can invite unlimited readers to view your plan—for free! And don't worry, you can take access away from any guest, at any time.
How to Make Money With an Online Drop Shipping Business 2018
When starting an online business, one of the key elements is having products to sell. In fact, without products… you don’t have a business at all. That’s pretty obvious, right?
So how do you get products… where do you find them… how do you know if they’ll sell… how do you get them to customers?
In the vast world of internet entrepreneurship, there are many answers to all of those questions. You could create your own products — but that can be a long and time-consuming process. Or you could buy in bulk from a manufacturer and then ship out products to your customers as they buy. But that is an expensive solution, and you have to take the risk of investing that money in buying stock and not having sales (we all know somebody with a garage full of inventory of their "big idea" right?)
There is a solution that allows you to sidestep all those hassles. And it makes the whole startup process for your online venture that much easier. It’s called drop shipping. And it has taken the online business world by storm. A drop shopping business is one of the fastest, easiest, and most low-risk ways to get started with an online business.
Let's take a look at how to start a dropship business, how the drop shipping business model works, and the key things you should know before going into it.
Starting a Drop Shipping Business
Estimates vary. But industry watchers have found that between 20 percent to 30 percent of online retailers use drop shipping. So it's a proven business model, and you’ll be in good company if you go this route. Even big retailers like Amazon use drop shipping.
With drop shipping, you can sell just about any product in any niche. And the best part is you don't have to deal with the hassles of traditional businesses, such as:
Storing your products (it can be very expensive to buy massive amounts of inventory, rent warehouse space… and who wants to fill a spare bedroom or garage with boxes)
Packaging or shipping any products (can you imagine the hassle of taking orders and boxing them up multiple times a day… and heading to the post office?) This is definitely not a scalable way to do business.
Most importantly… you don’t have to put down your money upfront to buy products wholesale to resell… that you aren’t sure will sell.
You see, when you run a business through drop shipping, you avoid all of those risks and potential loss of capital investment.
Now that we've taken a look at the benefits of a dropshipping business let's take a look at how the business model of dropshipping actually works.
How Drop Shipping Works
With drop shipping, you work with a wholesaler or distributor that offers this service. Not all manufacturers and wholesalers offer drop shipping, but many do.
You handle all the marketing for your business… you set up your website with a shopping cart (or set up a virtual storefront on Amazon)… write your blog… do social media and email marketing… you contact the prospects and customers. You tell them all about the products and how it will make their lives better. Basically, you do all of the marketing, advertising, and promotion to get the customers and make the sale.
But when it comes time to actually send out the product and fulfill it… the drop shipper takes over. They have the inventory in their warehouse. You send them the orders that come in, paying the wholesale price for each order. This can be done by email, submitted online, or through a spreadsheet file — it depends on the drop shipper. They put the order together and ship it to your customer. Done.
Of course, they do charge a fee for this service. Just how much depends on the product. But usually, it’s about $2 to $5 — a handling fee. That’s on top of the wholesale price for the product itself and the cost of shipping. That can seem like a lot.
But you can still stay profitable as a drop shipping business, despite the thinner margins. If you want to increase your profits you raise your prices — at least as much as your market will bear. You can also sell more volume. And you can always contact your drop shipper to negotiate a lower handling fee.
Remember though, that you aren’t risking your money upfront. You are only paying these fees if you actually sell a product.
What Products Can Be Drop Shipped
As with any online business, you want to be in a market that is “hot” and where there is a large number of people ready to buy the products you sell. In the best-case scenario, the niche you specialize in should also match one of your personal interests.
If you have a passion for a certain market or type of product, that enthusiasm will make your marketing efforts… and by extension your business… will be stronger. Not only that, but you'll actually enjoy what you're doing - making your work seem more like play. What's better than getting paid to do what you love?
Fortunately, there are drop shipping companies that work with just about every market, niche, and type of product. Baby items, yoga clothes, electronics, clothing, art, books, beauty supplies, supplements, home and garden items… it’s wide open.
