According to the research that covers the timespan between 1994 and 2020:

• More than 30% of new small businesses in the United States fail within the first two years.
• More than 50% fail within the first five years.
• More than 65% fail within the first ten years.

Meanwhile, for startups, the situation is even more grim: their failure rate is 90%. On the flipside, around 1.5% of them go on to have a $50M+ exit.

If you don’t want your company to end up in the graveyard of failed businesses, you should ask yourself: how can you build something that lasts?

Today we are going to share ten strategies for sustainable business growth that can help you with that!

#1: Create an Amazing Product or Service

Your core product or service is the foundation of your business.

Attempting to grow your company with a low-quality core product or service is like building a house on shaky ground. It might work for a while but it will inevitably collapse, rendering all your effort wasted.

That’s why your first priority should be creating an amazing product or service. In theory, this may seem obvious, but in practice, very few entrepreneurs do that.

If you take time to focus on quality before you start pursuing growth, you’ll almost certainly have an advantage over your competitors who went straight for the latter. But how can you tell if your product or service is good enough?

You’ll know once you start getting overwhelmingly positive customer feedback. Otherwise, even though it may be hard to admit, the chances are that your product or service is simply mediocre. And if that’s the case, your business is not ready for growth yet!

#2: Package Your Product or Service Into an Irresistible Offer

If you want to make sales, it’s not enough to have an amazing product or service, you also need to package it into an irresistible offer. But how can you do that?

Here’s our irresistible offer formula:

Low Price + High Value – Financial Risk = Irresistible Offer

This means that you can make your offer more appealing by:

• Reducing its price – Ideally, you should charge less than your competitors. However, if your price is super low, potential customers might assume that it indicates low quality and choose to go with a more expensive option instead. So don’t go overboard with it!
• Increasing its value – You can do that by throwing in bonuses that don’t cost much to you but provide value to the customer. Digital goods such as cheat sheets, eBooks, videos, etc. work best for this because they have insanely high profit margins.
• Removing financial risk – Either offer a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee or find a way to tie your pricing to measurable results.

Ideally, you want to do all three, which will make your offer stand out from the competition!

#3: Use Cold Outreach to Get Your First Customers

We would argue that if you are just starting out, the best way to get your first customers is cold outreach:

• Cold calling
• Cold email
• Cold DMs

Ultimately, this low-cost, time-consuming customer acquisition strategy is a numbers game: if you make 100 cold calls, send 100 cold emails, or reach out to 100 people via social media DMs every day, sooner or later you’ll start making sales.

(Obviously, it’s not enough to just contact someone and let them know about your product or service, you should also continue following up with them until you get a clear yes or no answer.)

There’s something that our friend Alex Hormozi calls the “Rule of 100” that can be helpful here: do 100 primary actions per day for 100 days straight.

In this case, do 100 cold reachouts per day for 100 days straight, which should take you around 4 hours every day.

This will add up to a total of 10,000 reachouts, which should be enough to get things going!

#4: Acquire as Much Social Proof as You Possibly Can

Once you start making some sales, you want to proactively solicit customer feedback and then ask happy customers for testimonials.

Ideally, these testimonials should include that person’s photo, their full name, and a quote from them that mentions a specific result that your product or service has helped them achieve.

Also, consider taking your most impressive testimonials and turning them into full-blown case studies if those customers are down for it.

Your goal should be to acquire as many testimonials and case studies as you possibly can so that you can then leverage that social proof to increase your conversion rates across your entire sales funnel.

There’s no need to wait until you have a ton of it, though: the moment you get a decent testimonial, you should leverage it by featuring it on your website, sharing it on your social media, and including it in your cold emails.

The power of social proof cannot be overstated so don’t hesitate to use whatever you have, even if it isn’t something particularly impressive!

#5: Allocate Time for Building Traffic-Generating Assets

Once you establish a steady stream of revenue with cold outreach, you want to take a look at your schedule and allocate some time every week for:

• Social media marketing
• Email marketing (newsletter)
• Video marketing (YouTube and TikTok)

We recommend focusing on building a social media following first, then leveraging it to grow an email newsletter and then finally leveraging them both to grow YouTube and TikTok channels.

Building these digital assets will take time but if you stick with it, it’s going to be worth it because eventually, you’ll be able to use them to generate free traffic for your business!

#6: Build a Value Ladder Sales Funnel for Your Business

A sales funnel is a system designed to convert visitors into leads, leads into customers and customers into repeat customers.

We believe that the best way to sell anything online is to create a Value Ladder sales funnel and drive traffic to it. That’s how we grew our software company to nine figures!

Here’s how it works:

1. You offer the potential customer a freebie known as a lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
2. You then pitch them increasingly more valuable and expensive offers via email.
3. You also set up some sort of continuity program that enables you to generate recurring revenue.

Whatever it is that you sell – services, physical products, digital products, software, memberships, you name it – the Value Ladder sales funnel can help you sell more of it!

#7: Maximize Customer Lifetime Value With Downsells, Upsells and Cross Sells

Bait, Frontend, Middle, and Backend offers are the core offers that you should create first.

Then, if you want to maximize customer lifetime value (CLV), you should add three types of additional offers to them:

1. Downsells – This is something that you pitch to the potential customer after they have rejected your initial offer. It should be a downgrade on it.
2. Upsells – This is something that you pitch to the potential customer after they have accepted your initial offer. It should be an upgrade on it.
3. Cross sells – This is also something that you pitch to the potential customer after they have accepted your initial offer, but instead of being an upgrade on it, it should be complementary to it.

For example, McDonald’s used to have its infamous “Would you like to supersize that?” upsell and is still using its equally well-known “Would you like fries with that?” cross sell. 

Think about it: if the potential customer is at the counter about to buy food, they are probably hungry. So it’s the perfect time to pitch them more food!

You want to do the same thing in your sales funnel. The best time to sell someone more stuff is when they have already decided to buy something from you and are about to proceed to the checkout. 

As for the downsells, if the potential customer has made it to the sales page of your initial offer, it means that they were at least somewhat interested in it, even if they ended up rejecting it. So why not pitch them something similar but cheaper? You have nothing to lose at that point anyway!

Adding downsells, upsells and cross sells to your sales funnel can help you increase your customer lifetime value (CLV).

That will enable you to afford higher customer acquisition cost (CAC), which can give you a competitive edge.

Remember: as Dan Kennedy put it, whoever can spend the most to acquire a customer, wins!

#8: Learn How to Run Paid Ads and Start Driving Paid Traffic to Your Value Ladder Sales Funnel

We recommend waiting until your business is consistently generating profit and then reinvesting that money into learning how to run paid ads.

