• Nov 3

    You have infinite number of choices on what you can sell. Here are the main categories.

    · Your own products and/or services.

    · Someone else’s products and/or services.

    Research has proven that you will make more money with your own product or service. If you have one, great! Keep reading to learn how to promote your product.

    For those that don’t already have a product or service to sell, step 1 for you is Research. Start with an idea. Say you want to sell beauty care products. What you need is a wholesale supplier, preferably one that dropships to your customers so that you don’t have to stock inventory. Or, you could work out a contract with a local beauty care center in your area to sell their products online for them. Many small retail stores do not have the time to get setup online. Your job then would be to sell them on your resell services. Just remember, keep it simple! Do not over think this, just start small and remember that you can always make changes along the way. The hardest part for most people in any new venture is just to get started! Remember, just do something everyday, even it is small, that grows your business.

    One way to research for products is to brainstorm. List the different types of businesses or products that you have a personal interest in. The list could contain anything from carpentry to printing, fishing gear to picnic supplies. Whatever comes to mind, write it down! Next, you will need to research the viability of obtaining your products at the right price and being able to sell them at a profit. One great resource is to use the OneSource online product sourcing tool from World Wide Brands. Chris Malta has been an online marketer for many years. He offers a free eBook on his sight that tells all the ins and outs of reselling products online. I have used his services for years and have watched as he has evolved his business. He is legitimate and offers the most complete resource for finding drop ship and wholesale suppliers online. Take your list, visit World Wide Brands and look for suppliers. Make sure to research the companies by visiting their websites. Look for their physical location, although not really important if you are drop shipping, to see how far they are from you. Also, check their policy page and make sure you understand them for each company does things a little different.

    Just to put all the misinformation to rest, you will have to invest some money and time into your online business. That is, if you want to be successful. There are sites that you can get into for free. These companies will give you a nice pretty site with tons of products, but you still have to promote it. Now, that being said, there are ways to make money online without investing a lot of money. The hardest and longest road to selling products online is producing your own. This takes a lot of time and a lot of money, usually. Less severe is taking the online resale approach as I described above by reselling products you buy at a wholesale price. The last option is the best and least costly for beginners. This approach is what is known as affiliate marketing. This is very similar to the above method of selling someone else’s products for a profit, only affiliate marketing usually entails selling an information product like an ebook by referring others to a site where you will get credit for the sale if they buy the product and then collect a commission. Remember what I said about keeping it simple and starting out small?

    The affiliate marketing method can be used for almost any product or service on your list. Visit most websites today and you can find a link on their main page that invites you to become an ‘affiliate.’ This is your opportunity to get into an online business with very little effort or money. Beware! Don’t be drawn into the sites that charge a fee to become an affiliate, most are scams. To pick a legitimate affiliate program that you can use to make money, look for the presence of a legitimate business structure, quality products that are useful and priced well according to their value, and one that provides resources and tools to help with marketing. Following these standards of scrutiny will ensure that you have a quality product that is ready to sell.

    Once you have found your product, whatever it is, there are many more steps to take before you will make money. The next step will be to look at setting up your business with a professional name and image and determining what else you will need to start your business

  • Oct 18

    Internet spending is an all time high and set to break new records every year. With the advent of new markets and new opportunities today is the best time to make money online at home with affiliate programs. It’s a fun job with no risks involved and you get to see fast results. All you have to do is to refer internet visitors to merchant web sites. In order to do this, you get free training, free web sites, SEO, professional sales copies and a creative department working for you 24/7!

    Of course, you also need a few tips on the dos and don’ts of what makes a successful marketer. There are a few things that can help your business grow and also help you make the most of today’s Internet spending craze. The most important thing of all is to know who your customers are. It may seem like a silly idea – you certainly want everybody to be your customer, but this won’t happen too soon. You need to pick a viable niche in terms of both numbers and buying power.

    Once you’ve found this niche you have to understand your customers. Are they emotional buyers, analytical buyers, “what’s-in-it-for me” buyers or fact freaks? There are many types of customers in your niche and although sometimes the products you market can help you shape your business, this is not always the case and you should not rely on other people to give you hints.

    Examples of customers would include:

    - Emotional Buyers: first-time mothers looking for safety items for their babies.

    - Analytical Buyers: people who need to know every detail of the product they intend to buy, like where it was manufactured, by what company, what kind of materials and technology it incorporates, etc. If you fail to provide the details they need, they will go look for someone who can do that.

    - What’s-in-it-for-me Buyers: the bargain hunters. They want to know what your product can do for them and you have to tell them all the facts as soon as they lay eyes on your web pages. They don’t need anything extra, all they want is to be sure they are getting the best value for their money and, if possible, a discount.

    - Fact Freaks: Obsessed with being sure your products are as good as you claim they are. You will need hard evidence to support every claim you make. Reviews by well known independent web sites are great and so are testimonials and independent tests with the results published in important magazines and newspapers.

    The good affiliate programs will provide you with almost everything you could wish for. You’ll have your free web site(s) personalized for you. You’ll have access to tons of articles to use on the web sites. If you need an SEO expert, you’ll get one in the blink of an eye. And although it’s hard to believe, affiliate programs do offer a totally “no risk – fast results” opportunity to make money online working from home.

    But nobody will do the job for you. And your only job is to know and understand your customers. This is the only important thing when it comes to marketing, be it online or offline.