A great place to check for hot niches is big online e-commerce platforms like Amazon. Whatever items are on the bestseller lists there could be a great fit for a drop shipping business. But also keep an eye on trends you see on Facebook and other social networks. Also, what’s in the news… what your friends and family are talking about.
Here’s a pro tip: during the holiday season, football season, and other special times of the year, related products can do really well.
A big mistake a lot of people make when starting any type of business, dropshipping included, is that if they see other people doing it they think it's too competitive and they can't make any money in it. Nothing could be further from the truth... if you see a lot of competition that's the sure sign of a big, healthy, profitable market.
Picking a Drop Shipper
Before you ever start working with a drop shipper, you should go through the order process yourself from a customer’s point of view. You want to see how easy it is to order the product, how long it takes to ship, how the drop shipper deals with any problems.
Of course, this will also give you the chance to also see the quality of the product. You want to make sure this is something you’ll be proud to offer your customers. In some cases, dropshippers will be willing to send you a complimentary product for evaluation or at least sell it to you at their cost.
If you are into a niche and have used other products that are similar, you can test the product yourself. Use it. Study it. Does it do what is promised? Is it made of quality material or ingredients? Check the reviews of others online to see if your experience matches up.
If you’re not into the niche, have a friend or family member try the product. And also be sure to thoroughly check online reviews, forums in that niche to see any comments from users, Facebook too. Do your research, in other words.
Knowing the product will also help you sell it. Your marketing will be that much more authentic and effective.
Here are some of the top drop shippers and drop shipper directories operational today:
Sunshine Wholesale
Dropship Direct
Worldwide Brands
Oberlo
Of course, you can always do a Google search for "drop shipper" or "niche + drop shipper" to find other dropshipping companies.
Key Questions You Should Ask a Potential Drop Shipping Partner
Yes, partnering with a drop shipper is a great way to start an online venture without investing much of your own money. And you make it that much easier to run your business too. By not having to lay out a bunch of cash to buy products wholesale you're not risking your money. You don’t have to store them. And you don’t have to worry about keeping up with shipping your products in a timely manner.
But that doesn’t mean you should just hand off those important elements of your business to just anyone. Working with a bad drop shipper — and they are out there — could sink your business before it ever gets off the ground.
You don’t have to go into the process of finding and negotiating with a potential drop shipping partner blind. Here are some key questions to ask to help you determine if they are the right fit for your business.
Once a customer has placed an order, how long will it take to be processed and shipped out of their facility? (Remember you can also "secret shop" them to verify this as well)
What methods of shipping the products are available? This is especially important if they are located overseas and are shipping internationally. Do they use services like UPS and FedEx? Can a customer overnight an order? Do they rely on the U.S. Postal Service only?
This is a big one: do they have a tracking system so that you and/or your customers can see the status of each order easily? This is one the biggest things customers want to be able to do.
How do they deal with issues like lost shipments? You don’t want customers to get frustrated with issues you can’t control. And keep in mind that as the seller you are ultimately responsible for customer service. Will lost shipments cost you money?
Do the products they offer have warranties/guarantees? What happens if the customer isn’t satisfied with the product — what’s the return policy? And does the drop shipper guarantee the product… what happens if the product fails in some way? You want to make sure this matches up to your philosophy. If a customer feels that they’ve been taken advantage of… you can’t point to the drop shipper and blame them. After all, you are the one that sold the customer the product.
It’s also a good idea to check forums, blogs, and social media for comments about the drop shipping company from other online entrepreneurs. Drop shippers who have a bad reputation or have bad business practices will quickly be exposed, often in detail, so you can avoid them.
Drop Shipping Really Is One of the Easiest Ways to Do Business Online
A drop shipping online business is a quick, easy, and low-risk way to start selling online. You won’t have to put up a bunch of money upfront on inventory that might not sell. And your drop shipping partner will handle delivery.