Which platform you should advertise on is going to depend on your business model but if you can’t decide, Facebook ads can work well for the vast majority of businesses.

Find a reputable Udemy course that focuses on your platform of choice and then go through the entire thing. You can wait for the next sale if you want a discount.

Then, start playing with small ad campaigns just to get the hang of how it all works, with a daily budget of maybe $5-10. This approach should help you learn the basics of paid advertising without losing a ton of money.

Once you have mastered the basics and built up some confidence, create an ad campaign for your lead magnet and start optimizing it.

Finally, once you get to the point where your lead magnet ad campaign is consistently profitable, start gradually scaling it by reinvesting some of its profits back into it!

#9: Prioritize Customer Retention Over Customer Acquisition

We have noticed that entrepreneurs often make the mistake of prioritizing customer acquisition over customer retention because the former is exciting and the latter can be kind of boring.

However, this can create a leaky bucket situation where your business stagnates despite you pouring a ton of resources into customer acquisition because you can’t keep the customers you already have. So what can you do to avoid that?

• Proactively solicit customer feedback – Make sure to talk to not just happy but also neutral and even unhappy customers. That will help you get different perspectives, identify what needs to be improved, and calibrate your ad targeting.
• Prioritize what’s important to your customers – If customers keep asking for a specific feature, that’s what you should add to your product next, not something that you think would be cool that no one actually wants.
• Provide excellent customer support – Let your customers know how to contact you if they need help, explain when they should expect a response and make sure to respond within that timeframe.

You can also increase customer retention by using a weekly newsletter to stay top of mind with them. If you want to learn more about this, read our article “How to Grow an Email List from Scratch”.

#10: Scale Strategically Instead of Chasing Growth at All Costs!

It’s important to understand that scaling too early can cripple your business. So how can you know if your company is ready?

First of all, you want to wait until you start seeing a steady increase in sales that cannot be attributed to an increased marketing spend.

For example, if you have been spending $1,000 per month on marketing for the last six months and your sales have been steadily increasing during that time, that’s a good sign.

This pattern indicates that your business has positive word-of-mouth, meaning that your customers are so happy with your product or service that they are recommending it to other people. That’s the most likely source of these unexplained sales.

Meanwhile, the reverse pattern where you are spending more and more money on marketing but your sales are declining indicates negative word-of-mouth. Not only are your customers not happy with your product or service but they are also warning other people not to buy it. If you start scaling in that situation, you might end up completely ruining your brand!

Next, before you start scaling, you want to streamline your business workflow by automating everything that can be automated and developing standard operating procedures (SOPs) for everything else. This can help you save a lot of money because you’ll be able to achieve the same results with fewer employees.

Then, you want to use historical data to create sales projections and model various scenarios. This will help you get a better idea of what’s possible. We recommend reading our article “Sales Forecasting Methods – The Complete Beginner’s Guide”

Finally, you should set a realistic sales target, create a plan for achieving it, and then start scaling your business by gradually increasing your marketing spend, which should result in a corresponding increase in sales.

Just make sure that your company is prepared to handle the new sales volume!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade. Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

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P.S. Here’s What Readers Say About “DotCom Secrets”…

What Readers Say About “DotCom Secrets”

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If you’re interested in starting as an entrepreneur, e-commerce provides one of the easiest access points today.

What’s more, e-commerce is both a low point of entry to get started and accessible for anyone with an Internet connection and a device like a phone, tablet, or computer.

Launching an e-commerce business as a new entrepreneur provides great flexibility and independence, as well as the opportunity to reach a global audience from the comfort of your home.

Like all businesses, though, to be successful in e-commerce, you’ll need a plan, effort, and a strategy to stand out and above the competition.

You’ll want to identify areas where you can create products that solve your target audience’s pain points, help nurture them with a sales funnel (more on that), and refine your strategy with data and analytics for the best performance.

This guide will share invaluable tips and outline the essential steps to creating a strategy for success in a crowded marketplace.

How to Start an E-Commerce Business

When you set out to create your e-commerce business, you must first research what type of business you want to start.

Your research should focus on a few factors, such as your potential target audience and the potential market. It should also study what types of businesses are successful, where potential holes exist in those businesses, and how you can fill those gaps.

When you’re researching your business, you’ll want to use the following checklist:

• Define your market
• Analyze competitors
• Identify the potential demand
• Research the ideal price points
• Evaluate any potential challenges to your e-commerce business

For example, if your competitors sell info products for small businesses, consider the type of audience that may need to be addressed.

If there is a gap in your competitors’ solutions, can you include something specific to help a different group or audience in your info product? 

The key here is to research what is already being offered, identify your potential target market, and determine who could benefit from your products.

You’ll gain insights into what your competitors are doing well, validate your ideas with your competitors’ successes, and possibly discover what gaps in the market exist that you could offer solutions.

With the data and insights you gain, you are better positioned to develop a comprehensive business plan based on your competitors’ successes, price points, and market dynamics.

These insights will allow you to position yourself and your products more effectively and develop a competitive edge when starting.

After validating a concept and developing a business plan, the next step is to begin thinking about your target customers and where best to find them.

Conduct Market Research

As a new entrepreneur, you may have ideas about what to sell, but what you don’t understand about the validity of your ideas could end up becoming a costly mistake.

Conducting market research is crucial to determining what type of offerings you may bring to market and also understanding whether they’re valid ideas in the first place.

To better understand the market, examine competitors and consider who may benefit from your product offerings.

Is there a demand for such products? Are they in high demand and in a highly competitive marketplace? If so, you may want to reconsider what you’re thinking about offering.

One way to examine the market is to explore different e-commerce businesses already in existence. What are they doing to drum up business?

You’ll want to look at marketing strategies, price points, and who they’re trying to serve (ideal customer) to understand whether your idea is sellable.

Once you see proof that the idea can be sold, dive into SEO page results and social media platforms to gather more evidence of success and how people reach their audience.

This research will help you position your product and find an audience interested in purchasing from you. It can also help you avoid spending a lot of money without getting a good return on your investment.

Define Your Target Audience and Potential Customer

To be successful as an entrepreneur, you need to understand the market landscape.

Most importantly, you need to know who your target audience is and where to find your potential customers.

Otherwise, it won’t matter if you have the best business strategy ever – it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. You need to be able to find people who want your offerings and convert them into sales.

As a new entrepreneur, you need to define your target audience and their niche, which will help you identify your potential customers.

The best approach to finding your target audience and potential customers is to identify a specific aspect of the market and drill down as far as possible to find a niche that is parallel to your offerings.

