Like millions of Americans, I found myself jobless during the pandemic. At first I was fired as a waitress. I then started working for myself as an online fitness trainer, but running a business required 10 hours a day and I was only earning $ 1,000 to $ 2,000 a month.
So in July 2021, I decided to orient myself. I gained my entrepreneurial experience and started using my TikTok and Instagram accounts to market wealth building tools and online programs. By October, the business had started and my followers on TikTok grew to more than 40,000. Since then, I have earned about $ 8,000 a month in passive income through commissions from my affiliate posts, including those that are several months old and repeated subscriptions to my educational programs. I now only work two hours a day, mostly posting on social media.
When people ask me how they can create a passive income-generating business, I tell them there is a lot of work to be done in the beginning, but this is rewarded in the long run. Here are my best tips:
1. Automate your business
To make passive income, set up automated systems at the beginning of your business. This will save you a lot of time because your most essential tasks will be executed by autopilot.
Create a product that requires limited maintenance
I started my entrepreneurial journey as a personal trainer. But I found that selling a one-on-one coaching service meant I was always wasting my time for money. To make a passive income, you need to offer a product that does not require so much energy to create and distribute the product.
Becoming an affiliate marketer solved that problem; I currently sell products and services from other brands that I do not need to submit myself. The goal is to create a product once and sell it for a long time with limited maintenance. Some examples: digital courses, community subscriptions and online applications.
Automatically generate sales leads
This is the process that a customer experiences before making a purchase. With my business, customers find me on social media, then they go through my sales channel: They subscribe to my email list and are sent product offers there. I have a system set up on my website that creates sales channels for me; customers are automatically added to my email list and acquainted with the products without having to do anything.
Set up an automatic email response
The "Rule of Seven" is one of the oldest rules in marketing. Based on the research of Dr. Jeffrey Lant, says you need to contact a potential customer seven times in 18 months before they are ready to buy a product.
But these days, with so many online ads, you may need to contact potential customers even more often to make a sale. I use Aweber to automatically send daily emails to potential customers who have not purchased my product until they purchase or unsubscribe. I've seen other business owners use GetResponse and Mailchimp to send automated emails.
2. Do not try to reinvent the wheel
I see a lot of people trying hard to completely reinvent the wheel with social media posts to put their business in the spotlight. But after reaching 109,000 TikTok followers, I learned that the key to going viral and growing your audience is to study what works for others. Sure, you want to be original, but you have to post content that people already find interesting.
Use this process to set your turn on social media posts:
Study what other people in your area are talking about. For example, if you are selling wellness products, is there any particular conversation going on in the health space that you can add or questions that people always ask in the comments section, to which you can answer ? Use this knowledge to determine your message or what information and tips you will share.
Pay attention to the formats used. Are your successful competitors posting lots of stories? Are their subtitles long, or does the content in the post speak for itself? Consider the formats that resonate and think about how you can do something similar.
Save the sounds and hashtags you are seeing on the platform where you are working. Add these elements to your target format to get your message across to as many people as possible.
3. Focus on solving a problem
The main goal of any business is to sell a product or service. But after all, nobody cares what you sell - people care about their goals, their dreams and their problems. You want to indirectly market your product in a way that highlights how it can help meet the needs of your audience or help them achieve a goal.
4. To sell to your audience, engage directly with them
Individual posts on Instagram or TikTok are great for providing value and entertaining your audience, but it is almost impossible for your audience to recognize you through these curated posts. It is important to have a connection with your audience. As people learn who you are, they begin to believe what you are saying and what you are selling, which will lead to more sales. I engage directly with my audience by responding to their comments and messages, or by appearing live on Instagram and TikTok. This gives me a chance to establish a personal connection with them through a real conversation.
5. Be selective about what you promote
If you are planning to start a marketing business, these are the main things I recommend you look for:
High Gravity: Gravity means the number of people actively promoting the product. If this number is high, you know the product is good.
Low refund rate: If a product has a high refund rate, it means a lot of people have been unhappy with it, so you want to avoid these. Promoting products with high reimbursement rates can lower your audience's confidence in you.
Recurring Subscriptions: These are the best types of products to promote because you will receive a commission fee every month whenever a subscriber renews his subscription.
Positive reviews: I always look to Google for reviews of affiliate programs before I decide to promote them. I want to make sure it is a widely liked product. I also sell products that I have personally liked.
/ cnbc / BM /