Pick the right niche market and product, and you could have a profitable venture on your hands. You could even expand into other niches and sell other products, too.
There are many people making healthy six and seven-figures strictly from a dropshipping business... the possibilities really are endless with a drop shipping business.
Creating and Selling Digital Products on eBay or Etsy
I wanted to share with you a little something I’m working on at the moment to make some extra income. That is the creation of my own digital products that I can sell easily and quickly.
The reason creating digital products appeals to me is that once the work is done i.e. I’ve created the product once, it could sell over and over again with very little input from me. Digital products can certainly be a great form of passive income!
When you think of digital products, you might think about apps, learning programs or tutorials or some other kind of software that you can sell via your blog or Clickbank for example. But I’m not at that level yet so this post isn’t about those kind of products! I’m thinking more of digital products which I can create myself using the skills I have right now and sell them via an online marketplace.
I already have one digital product that you probably know about which is my “Achieving Debt Freedom” eBook (currently available on Amazon). It’s a great feeling logging into my KDP Amazon dashboard and finding another sale. This book isn’t going to make me rich overnight or anything but it’s very nice knowing that someone might be buying my book whilst I’m working on other things.
Using online marketplaces like eBay
If you’re a practiced eBayer, you’ll know that listing products on eBay to sell can be very time consuming. Then there’s the time and cost involved in packaging and posting your items afterwards. The hassle factor as I like to call it.
I’ve sold a lot of different things on eBay over the last few years. I’ve even had an attempt at running an eBay shop before and managed to make a little money by flipping products – buying them when they were on offer and selling them for the usual retail price afterwards when they were no longer cheap to buy.
My shop did make a profit but it took up a lot of my time researching the right products, looking out for deals and then all the admin involved in listing the products, dealing with buyers and then finally getting the products dispatched. In the end, I got bored and wrongly or rightly, I gave it up…
Digital products on eBay
I’ve noticed a lot of people selling digital products or services on eBay recently. Services like logo design, full website design and even CV rewriting can be purchased on eBay and involve no postage costs whatsoever. Then there are tons of template based products available which can be emailed out to buyers the same day.
So I began thinking about digital products I could create and sell which would just involve emailing the final product to the buyer. Not quite passive income since I’d have to push a couple of buttons to complete the transaction, but on the whole, not very time consuming at all.
As part of my day job, I use a few documents for work that I’ve had to put together myself to make my working life a bit easier and more organised. I created them to save me time when doing the planning work I need to do for my job. I decided to create some standard templates from them and sell them on eBay to see if anyone else could make use of them. To my surprise, they could!
I’m currently selling on average a few templates a week listing them for 30 days at a time. I only charge a few pounds for them because at the end of the day they are just word documents! But this has been very easy to do and I definitely want to scale it up by offering more templates along the same kind of lines for a higher price and generating more digital products in niches not related to my work.
Digital product ideas for selling on eBay or Etsy
If you can create apps, that’s great! But in case you’re thinking of creating digital products in the same way that I am, maybe you could make use of some of these ideas which involve different skill sets:
- Blog, Twitter or Facebook ready made headers
- Web graphics such as buttons, borders etc
- Standard logos which just need the company name inserting
- Budget, investment or debt payoff tracker spreadsheets
- CV templates
- eBooks or guides (you could also use Amazon and Barnes and Noble)
- Your own photography which you could sell digitally for the buyer to print themselves
- Craft based patterns or tutorials for knitting, crochet, beadweaving, etc.
If you’re a whizz at PhotoShop, Illustrator, Word or Excel, you could probably create something that you could sell. The trick is creating something useful, where there is a definite need for it and not too much competition. You could find out what kind of products are selling well in different niches using the search tools on eBay, analyze the competition and then work out what you could create yourself!
Have you created any digital products? If so, what are they and how are you getting on with selling them?