Analyze trends, pain points, and competitors’ e-commerce products to understand what is performing well and how you can provide a different solution.

Another factor in finding your target is pinpointing the ideal customer type.

Ask yourself questions such as:

• What are their interests, behaviors, and preferences?
• What are their demographics, location, age, gender, and buying patterns?
• How do they consume content and find products to purchase? Do they watch long – or short-form videos, read blogs, or engage on social channels?

By asking these questions, you’ll want to utilize tools like search engines and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help you find and analyze the data points to give you a complete picture of your potential audience and customers.

Finally, you should incorporate all these data points into your content and e-commerce platform to appeal to your ideal audience.

Social media, content marketing, and email marketing are phenomenal ways to communicate directly to your audience and provide them with the solution (your product) they need for whatever pain points you’re addressing.

You’ll want content personalized for your ideal customer at every stage of their buying decision, known as a sales funnel.

Sales funnels help direct an individual from learning about a product to wanting it and finally acting to purchase it. ClickFunnels provides all-in-one sales funnels that you can easily plug and play for e-commerce businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Defining your target audience, identifying what motivates them to act, and creating your marketing around them is a great way to boost your conversions, which is key for any new entrepreneur.

Create a Business Plan for Success

One of the all-time greatest coaches in sports, John Wooden, led his UCLA basketball program to dizzying heights of greatness.

One of his renowned statements about success was, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”

That simple statement is crucial to understand – that success comes from preparation and planning, much more than simple luck.

As an entrepreneur trying to build a successful e-commerce business, your approach to planning and crafting a solid business plan will be the key difference between building something sustainable or not.

As the foundation for your success, your business plan should outline your goals and identify your market while providing ways you plan to serve that target market.

Research into potential audiences and their behaviors, as well as what competitors are doing, will help you outline the steps you need to take to achieve your short-term and long-term goals.

You will want to outline your business model, such as whether you are trying to sell digital products, grow a blog for advertising revenue, or sell physical goods and products.

Also, include the platforms from which you plan to grow your business and sell, such as email marketing, SEO, or other means.

Think of your business plan as your outline for success. It should include how you’ll handle logistical issues, financial funding, how you’ll identify, market, and sell to your target audience, and any other component that impacts your expenses and revenue.

The more comprehensive your business plan, the easier it will be to stay on task.

However, one thing to keep in mind as a new entrepreneur is that things will come up unexpectedly, so build some flexibility and wiggle room into your strategy.

Build Your Online Store

When you decide to start a business, one essential thing to consider is what platform you want to use to build your online store.

You want to find a reliable and, most of all, scalable platform so that as you grow, you aren’t required to switch platforms or make any significant changes that can stall your hard-earned success.

The platform you select and build your online store on should have SEO at the forefront of the platform, be designed for the best conversion rates, and be simple enough to set up and install so that you aren’t required to have a ton of coding knowledge to operate.

Once you set up your online store, you want to organize your product listings so that it’s easy for your customers to find and buy your offers.

To do this, you’ll want to group similar items together, write sharp product descriptions that describe the product’s benefits, use high-resolution images that showcase the product in use, and include customer reviews about the quality of your products.

Why include customer reviews?

People like to buy what they know, and from brands they trust.

For online businesses, customer reviews help create and nurture trust in their brand, helping them close more sales. One way to do this effectively is to utilize customer reviews and foster a community space for FAQs and user interaction.

Since you’re in the digital e-commerce space, you have the advantage of eliminating shipping costs.

One thing to consider is having add-ons that can upsell another product that supplements or enhances the one they are already purchasing.

You can set up your store to have pop-ups before the shopping cart or after purchase, using email marketing as a follow-up opportunity.

Finally, installing a simple checkout and payment processing system is the key to closing your sales.

The reasons for shopping cart abandonment are a variety of reasons, but some of the most common include:

• Hidden fees
• Complex check-out process
• Limited payment options
• Slow processing
• Impulse buying

To avoid this from happening to you, build your online store to provide fast, secure payment processing options and keep it simple.

The platform you choose should support e-commerce businesses. While many options are available, only ClickFunnels provides a wealth of tools to build and optimize your online store for total success.

With ClickFunnels, you can easily set up, optimize, and iterate your online store for maximum impact.

The all-in-one platform includes some key features including:

• Website Builder
• Landing pages
• Sales funnels
• Store funnels
• Third-party integrations
• Email marketing
• and so much more!

SEO is Key to Success

Finding, attracting, and converting customers is the lifeblood of success with an online store. One of the more critical aspects of achieving this is implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies throughout your website, funnels, and content.

To create a successful SEO strategy for your online business, you’ll want to begin with identifying relevant keywords that your audience and potential customers use to conduct searches.

You can create a list of keywords that you find through various means, including Google’s free keyword planner, but one way to find relevant keywords (on a budget) is to conduct some online searches and find out what results you come up with.

Even more, when you conduct keyword research using your search terms, Google will provide you with a list of terms others have used.

These insights will give you a wealth of terms and words to incorporate into website content, product descriptions, and blog posts to improve your potential ranking.

Creating user-friendly content and a mobile-responsive website is an effective way to boost your potential rankings since Google prioritizes content and user experience in its ranking results.

Finally, you need to establish a routine of creating and publishing content regularly. The type of content you create should be useful and relevant to the terms you used in your SEO strategy to get the user to your page.

Make your content shareable and incorporate user reviews when possible. User reviews are good social proof and can boost trust and credibility in search engine results.

Of course, implementing a good SEO strategy is much easier with ClickFunnels’ inclusive sales funnels, which can optimize your content, blog posts, and pages to provide maximum impact.

Develop a Marketing Strategy

For you to succeed in your e-commerce business as a new entrepreneur, your potential customers need to be aware and learn to trust your brand so that they’ll be willing to buy from you.

To do this well, you need a robust marketing strategy that identifies your ideal customers, where they hang out, and what interests them.

Once you understand their interests, you can, therefore, focus on understanding your potential customer’s pain points, needs, and wants.

After understanding these insights, you can begin segmenting your target market effectively, crafting your content, and offering solutions that align with their demands.

Tools like SEO implementation, social media, and email marketing are good ways to personalize your reach to your target audience and help tailor your product offerings to their needs.

SEO provides exposure for your brand, while social media and email marketing create opportunities for engagement.

This three-pronged approach of SEO, social media, and email marketing makes it easier for your potential audience to find and interact with your brand, leading to an opportunity to generate sales.

Another possibility is to utilize and leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence in your marketing strategies.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is an algorithm that can instantly incorporate hundreds and thousands of data points to create personalized content based on every user’s interaction with your brand and similar products.

