It is far easier, cheaper and rewarding to start an online business than an offline one. The models we’ll look at in this article do not take a genius to start. Let’s get going:
**1. The Membership Site Internet Model – The internet has made accepting payment an automatic and hassle-free experience. When you set-up your own membership site you’re either offering premium information (ebooks, general content in a protected server, tutorials) or software on a particular theme or topic.
There is no shortage of potential topics for your membership site. It’s possible to charge anything from $10 to $500 per month depending on the quality and perceived value of your protected contents.
The benefits of setting up a membership site are huge. For instance your overheads are practically zero, you can deal with pure content that is delivered digitally and (the holy grail of earning online) you are assured regular residual income, month after month.
However, you do need to be very well organised – plan your publishing schedule for the entire month (and note down your long term objectives for the site too). You will also have to ensure you can provide quality content month after month and will need some degree of technical know-how in setting up a protected site (although these days you can purchase point and click software that will do all the work for you).
The possibilities for the membership site business model are endless – with several niches offering customer bases that run into the millions there is always space for a quality niche membership site.
**2. The SUPER AFFILIATE Model – You may have heard the term “super affiliate” or “super associate” before. What exactly do these terms mean? A super affiliate is someone who is extremely good at selling other people’s products or services.
The advantage of the super affiliate model is that you spend no time on creating the product or customer service issues. You simply have a method of getting traffic to quality sites and enjoying the sales commissions generated. The biggest challenge faced by affiliates is that for a good product they are competing against tens, hundreds and sometimes even thousands of other competitors.
So how do you get past the competition? You do two things – first create your own unique sales promotion tools (for example a viral special report), and you also offer customers special bonuses that they can only get when purchasing through your affiliate link. These two pointers will go a long way towards making you a super-affiliate.
Affiliate commissions vary in size – paying anywhere from just 5% to even 90%. As an affiliate you should determine which products to promote and create a plan for them. Here’s a very strong tip – promote as many products as you can that pay a monthly recurring commission. This way you get paid for months (or years) after the initial sale.
**3. The eBay Power-seller Model – eBay boasts monthly page views that numbers in the billions. Think about that for a second – it’s a HUGE base of targeted prospects and you can use this to set-up a thriving online business.
As always you need a plan of attack. What will you sell? Will you stock physical products or opt for a drop-ship solution. How will you accept payment?
One important consideration on eBay is developing a “unique selling point” – this is something that makes you different from your competition and can be the difference between luke-warm income and turbo-charged profits. It’s worth spending a considerable amount of time planning your USP.
If you’re selling a physical product can you combine that with a unique info-product about that niche? It’s really quite simple to produce an eBook or purchase the rights to one and offer it as a high value bonus to those who bid on your product. Do you notice that I said “bid” and not “buy”? Why? Because if you promise a copy of the info-product to all bidders you will generate more bids and (the best part) assuming your product is branded with your site/ebay store you will drive targeted traffic to it. Simple yet very effective.
So we’ve looked at three internet business models that you can implement quickly for surefire profits. Believe me, this is only scratching the surface – as you establish yourself online and learn more you will discover that there are many more simple methods of creating several powerful income streams online. Stay focused, have a quality blueprint to guide you and you will do far better than you ever imagined possible.
Best of luck!