How to Make Money Selling Information Products Online
After the internet became a mainstream phenomenon in the late 1990s, it changed life as we know it. Communications, travel, music, government… shopping. Yes, retailers large and small have embraced the Internet as a way sell to customers across the country… and around the world.
E-commerce has grown exponentially over the last decade and shows no signs of slowing down. Consider that 40 percent of the world’s internet users, that’s more than 1 billion people, have shopped online at least once.
And worldwide business-to-consumer online sales were $1.7 trillion in 2015… and that grew to $2.35 trillion at the end of 2016.
Large e-tailers like Amazon and eBay, as well as traditional retailers like Walmart, have embraced the online business model wholeheartedly. But even though they may dominate the industry, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for small operators like you.
In fact, there’s never been a better time to get involved in selling online as a solo entrepreneur. It’s so much easier to make money with an online business than have a bricks-and-mortar store. The risk, the investment, and time spent is so much smaller.
Along with all this e-commerce activity has grown a whole new way to create and sell products. And it happens to be the easiest, most cost-effective, and oftentimes most profitable way to operate an online business. I’m talking about selling information products.
What Are Digital Information Products?
An information product can come in all sorts of formats, but at its heart a product like this must pass on useful advice to the consumer.
Despite the name, people don’t want simply information. They crave tips and strategies for making their life better. They want guidance. And that’s what the best information products provide, whether it’s a video, an ebook, an audio, a webinar, a membership website…
Keep in mind that in this case, although a CD or DVD or a printed book is technically an information product, we want to focus solely on those products that are delivered electronically, usually via download or some secure membership website.
For example, an ebook in PDF format, a video on a password-protected site, or an audio recording downloaded from your website.
The reason for this is because this way your customers can order products anytime day or night, from anywhere in the world, and get their product instantly, without you being involved in the transaction. It’s money while you sleep. Sure, you will have to handle customer service and keep an eye on sales. But it’s much less hassle than having to keep track and send out orders.
Why You Should Sell Digital Information Products Online
There are several more advantages with digital information products.
- They are easy and cheap to create. You can make a digital information product using nothing but your time and mental energy. That’s free when it comes to your investment money-wise. You just need ideas. Then you write your ebook, film your video, record your audio, create your webinar… whatever you plan to do. This also means that if the product doesn’t sell as well as you like, you haven’t sunk any money into the project. That reduces your risk and financial exposure.
- It’s virtually free to store them. Because these products are digital, they are simply space on a server, on your computer (make sure to back it up), or on the cloud. For people with physical products, if they're not doing online drop shipping, they have to carry large inventories. That costs money to store and manage all that product if you have a warehouse and have hired a fulfillment house or other provider to oversee it. And don’t even think about doing it at home — you’ll quickly become overwhelmed. Much better to stick with digital in which your products take up basically no space.
At this point, you might be worried. You’re thinking that if you have digital products being sent to customers… what’s to stop them from sending copies to their friends or selling it on their own? Nothing really. But rest assured that 99.9 percent of your customers won’t do this. And for the most part information marketers aren’t too concerned about this issue cannibalizing sales.
How to Find a Profitable Market for Information Products
So how do create your own information products… and make sure they’ll be bestsellers?
The first step is research. You need to follow the trends and figure out what the most profitable niche markets online are right now and what format would work best to meet that need. A great place to start is with your own interests. If you can match a profitable business with a passion, you’re all set.
So start with an interest you have. Then start checking around online to see whether you are the only one who loves… online poker, for example. Look for blogs, Facebook groups, and online forums for discussions about this niche. Look at the mainstream news — is it mentioned? Look at retailers like Amazon or eBay to see what products they have for sale in this niche.
For information products in particular, you should check out the site Clickbank.com, which used to specialize in information products although it has branched out into other areas.
You’ll find many categories in all of these places, from yoga to dog training to travel planning to weight loss and fitness… there’s sure to be something that you’re interested in.