Using AI in your strategy will allow you to predict what your target audience may be interested in, helping you refine your pitch and offers.

Last, to create a successful marketing strategy, you’ll want to continually monitor it for success and iterate your strategy based on what’s productive and what’s not.

Using advanced analytics tools, you can see what your audience is engaged with, incorporate customer feedback into an even more engaging strategy, and increase the likelihood of conversions.

Social Media Strategy

As mentioned, using your social media channels is a huge opportunity to engage with potential customers in a space where they’re already active. Social media is a powerful tool to find potential customers while being able to promote your e-commerce business.

To implement social media successfully into your marketing and achieve the best results, consider what platform your ideal customer likes to utilize so that you can interact with them where they already are.

Think about your social media strategy as you fish. As an angler, you could try to drive your boat out and cast a line, hoping to find a school of fish. Or you could use the tools available to find fish and cast your lines where they’re already swimming.

One strategy is casting about in the dark, hoping for results; the other is using readily available tools to cast a line where it’s most likely to be successful.

So don’t overthink it; interact on the social media platforms where your potential customers are already engaging with others and create content that resonates with them in ways that you can showcase your products.

Emphasize Customer Service

When starting an e-commerce business, one thing that’s often overlooked is implementing an emphasis on customer service.

Putting a premium on customer satisfaction from the first touchpoint with your brand to following up after a sale can go a long way toward building brand loyalty and repeat opportunities.

To start, build your website and content around identifying common issues your audience struggles with and providing solutions for them.

Engage on social channels and respond quickly to questions and inquiries. This can build trust in your brand by demonstrating that you value your customers’ time.

Email marketing is a great way to connect with your potential customers, and having a dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is a great way to stay connected and make personal connections.

With a CRM, you can collect important information like birth dates and other significant personal information to tailor unique and personal messages to your targets.

By creating personalized messaging through a CRM, you can better provide solutions for their concerns and foster loyalty to your brand.

This personalization approach is one of the best sources of customer service. Other suggestions to implement a customer-centric approach that enhances your customer’s experience with your brand include:

• Have a user-friendly e-commerce platform.
• Have multiple payment options.
• Create a comprehensive FAQ section that addresses common issues and queries.
• Utilize SEO to rank helpful information.

By focusing on your potential customers and putting their needs in front of your e-commerce business, you can easily and quickly stand out in a crowded market, create loyal customers, and drive more sales.

Using Sales Funnels to Drive More Conversions

Finally, creating an e-commerce business can be chaotic and even more challenging without the right structure.

Finding, nurturing, and closing your leads can be a heavy task, which is why utilizing a tool like ClickFunnels, which is simple to install and use sales funnels, can take your efforts and drive them into the stratosphere.

With ClickFunnel’s new AI Smart Funnels tool, you can leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence into your sales funnels, personalizing your optimized interactions to drive even more sales.

Start Your 14-Day Free Trial Now!

Thanks for reading How To Launch Your First E-Commerce Business which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Thinking about starting a blog?

Maybe you have a passion for writing. Or maybe you’ve seen the thousands of bloggers who turn their websites into side hustles and full-time incomes.

These bloggers are living the dream: working remotely, traveling the world, and answering only to themselves.

But as you can imagine, a small percentage of people who start blogging actually succeed in making a living from it.

We’re here to make sure you fulfill your dream.

Below, we’ll walk you through seven steps to create a blog and start making money – literally within hours.

Let’s get into it!

How to Make a Blog That Actually Earns Money

The majority of websites and blogs never see much success. 

Most are abandoned, fail to attract meaningful traffic, or don’t make enough to justify the time and effort. 

Here are some eye-opening statistics:

• Only 8% of bloggers make enough income to support their family
• About 81% of bloggers never make more than $100 from their blogs

If you’re reading this, it’s likely you want to make more than $100 from this.

You’re here to make a blog that works for you – one that grows in both audience and income over time.

Why Most Blogs Don’t Make Money

There are many reasons why most blogs fail to earn anything substantial.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest pitfalls:

• Not considering monetization from the beginning: Many bloggers jump in without a strategy, which can make it harder to introduce paid products later.
• Not picking the right niche: Broad, unfocused blogs are harder to monetize. A well-defined niche helps attract a specific audience willing to pay for targeted products or services.
• Not picking a topic they enjoy: Blogging requires persistence, and if you don’t enjoy the topic, it’s easy to lose interest before you see results.
• Choosing a complex website builder: Difficult-to-use platforms can create unnecessary barriers, eating up time and energy.
• No ongoing training in how to monetize blogs: Blogging requires continual learning, especially as trends and strategies change.
• Not having easy monetization features: Without tools that make it simple to introduce sales funnels, memberships, or lead captures, many blogs struggle to convert visitors into income.

While these factors are important, there’s one more core issue.

And it’s this:

Most website builders are designed to make blogging or website creation easy, but they aren’t built to make monetization easy.

If You Want to Monetize Your Blog, Read This

ClickFunnels was launched in 2014 by Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson to solve a specific problem.

They needed an easier way to create web pages that could convert visitors into customers. 

Every time they wanted to promote a new product or service, they had to rebuild the whole website from scratch.

It wasn’t sustainable.

So they created ClickFunnels to serve as a powerful monetization platform they could use themselves.

Since its launch, ClickFunnels has attracted over 100,000 active users. 

Today, more than 2,000 of those users have generated over $1 million each using ClickFunnels websites – they’re members of the “2 Comma Club”.

And here’s how they did it. 

The platform introduced the concept of “sales funnels” which allow users to guide potential customers step-by-step toward a purchase. 

Funnels are particularly useful for bloggers who want to monetize because they offer clear pathways to sales without the need for advanced tech skills.

ClickFunnels might not be your traditional blogging platform.

But that’s its strength. 

Unlike standard website builders, ClickFunnels is a dedicated monetization platform that you can also use to create and manage your blog content. 

Below, we’ll go through seven easy steps to build a profitable blog using ClickFunnels.

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

How to Start a Blog and Make Money in 7 Steps

Below we’ll go over the 7 main steps to help you start a blog that generates income.

There’s a lot to cover so consider bookmarking this article or saving a link somewhere so you can revisit it.

Ready?

Let’s go!

1. Choose a Niche for Your Blog

Starting a blog and monetizing it involves time and dedication.

But it becomes much easier – and rewarding – when you’re writing about something you enjoy.

This is why picking your blog’s niche first is crucial.

• Choose the wrong niche and you’ll start making excuses and eventually give up the idea altogether.
• Choose the right niche and you’ll have an endless source of motivation.

