But What Do I sell?
| Category: Home Based Business - Getting Started | Date: 2003-06-18 |
So, you want to start your own online business. You know you have to create your own website, start your own ezine and generate traffic to your site before you can make sales.
So far so good. But ... sales of what, exactly? What do you sell?
Fortunately, the options are many and varied. Basically, though, everything falls into one of two categories ... products or services. Were going to take a closer look at
a few relatively easy options.
=> PRODUCTS
What kinds of products can you sell from your website assuming you dont already have something available? Your best bet is anything that can be delivered digitally
such as software and information products.
When it comes to selling software or information products, you have four basic choices:
1. you can create your own product from scratch, e.g., by writing a software program, a cgi script or an e-book;
2. you can join affiliate programs and sell products already created by other people and earn a commission for every sale;
3. you can join a multi-level marketing (or network marketing) plan; or
4. you can acquire resell rights for products already created by other people and keep 100% of the profit.
Option 1. is a must-do. Eventually. But when youre itching to get started, you dont want to have to wait the 3 or 4 months it takes you to write your ebook before you
can launch your online business.
Option 2. is great for a quick start but youre working on commission. Someone else is getting the lions share of the profit for your hard work.
Option 3. is a good choice if youre a natural networker. For more information about MLM and whether it might be right for you, check out "Not MLM! ... Why Ever Not?" at http://www.ahbbo.com/notmlm.html .
Option 4. (along with option 3.) is where the real money is, at least compared to option 2. Acquire the resale rights as well as the product and youre not working on commission any more -- youre working for serious profit. Where do you go to acquire products that can be delivered digitally with full resale rights? There are several
good sources but here are a few tried and true sources, each excellent places to start:
eBookPublications
http://www.ahbbo.com/ebookpublications.html
eBookWholesaler
http://www.ahbbo.com/ebookwholesaler.html
FreeToSell
http://www.ahbbo.com/freetosell.html
=> SERVICES
What kinds of services can you sell from your website? How about advertising space in your ezine or on your website? How about a members-only area of your site, access to which requires payment of a membership fee?
=> Advertising Space
Since you really need to be publishing an ezine on a regular basis to stay in contact with, and generate, web site visitors, it makes sense to make money from something
you already have to do anyway. Selling advertising space is a good evenue-generator.
Dont try selling your ad space until you have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers or so. Until you get to that point by all means offer free ads in your ezine though. Thats a good way to generate subscribers and get your readers used to seeing ads in your publication. Ad swapping with other publishers during this period (and beyond) is also a good way to generate new subscribers.
Once you reach the 1,000 mark, you can start offering your ad space for sale. The days when you could publish an ezine with a classified ad section of 20 or 30 ads are long gone. Ezine readers are much more savvy and discerning and, as a result, ezine advertisers are much more selective and will look for ezines that run few ads and which place them strategically amongst the content, or "meat" of the ezine
itself rather than being stuck in a great glob that nobody reads at the end.
Think also about sending solo mailings to your list as another source of revenue. Be particularly circumspect when it comes to these mailings, however. Solo mailings
are very effective when targeted to the right audience and so advertisers love them. Ezine subscribers have varying attitudes towards them though. Some will immediately unsubscribe from an ezine that sends solo mailings. Consider it a cost of doing business. Others will accept them so long as the ezine itself is worth receiving.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to pricing your ads. Basically, you want to achieve some measure of equilibrium between supply and demand. If you have more demand for your ad space than supply, increase your prices until demand is in line with supply, do not increase the number of ads. The more ads you run, the more you dilute their effectiveness for your advertisers and the less likely your advertisers are to place repeat business with you. In other words, by taking a short-term increase in profits, you sacrifice the longer-term profitability of your business. Youre cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Conversely, if you cant sell all your ad space, reduce your prices. Try and get to a price point where the demand for your ad space is roughly equal to your supply. If you have an occasional ad spot vacant, dont worry - just run an ad of your own instead. But if you regularly find yourself with half your ad inventory unsold and youre not running an excessive number of ads, this is a signal your ads are overpriced and its time to reduce your prices or make the strategic decision to run your own ads instead of others. In fact, in many instances youll make more money from your ad space by advertising your own products and services than you will from selling the ad space itself.
How to set your price? As I said above, theres no hard and fast rule. Whatever brings about equilibrium between supply and demand. I used to charge $5 per 1,000 subscribers for a single classified but found that as my subscriber base grew, along with my ad prices, this formula didnt maintain equilibrium between supply and demand. Now my single ad prices are somewhere between $2.50 and $3.00 per 1,000 subscribers. Experiment with your own prices until you find the right formula for your
publication.
Your pricing will also be influenced by how specific or general your target market is. If you publish an ezine on a relatively esoteric subject with a small but highly targeted
market, youll be able to sell your ad space for a higher price than you will if you publish an ezine on a really general subject (such as "internet marketing") with an extremely large but also undifferentiated market. For this reason, its not the size of your list that dictates your advertising pricing, but rather how targeted your list is to the subject matter of your ezine and your advertisers products and services.
Similar principles apply when it comes to selling advertising space on your web site.