From all these sources you’ll get a good sense of whether or not this a viable trend with sales potential. You should also research what sorts of products are offered, the topics they cover, the prices… this is also vital market data you can use to guide as you create and sell your own similar information products. You’re not plagiarizing or ripping off — you’re getting inspiration.
It may seem counterintuitive to seek out thriving markets and then try to join in. But that simply means that there is a ready market for your products. It’s not good to be a pioneer and try to create a market from scratch — that’s often a recipe for failure. Your prospect’s follow trends and latch on to fads… you should too. At least until the next trend comes along.
How to Create Digital Information Products
As far as creating your information products, that’s easy too. Remember that the content, whatever the format, should be useful advice. You could create how-to guides, strategies, tips, and tricks… provide something the prospect can’t get on their own.
For ebooks, magazines, and similar products, you can create them in Microsoft Word and then save them as a PDF. For the cover, find a freelancer on a site like Fiverr.com to create a professional looking cover for you for very little money — as little as $5.
To film videos you can use your smartphone or a simple point-and-click camera. Once you have the “raw” movie file, you can use an intuitive video editing software like iMovie (if you have a Mac) or Windows Movie Maker to create your own cleanly edited video.
Audios are simple too. Just use GarageBand (if you have a Mac) or the Sound Recorder app on Windows Media Player to record your voice. You will need a microphone.
If you want to interview others, you could use something like Skype or GoToWebinar.
Another option, if you’re showing people something your computer screen, like explaining the features of a piece of software, you can use the screen capture program like Camtasia to film every second of what you do to playback later.
How to Market Your Information Products
In many ways, no matter how far we’ve come when it comes to technology and online selling… the same principles of marketing and consumer psychology hold true. And that’s definitely the case with your online venture.
The name of the game here is direct-response marketing. Back in the day, this was done with snail mail flyers, letters, magalogs, catalogs, and other printed material. Yes, so-called “junk mail.” But they wouldn’t send it out by the millions if it didn’t work. These days this sort of content is sent out electronically. And it still works like a charm to get customers to open their wallets.
The good news is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money when you engage in direct-response marketing online. Email marketing is a virtually free method to reach sell your products. And that will be the basis of your marketing efforts.
The basic idea is create a list of email subscribers. You send them both useful content — free valuable information related to your product/niche, as well as offers to buy products. Sending them the free content will speed up the process of them knowing, liking, and trusting you enough to buy your paid products. The novelty of buying stuff online wore off years ago and now people have a lot to choose from — you must give them a warm fuzzy feeling to be the one they buy from.
Yes, only a small percentage of people will actually respond. But that’s how direct response works. You should have enough prospects coming in that even a small percentage of conversions will result in a profit.
To build an email list, you can employ a variety of methods.
- Search Engine Optimization: In a nutshell, you use valuable content on your website or blog to catch the attention of Google and get listed high in the search results.
- Paid ads: Whether you use Google’s own pay-per-click ads or banner ads or run ads on a blog network, this can be a viable option, albeit expensive.
- Social Media: Networks like Facebook are invaluable at reaching a targeted customer base these days.
So how do you take it to the next level? You tap into that small amount of people who buy your introductory product, also known as a front-end product. You contact those people differently than your normal subscribers.
Because they have bought something, they are more likely to buy similar products. So you offer them more in-depth, higher-priced products, known as “back end products.” That’s where the big money is. A back end product could be one-on-one coaching or an event, for example.
Putting It All Together
As you can see information products make for the perfect online business. They’re digital, easy to create and deliver. And the profit margins are huge.
So next steps…
- Find your niche – make sure it has bestselling potential.
- Figure out which format works best for your niche: audio, video, ebook, etc.
- Create your information product(s).
- Create an email list and then market to that list.
- Profit!
On a final note, another simple way to make money online is selling digital information products as an affiliate.