The “1,000 True Fans” Concept

Your blog’s success, however, relies on more than just your preferences: it’s about what matters to your readers.

• What can you bring to the table that readers would value?
• What would keep them coming back for more?
• What would they pay you for?

In his book Expert Secrets, ClickFunnels co-founder Russell Brunson introduced a powerful concept called the “1,000 True Fans”.

The concept is simple:

You don’t need millions of followers to make a successful blog – you need only about 1,000 dedicated true fans to make good money.

A “True Fan” is someone who consumes everything you produce.

They don’t just passively read your blog: they engage with your content, buy your products, and share your message.

But here’s the thing.

A lot of new bloggers make the mistake of trying to appeal to everyone.

Instead, be an expert on a subject that a small group of people care about, and you’ll find your blog ends up being highly profitable.

The “Two Years Ahead” Concept

What do you know that others would find valuable?

Here’s another useful concept:

You don’t need to be a world-renowned expert in your field to create life-changing content; you just need to be about two years ahead of where your audience is.

Ask yourself:

• What do you know now that you were desperate to know two years ago?
• If you were struggling with something, what content would you have loved to read about?
• Are there others experiencing the same challenges you also experienced?

This concept of teaching someone who’s only a couple of years behind you is powerful because it makes the idea of being an “expert” more accessible.

You don’t have to be the world’s best.

Being just a few steps ahead of someone is enough to make your content engaging, authentic, and valuable.

For further inspiration on selecting your niche click below to grab a free copy of Expert Secrets.

Otherwise, let’s move on!

Click Here To Read Expert Secrets For Free!

2. Consider How You’ll Monetize Your Blog

Many bloggers dive into creating content without a clear monetization plan.

They focus on getting traffic.

While it’s not a bad approach, if your goal is to make money then you’ll save time thinking about monetization from the beginning.

Why?

Because the niche and audience you choose will impact how easily you can introduce paid products, services, or other monetization strategies.

So, how do you start thinking about monetization right from the start?

The Three Markets

In Expert Secrets, Russell Brunson explains a powerful way to approach monetization by focusing on the “Three Core Markets.”

These are the overarching themes that nearly every successful blog or business falls into:

• Health
• Wealth
• Relationships

Start by asking yourself which of these markets best fits your expertise.

Identifying this core market will give you a solid foundation for building a blog that can make money – because everyone wants better health, increased wealth, or stronger relationships.

Next, dig deeper to find your submarket.

For instance, if you choose the health market, possible submarkets could include diet, fitness, mental health, or skin care. For wealth, it could be investing, real estate, or online business. And in relationships, you could focus on dating advice, marriage counseling, or parenting.

Then go out and look for other successful bloggers in that same submarket.

This approach can benefit you in three ways:

• Focus on Core Desires: By tying your blog to one of the big three – health, wealth, or relationships – you’re aligning with things that people universally value.
• Discover What Sells: Checking out successful bloggers in your niche will give you insights into what kinds of products or services actually make money.
• Create a Unique Selling Point: By finding a fresh angle or unique offering within your submarket, you can carve out a new space, making it easier to monetize.

This might seem like overkill when you’re just starting.

However, researching other blogs in your niche is a real-world lesson in monetization.

Subscribe to their newsletters, explore their products, and even make a few purchases if you can.

Notice what happens after you buy: are there upsells to coaching, communities, or premium products?

Could you offer something similar?

Could you offer something better?

Taking these steps will provide insight into how other bloggers turn their audiences into income and give you ideas for crafting a monetization strategy that works.

For further inspiration on monetizing your niche, you can click below to grab a free copy of Expert Secrets.

Otherwise, let’s move on!

Click Here To Read Expert Secrets For Free!

3. Choose Hosting and Website Builder

Once you’ve chosen your niche and thought through your monetization strategy, the next logical step is choosing a platform to actually build your blog.

Most people who start blogging aren’t web designers or tech experts.

To launch a blog you’ll need to:

• Get a domain name
• Purchase hosting
• Find a website builder
• Choose a template
• Add basic design elements
• Review for a professional look
• Hit launch!

The sheer number of steps can feel intimidating and, honestly, can even prevent people from getting started.

So why not make it easy for yourself?

Building Your Blog the Easy Way: With ClickFunnels

With ClickFunnels, creating a blog is simple. 

The platform is designed to support both beginners and experienced marketers and allows you to build beautiful, high-converting blogs without needing any coding knowledge or third-party plugins.

It’s literally “drag-and-drop”.

All you need to do is pick a theme, customize the layout, and add your content and you’re ready to go live. 

Plus, ClickFunnels is much more than a blogging tool.

It’s an entire business platform that ties together your blog, website, products, CRM, email marketing, and more. 

Here’s a breakdown of what makes blogging on ClickFunnels so easy:

• Establish Authority: Build credibility and establish yourself as an expert with valuable, engaging blog content.
• SEO Optimization: ClickFunnels blogs are optimized to rank well on Google, helping you attract long-term organic traffic.
• Content Repurposing: Easily turn blog posts into social media content, giving you omnipresence across platforms.
• Convert Visitors to Leads: Use exit popups, lead magnets, and sales funnels directly from your blog to capture leads and drive sales.
• Integrated Business Growth Tools: Instead of patching together multiple tools, ClickFunnels offers an all-in-one solution for building and growing your business, including email marketing to nurture readers into customers.

Using ClickFunnels for your blog means you’re not just building a blog; you’re building a fully integrated business platform.

Here’s what the back end of ClickFunnels looks like when creating your blogs:

And here’s how easy it is to later monetize your blogs with products or service offerings:

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

4. Brainstorm Blog Topics

Your blog topics will depend on how you’re planning to promote your blog. 

If you already have an audience to tap into, then focus on creating compelling, transformative content.

To help you tell these stories in a powerful way, check out the Epiphany Bridge script in Russell Brunson’s Expert Secrets. 

This script walks readers through your journey so they become invested in both your story and your products.

But what if you don’t have any audience at all?

Google Hacks to Find Blog Topics

If you’re starting out with no audience, don’t worry.

Many bloggers build their first audience through search engines, bringing in traffic (and sales) directly from Google.

The advantage of this approach?

It’s free.

By creating blog posts targeting specific search keywords, you can attract readers who are actively searching for information so they’re already primed to engage with your content.

But of course, you need to choose keywords relevant to your niche.

And… that won’t take you years and years to rank for.

So how can you find the right keywords?

In the book Traffic Secrets, Russell Brunson explains a practical, actionable method to uncover high-impact keywords through the “Dream 100” exercise.

