3 Steps to Quickly Start Making Money With an Online Business It only requires remarkably few people on your email list to start making enough money to matter.
By Daniel DiPiazza Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
While 99 percent of the population is going to work every day, trading their time for money...there's a special group of "in the know" people who are waking up to a world of financial potential that most people don't know is possible.
There's a simple blueprint for making money with an online business.
1: Choose a great business idea, then start to build a website that attracts visitors.
Here's a quick tip to come up with a great business idea:Combine one of your ideas/hobbies/skills to find something that you care about and figure out how that can be used to solve another person's problem. Here's what to do: Create a simple website for pennies using Wordpress or Squarespace that advertises what you do, and/or the product you're offering. You don't need any web or tech skills to make this happen. Both resources have ready-to-install templates. You just need to know how to use the internet!
Use regular tools (like Facebook, Instagram, a blog, etc) to start driving people to your website. Nothing secret or tricky here. Just talk to your friends, family, and accessible networks and try to start solving their problems. Identify their pain points and then go about actively solving them. This will help you fine tune your idea.
Direct them to your site to pick up their free piece of value content that you've prepared for them. Which is the subject of Step 2…
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2: Offer visitors something free in exchange for their email address.
Create free, helpful content and ask visitors for an email address in exchange.
For example, you could offer a free 15-minute consultation, a tutorial video, a downloadable checklist, an infographic, a guide or other types of free content depending on your business and industry. The list is literally endless.
Add these people to an email list and keep building that list over time. Slow but steady wins the race. You can create HUGE results with a very small email list. I know this because I was able to quit my job with a list of about 500 members.
I know what you're thinking, so let me stress it again -- you don't have to be a "techie" or know any programming!! The website can be up and running in a day for less than $50. And you can use an email marketing solution like MailChimp to manage subscribers, send emails, and track results for free.
3. Turn those subscribers into customers by asking them to buy from you via email.
Now it's time to make money.
You can sell whatever you want -- a physical or digital product, a course, a service, or even coaching. It's all based on what's interesting to you, and what you think you can help your subscribers with the most.
After delivering a ton of free awesome content for a while (emailing your blog posts, YouTube videos, or whatever else you create), now you have the "right" to sell. Really, this means you have a core audience—no matter how small—who anticipates hearing from you, who reads or consumes your work, and who relates to your message.
This is huge.
These people, your Tribe, actually WANT to buy from you. They're eager for you to produce a real product because they trust you.
This satisfies our innate human instinct for reciprocity—but really it's because they think that what you offer is valuable, and an actual product puts a price to that value.
Here's an example how a simple idea can be turned into a $1,000/month online business:
Let's say you're a tutor who's really good at preparing students for the SAT/ACT college entrance exams.
That's a pretty in-demand skill set with a high hourly rate. But after a while, you might get burned out driving from house to house or teaching big classes.There are only so many hours in the day.
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There's an easier way.
Instead of having to go door-to-door teaching SAT, you could make a website that gave great SAT tips and strategies for free. Create a PDF guide of your top five proven strategies for raising test scores and, in exchange for their email addresses, give it away to visitors who visit your website.
Continue to build that list of email addresses over time. Your list is your money maker. Treat it with utmost care and respect. Always remember these are real people.
Behind the scenes, you build a simple six-week video course teaching lessons as if you were in front of a classroom.
(I don't want to hear you say you don't have the proper equipment!! All you need is an iPhone. Don't believe me? Casey Neistat is an acclaimed film director, producer and YouTube star with nearly two million subscribers. He films everything he produces on an iPhone. Yup.)
Once every month or two, send an email to your dedicated email list selling the course.
Every time you send, there's a good chance people will buy. As the list grows, more and more people will buy.
(Remember, you're still peppering them with juicy content in between each sales push. That's how they grow to love and respect you.)
If you priced the video series at just $97 (which is quite fair considering how much private tutoring costs) and sold just just 10 of those a video courses every month, you'd make a quick $1,000 automatically...every single month.
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From a TINY email list.
THAT IS LIFE-CHANGING.
That's enough money for you to take a vacation.
That's enough money to pay off student loans.
That's enough money to pay down your debt and finally start saving.
And that's what I mean. It doesn't take a lot.
From here, the sky's the limit. From here, the sky's the limit. You can easily tweak the "dials" of your internet business and 2x, 5x, 10x that money easily with a few changes.
Keep growing your list and try to imagine what's possible...