Bottom line: advertisers want and will pay for results, not how many subscribers you have on your list.
=> Paid Subscriptions
Paid subscriptions are another good way of generating income, whether they be for your ezine or web site.
A great resource if you want to go this route with your ezine is Monique Harris Paperless Newsletter (see http://www.ahbbo.com/paperlessnewsletter.html ).
As far as your website is concerned, by utilizing password protection you can effectively cordon off areas of your website for paying members only. This requires some technical set-up but your webhost will generally offer some sort of basic password protection capability. For more advanced systems, youll need to get hold of a specially- designed cgi script for this function.
When it comes to pricing your subscription services, although no doubt there are exceptions to the rule, the better approach is to charge a monthly access fee rather
than an annual fee. A monthly structure allows you to set a relatively low initial price, thereby making the decision to sign up more of a no-brainer for your subscriber, and it also gives you a recurring monthly income. Its also possible to charge more overall than you could under an annual structure. For example, most people would not hesitate to pay, say, $9.95 for monthly access to a site they perceive as valuable, especially knowing they can cancel at any time. But those same people may hesitate if that initial investment was $120 ($9.95 multiplied by 12 months).
With the appropriate payment processor and software, subscription fees can be set up to be automatically charged to your subscribers credit card each month unless and until they cancel.
=> THE ROLE OF CONTENT
These are just a few of the options available to you to generate income from your own online business. The bottom line with respect to all of them though is the quality of your content. It doesnt matter how good your product line is if people have no reason to visit your site in the first place.
So, put first things first. Pick a subject matter for your site that you are passionate about. Do the hard work of creating a truly valuable resource for people interested in
the same thing. Publicize it to death. Publish an ezine on the topic, again with high quality content, to draw them to and, more importantly, BACK to, your site again and again and again. Then, and only then, will you have a chance to get your product or service in front of them. Then, and only then, will you have a chance to make the sale.
Theres no disputing that the main reason we go into business is to make money. If you dont have this as your objective, then youre engaging in a hobby, not running a business. But when it comes to doing business online, the reality is that you have to give before you can get. So give your site visitors what theyre looking for. Do that and theyll visit you again and again and refer their friends. Do that and youll actually
have customers to sell your products to. Dont do that and, although you may have the greatest product or service in the world, no-one but you will ever know about it.
------
** Reprinting of this article is welcome! **
This article may be freely reproduced provided that: (1) you include the following resource box; and (2) you only mail to a 100% opt-in list.
Heres the resource box to use if reprinting this article:
© 2002 Elena Fawkner
About the author.
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ...practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the work-from-home entrepreneur.
ahbbo.com
jan@ahbbo.com
http://www.ahbbo.com
So far so good. But ... sales of what, exactly? What do you sell?
Fortunately, the options are many and varied. Basically, though, everything falls into one of two categories ... products or services. Were going to take a closer look at
a few relatively easy options.
=> PRODUCTS
What kinds of products can you sell from your website assuming you dont already have something available? Your best bet is anything that can be delivered digitally
such as software and information products.
When it comes to selling software or information products, you have four basic choices:
1. you can create your own product from scratch, e.g., by writing a software program, a cgi script or an e-book;
2. you can join affiliate programs and sell products already created by other people and earn a commission for every sale;
3. you can join a multi-level marketing (or network marketing) plan; or
4. you can acquire resell rights for products already created by other people and keep 100% of the profit.
Option 1. is a must-do. Eventually. But when youre itching to get started, you dont want to have to wait the 3 or 4 months it takes you to write your ebook before you
can launch your online business.
Option 2. is great for a quick start but youre working on commission. Someone else is getting the lions share of the profit for your hard work.
Option 3. is a good choice if youre a natural networker. For more information about MLM and whether it might be right for you, check out "Not MLM! ... Why Ever Not?" at http://www.ahbbo.com/notmlm.html .
Option 4. (along with option 3.) is where the real money is, at least compared to option 2. Acquire the resale rights as well as the product and youre not working on commission any more -- youre working for serious profit. Where do you go to acquire products that can be delivered digitally with full resale rights? There are several
good sources but here are a few tried and true sources, each excellent places to start:
eBookPublications
http://www.ahbbo.com/ebookpublications.html
eBookWholesaler
http://www.ahbbo.com/ebookwholesaler.html
FreeToSell
http://www.ahbbo.com/freetosell.html
=> SERVICES
What kinds of services can you sell from your website? How about advertising space in your ezine or on your website? How about a members-only area of your site, access to which requires payment of a membership fee?
=> Advertising Space
Since you really need to be publishing an ezine on a regular basis to stay in contact with, and generate, web site visitors, it makes sense to make money from something
you already have to do anyway. Selling advertising space is a good evenue-generator.
Dont try selling your ad space until you have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers or so. Until you get to that point by all means offer free ads in your ezine though. Thats a good way to generate subscribers and get your readers used to seeing ads in your publication. Ad swapping with other publishers during this period (and beyond) is also a good way to generate new subscribers.