Here’s a quick overview:

1. Start with Your “Dream Keywords”: Think about the phrases your dream audience would type into Google to find the kind of solution your blog offers. Russell’s “Dream 100” keywords for ClickFunnels included terms like “sales funnels,” “digital marketing,” and “growth hacking.” Make a list of 10-20 phrases that match the products, services, or solutions your blog is about.
2. Find Long-Tail Variations: Instead of focusing solely on these popular keywords (which can be competitive) look for longer, more specific versions that are easier to rank for. To do this, type one of your dream keywords into Google, and note the autocomplete suggestions that pop up – these are highly relevant, frequently searched terms related to your topic.
3. Explore Related Searches: After searching, scroll to the bottom of Google’s page to see “related searches.” This list gives more ideas for closely related, long-tail keywords.

For example, if your dream keyword is “sales funnels,” you might find suggestions like:

• “Sales funnels for Shopify”
• “Sales funnels explained”
• “Sales funnels for real estate”
• “Sales funnels templates”

Following this approach, you can build a keyword list that includes specific terms your target audience is actively searching for.

And if you expand each dream keyword into 10 long-tail keywords, you’ll have a solid list of blog topics – just like Russell’s examples above – giving you a roadmap for targeted content that can attract organic traffic.

For even more depth, you can explore software tools (Russell shares a list at TrafficSecrets.com/resources) to assess monthly search volume, competition, and other metrics for each keyword, helping you further refine your list for maximum impact.

Click Here To Read Traffic Secrets For Free!

5. Setup Your Blog

In this section, we’ll walk you through setting up your ClickFunnels account, customizing the look and feel of your blog section, and getting everything ready to write your first post.

And all this in just a few minutes!

No other platform makes it this quick and easy to get your blog up and running.

Follow along with the screenshots below as we guide you step-by-step through the setup process.

Sign Up for Your Free 14-Day Trial

The first step is to sign up for your free trial of the ClickFunnels platform.

You can do this by visiting clickfunnels.com.

Then enter your email address and you’ll be taken to the page below, where you need to introduce your personal details and a card – don’t forget you won’t be charged!

Navigate to Your New Blog Section

Within seconds you’ll receive a welcome email with a link to sign in to your new ClickFunnels account.

If you click it, you’ll be taken to the ClickFunnels dashboard.

From here, find the “Site” in the menu and then click “Blog”.

Click “Open in New Window”

Your account comes preloaded with two blog posts.

By clicking on the button that reads “Open in new window” you’ll be taken to your actual website and one of the pre-loaded blogs.

Edit Your Blog Design

The default blog template looks like the screenshot above.

But… customizing it to suit your preferences takes minutes!

Go back to the dashboard and under “Site” click the button reading “Overview”.

From here, you’ll see a button reading “Edit Site”.

Click it.

Welcome to the ClickFunnels Drag-and-Drop Editor

Now you’re inside the famous ClickFunnels drag-and-drop editor!

Later on, you can come back here to edit the homepage of your website and other elements like the header, logo, menu, products, funnels, and more.

But for now, we’re looking at the blog design.

Find the page called “Blog post” under “Blog home” in the left-hand menu and click it.

Starting Editing Elements

You’re now looking at your blog post template.

You can hover over any element to start editing it.

Just click the cog icon that appears in a colored box around the element, and you’ll find an editing window appears.

Welcome to the Editor

This new window will let you edit elements such as spacing, styling, sizing, colors, fonts, formatting, layout, and more.

For example, let’s look at editing fonts.

Just click the button reading “Edit Style”.

Editing Font Styles

You’ll now get a pop-up in the center of your screen.

This pop-up is called your “Style Guide”. You can edit the fonts for your headlines, subheadlines, and content here to any you like.

The changes will be reflected instantly across your website.

Editing Colors

To edit color schemes, simply hover over a colored element and click the cog icon.

You’ll find the side menu popping up again.

This time, click on “Edit style colors”.

Change the Color Scheme

Here you can change the colors of major elements in your site such as backgrounds, headings, content, icons, and more.

The changes will be reflected instantly across your site.

The theme colors will always come in handy when making quick changes in the future that you want to reflect the overall design and branding of your website.

A Peek at Monetizing Your Blog

The ClickFunnels blog template comes pre-loaded with a CTA to sell a product.

You can quickly edit the text and styling of this CTA box.

But here’s where the magic happens.

If you hover over the button element and click the cog icon, you’ll see the option to change the button actions.

To start selling your own product or services, all you’d need to do is create a product in the ClickFunnels dashboard and link to it here – and you’re done!

That’s the beauty of ClickFunnels.

You get a blog, drag-and-drop website builder, sales funnel, online store, payment processor, CRM, customer center, email marketing platform, and more all in one place.

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

6. Write Your First Blog

At this stage, you’ve already laid a solid foundation by defining your niche, understanding your audience, planning your monetization strategies, and brainstorming topics.

Now, it’s time to create your first compelling blog post.

So, how do you do it?

How to Create an “Instructional” Blog Post

Most people search on Google with the goal of solving a specific problem, answering a question, or learning something new.

BuzzSumo, after analyzing over 100 million article titles online, found that “instructional” headlines generated the highest engagement and shares on Facebook.

In other words, these are headlines that suggest action or provide essential information.

BuzzSumo found that:

• Instructional phrases like “how to” “you need to” and “why you should” were among the top-performing headlines.
• These types of headlines communicate urgency and clarity, offering readers a direct “need to know” approach that implies important or exclusive information.

For example, popular articles included headlines like:

• “What You Need to Know About Toxic Plants”
• “What You Need to Know About the COVID-19 Vaccine”
• “Why You Should Stop Using Plastic Bags Immediately”

The key? 

These headlines use “you” to speak directly to the reader, emphasizing the essential nature of the information. 

They also tap into FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), implying that readers could miss out if they don’t read the article.

An Instructional Blog Post Headline

BuzzSumo also discovered that some of the most popular blog headlines use numbers.

These headlines promise specific, actionable information, which makes them highly clickable.

Out of the top-performing headlines, six out of the first twenty started with a number, with phrases like “X things to,” “everything you need,” or “X reasons why” also ranking high.

Here’s why numbers work:

• Clarity and specificity: Numbers in headlines tell readers exactly what to expect, and a “listicle” format makes information easy to digest.
• Curiosity and FOMO: Headlines with phrases like “X reasons why” or “everything you need” spark curiosity by promising useful or exclusive insights.

The type of blog post that includes a number in the headline is often called a “listicle”.

Listicles are perfect for creating actionable steps – like “7 Steps to Start a Blog” – and also happens to be easy to follow and retain.

