How to earn 100K per year in one year! This article is for those who are interested in running a long term, profitable and secure online business and for those who understand the importance of sticking to a high level and proven strategy with logical progression along the way.
I am going to describe three steps that can take as little as a year that can set you financially free. It’s a high level strategy article – that means that the specifics of “how” you do everything I’m talking about is not covered (mainly because that would be a really, really long article) however there are some takeaway points that you can research and use to build up a lower level plan that fills in the details.
1 – Build Up A List And Sell Other People’s Products
Otherwise known as affiliate marketing, selling other people’s products is a great way to start building up a residual online income. Why? Because you don’t need to spend ages figuring out how to create your own product and you can start making money very quickly.
If you’re new to the game and don’t know a whole lot about marketing online then you can make a certain amount of money simply by directing traffic directly to a vendor sales page. This can be a powerful strategy, one that many people cashed in on a number of years ago with the “bum marketing method” (a strategy that involved writing article to send traffic to a sales page).
However, an infinitely more powerful strategy is to build up your list of subscribers. I won’t go into why it’s so important to build a mailing list – the advantages are well known – but this should be a priority. Start building a list of subscribers as soon as you can. You can then do product pitches via email.
One thing that affiliate marketers can struggle with is conversion. Today, I was speaking to somebody who had a shade under 200 people on his list, but hadn’t made a single conversion. That’s a sign that something is wrong with your marketing; either your traffic isn’t targeted or your sales pitches are naff. You need to take a close look at your business model and figure out which applies.
Here’s how to take your conversion to a whole new level: go to gotowebinar.com and learn how to do webinars. Seek out the product vendor and ask him/her to do a 1 hour online webinar to your subscribers. Make sure that you also record the webinar so that you can use the video as a message in your autoresponder series. I’m not exaggerating when I say that webinars can improve your conversion rate by 5 times. Stephen Essa (otherwise known as the webinar guy) often mentions that he can get conversion rates of up to 10% – that is MASSIVE.
2 – Make The Transition To Product Creator
The affiliate marketing model is powerful for the affiliate because he/she doesn’t have to spend ages of time creating a product. However, it is MUCH more powerful for product owners who have an army of affiliates to makes sales on their behalf. As soon as you are comfortable in your niche, have sufficient knowledge to be a voice of authority and have found a way in which you can add value then I highly recommend getting your own product out there into the marketplace.
Key points to remember when launching your product: Carry out significant market research (adding a survey to surveymonkey.com is a great start to get highly targeted feedback) and make sure that your product delivers answers to the questions that the majority have in your niche.
a. Want to convert at a higher percentage?
Look into making a video sales letter. These are going to be huge in 2010 and beyond with many more of the top marketers leveraging the power of video to bolster their conversion rates. Not sure how to make a video sales letter? Outsource the entire operation for a few hundred bucks. Remember, even the slightest difference in your conversion rate can mean massive changes to your bottom line, especially if you’re selling high value products and you’re getting huge amounts of traffic to your sales page.
b. Want to attract more affiliates?
Of course you do. You need to set up an affiliate scheme that makes people want to promote your product. This means creating promotional material such as creatives, brandable e-books, videos, sales letters and an autoresponder series. You need to make it as easy as possible for your affiliates to promote your product.
c. How to drive traffic to your sales page?
Get in touch with some people in your niche that have big lists and convince them to do a joint venture with you. E-mail them or phone them up and tell them that you have something that will help their subscribers and help them to make money for the time it takes to send an email.
Pro tip: If you’re going to do a joint venture to a sales page, make sure you put a popup opt-in box to catch as many names and email addresses as possible. Remember the key: always build your list.
3 – Finally, Recurring and Secure Monthly Income
You’re already making good money by now – you have income from the products you are affiliated with and your own product. Now it’s time to really leverage that into a long term and stable monthly income that will take your income to the next level.
How? Build a membership site and market the site to your huge (and growing all the time) list of subscribers. A fellow internet marketer who I’ve had great pleasure of meeting in person and working with created his membership site just one year ago and today he’s bringing over $30,000 monthly from that one income stream alone.
If you’re going to get involved in any sort of business, you really need a strategy, not just a plan. The strategy that I’ve outlined in this article really works (I’m using it right now) and so all you have to do now is break each section down into a clear and logical plan and apply consistent and intelligent action.
This article is written by guest author Paul McCarthy – he is passionate about all aspects of internet marketing and creating a residual income online for financial freedom. To learn more about making money online then be sure to go to paulmccarthy.co.uk. You can also write guest articles and share your expert affiliate marketing secrets.