Looking for ways to make extra cash? Want to be able to tell your friends you’re doing something exciting with your life? How about wanting to be your own boss and work remotely? If so, you’re in luck because there are plenty of online business opportunities where you can find a job that suits your skills and fits your schedule. You just have to know where to look.
To help you get started, we’ve put together a course that can take you from the very beginning to successfully running your own online business, completely step-by-step. Let’s get started.
STEP 1: Define Your Niche
The first step in starting an online business is to narrow your niche. What is your niche? Think about the types of products or services you enjoy using or purchasing. What sets you apart from the people who sell products or provide services in your niche?
For example, if you are passionate about health and fitness, you might want to consider creating an online fitness store. If you enjoy traveling, you could start an online travel agency. Or if you are an expert at something, you could create an online guide or tutorial for people who want to learn how to do that same thing.
Whatever it may be, once you’ve defined your niche, you can begin to research other niches and discover new ways to fit products or services in your niche. For example, did you know that you can create a membership site for health and fitness gurus who want to teach others how to achieve their level of fitness? Or that you can sell skincare products to make money online?
STEP 2: Find A Product Or Service To Sell
Now that you’ve got your niche, you can begin to look for a product or service to sell. This part of the process can be quite the odyssey. You’ll need to consider what is available to choose from, how much you want to spend on advertising, and a whole lot more.
Decide on how much you are willing to spend on your first product or service. Remember, you’re in business for yourself so you’re the boss. This is also the part where you can really start to brainstorm different products or services to sell. The key to creating a niche product or service is to think about what your target audience wants or needs and then create a product to satisfy that need. So, if you were to create an online store selling fitness products, you might start by looking at the gear the people in your niche are using to get in shape. Why not create a product that provides functional fitness solutions for people who want to get in shape? And once you’ve got a product or service idea in your head, it’s time to move on to the next step.
STEP 3: Create A Product
The first step in creating a product is to pick a name for your product. You’ll also need to consider whether you want to create a physical product or an online one. There are pros and cons to both methods. If you go the physical product route, you’ll need to find a manufacturer who will help you get the product made and then market and sell it to your audience. If you go the online route, you’ll need to find a company who will help you get set up with a website, collect payments, and provide customer service.
STEP 4: Create A Landing Page
Once you’ve got a product ready to go, it’s time to create a landing page for it. A landing page is a web page that you create to attract customers to your product or service. When someone arrives at your landing page, they’ll know exactly what your product or service is and how to buy it. You can also use a tool like Google Adwords to start driving traffic to your landing page. Using tools like these, it’s possible to get traffic from across the web, social media, and more.
STEP 5: Test Different Promotions
Now that you’ve got a landing page for your product, it’s time to begin testing different promotions. What are you going to do differently to attract customers to your product? You can try various promaments to see what works best. Some experts suggest putting a Free Sample Box at the end of your web page. Having free samples in your offer can greatly increase your conversion rates. Why? Imagine someone visits your site, loves your product, and decides to buy it. However, you’ve put a form at the end of the page that requires the person to give their address to receive the product. Most likely, the person who visits your site will be discouraged by the form and leave without buying your product.
If you’ve defined your niche and found a product or service to sell, the next step is to create a landing page for it and begin testing different promotions to get leads and make sales.
STEP 6: Build A List
To make money online, you’ll need to build a list. What is a list? A list is a group of people who have given you their permission to email them about upcoming products and offers. If you were to create an email list for marketing purposes, you might end up with hundreds or thousands of people who want to hear about your product or service. Now, you can sell to this audience or market to people one-to-one using traditional marketing methods. You can also use tools like MailChimp or ConvertKit to easily build and manage email lists. Why? Building a list gives you credibility because people know you’ll be delivering value to them. Also, you can segment your email lists into groups based on interests to reach specific people with offers and products that suit their needs. One of the great things about email marketing is that you can do all of this from the convenience of your computer.
STEP 7: Measure Marketing Success
To determine the success of your marketing efforts, it’s essential to measure different metrics. Which metrics should you measure? Think about how you determined that this particular marketing method was successful. Was it website traffic? App downloads? Online surveys filled out by potential customers? Or all of these metrics combined?
Once you’ve determined the metric you’ll use to judge how successful your marketing is, you’ll need to track it. How do you track website traffic? Which social media platforms do your customers use? How about app downloads? Are you selling a digital or physical product?
To track the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts, you can use tools like Google Analytics to see the metrics from every angle. For example, if you wanted to see how many people came to your site, opened an email, and downloaded your product via a Google Play Store link, you can track those metrics separately in Google Analytics. This way, you’ll know exactly what parts of your online marketing campaign worked and which ones needed some work.
STEP 8: Build A Sales Funnel
Now that you’ve got your marketing plan in place and you’ve started to generate some leads, it’s time to build a sales funnel. What is a sales funnel? Think of a funnel as a line that begins at the top and leads to a smaller and smaller group of people as you move closer to the bottom. At the top of the funnel, you’ve got the people who want what you have to offer. At the bottom of the funnel, you’ve got the people who are the most suitable for buying your product.
To build a sales funnel, you’ll need a lead magnet, something clever and unique that will encourage someone to click on a link or button to be taken to the next step. For example, maybe you’re selling a product that helps businesses build their own websites. In that case, your lead magnet might be a free domain name with hosting plans. You then need to follow up with a promise of value, something that will keep them interested and engaged in what you have to say.
STEP 9: Identify Your Competition
Besides knowing your niche and having a clear idea of what you’re going to sell, you need to know who your competition is. This is especially important since you’re in the process of building a list. You don’t want to just sell to people already on your list because you don’t want to lose potential sales due to lack of knowledge about your competition.
To find your competition, look at comparable businesses within your niche. What are their prices? How are they presenting themselves? What are their customer service policies?
STEP 10: Identify The Best Way To Market And Sell Your Product
The final step is to figure out the best way to market and sell your product. How are you going to get the word out there? Where do you plan on spending your money? What are your plans for continuing to gain credibility as a thought leader in your niche?