For inspiration, check out popular blogs in your niche and see how they structure their posts.

Find examples you enjoy or that are already engaging readers and consider recreating their style to fit your own topic.

Finally, remember that blogging is all about practice.

Your first posts may not be perfect, and that’s okay – the goal is to keep writing, publishing, and improving.

And with ClickFunnels, it’s easy to edit your posts anytime, so you can update your content as you learn more and grow your blog.

7. Promote Your Products or Services

The strategy we covered above is all about writing content that ranks on Google.

Many successful bloggers generate six-figure incomes relying solely on Google traffic, making it an excellent starting point.

Of course, there are many other ways to promote your blog posts (social media, paid ads, email marketing, influencer partnerships, video marketing, and more).

But we’re not going to get into that here.

Instead, we’ll focus on how to use your blog as a tool to promote the products or services you’re monetizing.

By strategically placing promotions within your content, you can drive conversions and revenue directly from your blog.

Here are a few ideas that you can set up within minutes using ClickFunnels.

5 Ways to Monetize Your Blog

ClickFunnels is the ideal platform for monetizing your blog thanks to its features for turning readers into leads and sales. 

Below, we explore five ways to leverage ClickFunnels’ tools to monetize your content.

Each of these features is included in your 14-day free trial.

They are:

1. Selling a digital product with a sales funnel: ClickFunnels makes it simple to create a sales funnel tailored to a digital product, such as an eBook, templates, or downloadable guides. Relevant calls-to-action in your blog can guide readers seamlessly into your sales funnel for conversions.
2. Selling an online course: If you’re an expert in your niche, consider creating a course. With ClickFunnels, you can direct readers from blog posts into an online course funnel. Offering a free introductory lesson or mini-course as a lead magnet can be especially effective.
3. Selling a membership: For ongoing value, a membership or subscription service can be a great choice. ClickFunnels enables you to set up a members-only area with exclusive content. Just ensure the membership content aligns with the topics you’re already blogging about to attract the right subscribers.
4. Using landing pages to generate leads: Not every reader will be ready to purchase immediately. Capture leads by directing traffic from your blog to a targeted landing page with a lead magnet, such as a checklist or mini-guide related to your post’s topic.
5. Generating leads and selling through email marketing: With ClickFunnels’ email marketing features, you can collect email addresses from blog readers and nurture them with relevant offers. Create an email series that builds trust and highlights the benefits of your products or services.

Final Thoughts: Make Money Blogging With ClickFunnels

Starting a blog requires strategy, dedication, and the right tools.

In this guide, we’ve covered essential steps – from selecting a niche and monetization strategies to setting up and promoting your blog.

But one factor stands out:

To turn a blog into a source of income, you need a platform built for monetization.

ClickFunnels is uniquely designed to help bloggers not only create compelling content but also seamlessly monetize it through funnels, lead capture, and more.

With its 14-day free trial, you can start building your blog with powerful tools that drive real results – without needing a tech background.

Ready to start a blog that works for you?

Try ClickFunnels today and take the first step toward a profitable blogging journey.

Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days For Free!

Thanks for reading How To Start A Blog And Earn Money which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Want to build a side hustle but aren’t sure where to start?

Today we are going to share seven ways to make extra money from home!

#1: Pick Up Work on Microtask Platforms

Businesses, academic institutions, and independent labs use microtask platforms to gather data for product research, market research, and scientific research purposes.

You can make some money on these platforms by doing simple, low-paid work like answering quizzes, filling out surveys, and tagging AI training data.

The vast majority of these tasks only take a few minutes to an hour to complete. If you have random chunks of downtime in your schedule that you’d otherwise spend doomscrolling, this might be a good way to put that time to better use.

However, if you are looking to establish a source of income equivalent to a part-time or a full-time job, the viability of making that much money on microtask platforms will depend on where you live.

Realistically, if you work across several platforms and put in eight hours a day, five days per week, you might be able to make $15-20 per day, which works out to $300 to $400 per month.

If you are based in a low-cost-of-living country, that might equal or surpass the national minimum wage, in which case doing microtasks full-time might be a pretty sweet gig considering that you get to work from home.

However, if you are living in a medium or a high cost of living country, you’d likely make more money working a minimum-wage job at McDonald’s, so it may not be worth it.

The most popular microtask platform is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk – MTurk for short – so it’s probably best to start there.

However, there seems to be a consensus among MTurk veterans that it has been going downhill for at least half a decade now and that a newcomer working full-time on it is unlikely to make more than $5-10 per day.

That’s why you should also register on Prolific and CloudResearch, which can help you reach the aforementioned $15-$20 per day.

Just keep in mind that the approval process might take a while and that once you get approved, your access to gigs will be limited so you won’t be able to reach those numbers immediately.

Also, the pay for completing microtasks will likely continue trending downward. It’s best to see this work as something temporary. Don’t get too comfortable and keep looking for better opportunities!

#2: Start Freelancing

Freelancing can be a great way to make money from home if you have a marketable skill that allows you to work remotely.

Such skills include:

• Writing
• Coding
• Design
• Marketing
• Sales

The process of building a freelance business is going to be more or less the same regardless of the service that you decide to offer:

Niche Down

Start by niching down in terms of:

1. Your Service – For example, instead of being a “freelance writer” who writes about everything under the sun, you might niche down to “email copywriter” and specialize in that.
2. Your Target Audience – For example, instead of writing email copy for anyone and everyone, you might niche down to writing email copy for B2B SaaS businesses.

This may seem limiting at first glance but it will actually make everything else much easier!

Acquire Social Proof

Your next step should be working for free to acquire social proof.

For example, if you decide to become an email copywriter and target B2B SaaS businesses, start writing copy for companies like that for free so that you can get some testimonials. 

In fact, you don’t even need anyone’s permission to do that, you can simply identify B2B SaaS businesses with subpar email marketing, write welcome sequences for them, put them into Google Docs, and share them with the founders. 

Tell them that they are free to use these welcome sequences if they like them, all you ask for in exchange is a testimonial.

This approach to getting social proof can work well for any kind of freelance business!

Use Cold Outreach to Get Clients

Once you have a few solid testimonials, create a business website to display them.

Then, go on Fiverr, find a lead generation expert who has good reviews, and order a spreadsheet with 100 leads.

(You can order 1,000 leads straight away but it’s better to start with just 100 to check the lead quality).

Then, start reaching out to these leads. In your cold emails, you want to:

1. Offer them a free, clearly defined service (e.g. a free welcome sequence).
2. Back up your pitch with your strongest testimonial (e.g. here’s a testimonial from a founder of a B2B SaaS company).
3. Provide a link to your website if they want to see more social proof (e.g. here are three more testimonials from B2B Saas founders).