Once you reach the 1,000 mark, you can start offering your ad space for sale. The days when you could publish an ezine with a classified ad section of 20 or 30 ads are long gone. Ezine readers are much more savvy and discerning and, as a result, ezine advertisers are much more selective and will look for ezines that run few ads and which place them strategically amongst the content, or "meat" of the ezine
itself rather than being stuck in a great glob that nobody reads at the end.
Think also about sending solo mailings to your list as another source of revenue. Be particularly circumspect when it comes to these mailings, however. Solo mailings
are very effective when targeted to the right audience and so advertisers love them. Ezine subscribers have varying attitudes towards them though. Some will immediately unsubscribe from an ezine that sends solo mailings. Consider it a cost of doing business. Others will accept them so long as the ezine itself is worth receiving.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to pricing your ads. Basically, you want to achieve some measure of equilibrium between supply and demand. If you have more demand for your ad space than supply, increase your prices until demand is in line with supply, do not increase the number of ads. The more ads you run, the more you dilute their effectiveness for your advertisers and the less likely your advertisers are to place repeat business with you. In other words, by taking a short-term increase in profits, you sacrifice the longer-term profitability of your business. Youre cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Conversely, if you cant sell all your ad space, reduce your prices. Try and get to a price point where the demand for your ad space is roughly equal to your supply. If you have an occasional ad spot vacant, dont worry - just run an ad of your own instead. But if you regularly find yourself with half your ad inventory unsold and youre not running an excessive number of ads, this is a signal your ads are overpriced and its time to reduce your prices or make the strategic decision to run your own ads instead of others. In fact, in many instances youll make more money from your ad space by advertising your own products and services than you will from selling the ad space itself.
How to set your price? As I said above, theres no hard and fast rule. Whatever brings about equilibrium between supply and demand. I used to charge $5 per 1,000 subscribers for a single classified but found that as my subscriber base grew, along with my ad prices, this formula didnt maintain equilibrium between supply and demand. Now my single ad prices are somewhere between $2.50 and $3.00 per 1,000 subscribers. Experiment with your own prices until you find the right formula for your
publication.
Your pricing will also be influenced by how specific or general your target market is. If you publish an ezine on a relatively esoteric subject with a small but highly targeted
market, youll be able to sell your ad space for a higher price than you will if you publish an ezine on a really general subject (such as "internet marketing") with an extremely large but also undifferentiated market. For this reason, its not the size of your list that dictates your advertising pricing, but rather how targeted your list is to the subject matter of your ezine and your advertisers products and services.
Similar principles apply when it comes to selling advertising space on your web site.
Bottom line: advertisers want and will pay for results, not how many subscribers you have on your list.
=> Paid Subscriptions
Paid subscriptions are another good way of generating income, whether they be for your ezine or web site.
A great resource if you want to go this route with your ezine is Monique Harris Paperless Newsletter (see http://www.ahbbo.com/paperlessnewsletter.html ).
As far as your website is concerned, by utilizing password protection you can effectively cordon off areas of your website for paying members only. This requires some technical set-up but your webhost will generally offer some sort of basic password protection capability. For more advanced systems, youll need to get hold of a specially- designed cgi script for this function.
When it comes to pricing your subscription services, although no doubt there are exceptions to the rule, the better approach is to charge a monthly access fee rather
than an annual fee. A monthly structure allows you to set a relatively low initial price, thereby making the decision to sign up more of a no-brainer for your subscriber, and it also gives you a recurring monthly income. Its also possible to charge more overall than you could under an annual structure. For example, most people would not hesitate to pay, say, $9.95 for monthly access to a site they perceive as valuable, especially knowing they can cancel at any time. But those same people may hesitate if that initial investment was $120 ($9.95 multiplied by 12 months).
With the appropriate payment processor and software, subscription fees can be set up to be automatically charged to your subscribers credit card each month unless and until they cancel.
=> THE ROLE OF CONTENT
These are just a few of the options available to you to generate income from your own online business. The bottom line with respect to all of them though is the quality of your content. It doesnt matter how good your product line is if people have no reason to visit your site in the first place.
So, put first things first. Pick a subject matter for your site that you are passionate about. Do the hard work of creating a truly valuable resource for people interested in
the same thing. Publicize it to death. Publish an ezine on the topic, again with high quality content, to draw them to and, more importantly, BACK to, your site again and again and again. Then, and only then, will you have a chance to get your product or service in front of them. Then, and only then, will you have a chance to make the sale.
Theres no disputing that the main reason we go into business is to make money. If you dont have this as your objective, then youre engaging in a hobby, not running a business. But when it comes to doing business online, the reality is that you have to give before you can get. So give your site visitors what theyre looking for. Do that and theyll visit you again and again and refer their friends. Do that and youll actually
have customers to sell your products to. Dont do that and, although you may have the greatest product or service in the world, no-one but you will ever know about it.
------
** Reprinting of this article is welcome! **
This article may be freely reproduced provided that: (1) you include the following resource box; and (2) you only mail to a 100% opt-in list.
Heres the resource box to use if reprinting this article:
© 2002 Elena Fawkner
About the author.
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ...practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the work-from-home entrepreneur.
ahbbo.com
jan@ahbbo.com
http://www.ahbbo.com
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