End the email by asking them if they are interested and invite them to schedule a Zoom call. Provide a link to your appointment calendar.

Follow up one week later and continue following up until you get a clear yes or no answer from them.

In your follow-up emails, include a “P.S.” section like the one below. Hopefully, this will dissuade people from flagging them as spam.

Whenever someone takes you up on your free offer, do a good job and then pitch them a productized service package.

For example, if someone took you up on your free welcome sequence offer, you can pitch them a weekly email newsletter package for a fixed monthly price. 

Also, make sure to ask every happy client for a testimonial so that you can continue building your stack of social proof.

The more social proof you have and the more impressive it is, the easier it will be for you to land new clients!

Streamline Your Business Processes

Create a list of everything that you are currently doing to run your business. Ideally, it should be based on time-tracking data as opposed to your memory. Then, go through that list item-by-item and automate everything that can be automated.

You can probably eliminate a lot of busy work by integrating the apps into your workflow, setting up a solid customer relationship management system, and using good invoicing software.

Scale Your Business With a Sales Funnel

For an online service business like yours, a webinar funnel is probably the best bet.

Create a 45-minute presentation designed to teach your dream customers how to do what you do step-by-step so that they can do it themselves. Don’t worry, if they can afford it, they’ll probably want to hire you instead!

Then, create a 15-minute pitch for your service where you explain what it’s all about, present a ton of social proof, and encourage the attendees to book a free call with you.

These 60 minutes are your webinar script. But how can you get people to show up for the event?

Build a webinar funnel that consists of these three pages:

1. Registration page where you encourage people to register for your webinar.
2. Registration confirmation page where you confirm that they have successfully registered for the event.
3. Event page where they can attend your webinar live or watch the replay.

(You can easily set this up with our software, ClickFunnels. Check out our free 14-day trial!)

Then, use paid advertising to promote your webinar and drive traffic to its registration page.

We recommend hosting at least one webinar per week, every week, live for at least a year. That will help you get good at it, optimize your script, and maximize your conversion rates.

After that, you can consider automating this funnel by replacing the live event with a pre-recorded webinar!

#3: Make Money on Twitter

Twitter has a creator revenue sharing program that has been dubbed “elonbuxx” by the platform’s users.

At the time of writing, if you want to monetize your account, you need to:

1. Have an active Premium or Verified Organization subscription
2. Have at least 5M organic impressions within the last 3 months
3. Have at least 500 Premium followers
4. Be in a supported country
5. Be compliant with the X User Agreement

It’s worth noting that you only get paid for premium user engagement on your tweets. The payouts are processed every two weeks and made via Stripe. The minimum payout amount is $10.

So how can you build and monetize a Twitter following? Here are the two most viable options:

Option #1: Become a “Poaster”

It’s possible to build a following and generate a decent income from it by simply sharing your thoughts with the world.

If you are intellectually inclined and good at expressing yourself in writing, this is probably the best way to go.

See if you can make a name for yourself in what’s known as “tpot”, which is a loosely defined Twitter community that revolves around discussing various intellectual topics.

If getting into online arguments about the existential risk of artificial intelligence sounds like fun to you, the chances are that you will fit right in!

Note that you can either post under your real name or under a pseudonym. There are plenty of “anons” who are making money on Twitter!

Option #2: Create a Themed Account

That theme can be anything, from aesthetics to popular culture to niche hobbies.

For example, if you are a history buff with a special interest in the Middle Ages, you can create an account that is exclusively focused on that period and start posting book excerpts, interesting articles, photos and paintings, etc.

Generally speaking, the more high-brow the theme of your account, the easier it will be for you to build a following where premium users are over-represented. However, the content itself will have less viral potential.

You can also make money with a gimmick account focused on low-brow content such as Reddit screenshots, memes, or cute animal videos. Premium users will likely be under-represented among your followers but the content itself will have more viral potential.

Ultimately, both the high-brow and the low-brow approaches can work, so it boils down to what resonates more with you. It’s probably best to choose a theme that you have a personal interest in because that will make it more enjoyable!

Warning: Twitter is a Crazy Place!

Did you know that Twitter users often refer to the platform as “hell app” and “hellsite”?

That shouldn’t be surprising considering that:

• It’s designed to be addictive – If you know that you are predisposed to addiction, it’s probably best to stay away from it.
• It can wreck your attention span – If you already have problems with managing your attention, becoming a regular user will likely make them worse.
• People will say horrible things to you and you’ll be tempted to say horrible things to them – You might end up doing so and regretting it later!
• There’s a lot of interpersonal drama that revolves around conflicts with “mutuals” (people whom you follow and who follow you back) – If you are a sensitive person, getting blocked by a mutual might hurt!
• It’s pretty much impossible to escape negativity related to various controversies, politics, current events, etc – It’s gonna make it to your timeline somehow!

To summarize, while the negative effects that Twitter usage has on people’s mental health vary from person to person, the consensus seems to be that some damage is unavoidable.

It’s also worth noting that popular Twitter users, especially the ones posting under their real names, often end up attracting stalkers. That’s why it’s important to learn how to protect your privacy.

Ultimately, if you want to make extra money from home, we only recommend going the Twitter route if:

1. It sounds like something that you would enjoy.
2. You are confident that you can manage the potential downsides.
3. You are prepared to pull the plug if you realize that you cannot manage those downsides after all.

Don’t sacrifice your mental health for “elonbuxx”!

#4: Launch a Paid Newsletter

It has become common for Twitter “poasters” who have sizable followings to launch paid email newsletters.

Typically, they use Substack for this, add a sign-up link to their bios, and then promote their newsletters to their Twitter followers.

For example, an anonymous writer known as CartoonsHateHer has been “poasting” on Twitter since 2018 and has amassed 35k+ followers with her humorous takes and funny cartoons.

In early 2024, she launched her newsletter, which she then grew to more than 12,000 subscribers in less than a year. This helped her realize her lifelong dream of becoming a writer. Now she’s working on a book!

This approach can work really well because if people like reading your short-form content on Twitter, they might be interested in your long-form content as well. The transition from the former to the latter is pretty seamless!

That being said, you don’t need a Twitter following to grow a newsletter, you can also do it with paid advertising.

Also, your newsletter doesn’t need to revolve around personal essays. In fact, if you want to build something that you can sell later on, it’s probably best not to tie it to your personal brand.

For example, the Milk Road newsletter, which is rumored to have been acquired for eight figures, provides daily crypto news. This format seems to be really popular.

If you want to learn more about selling newsletters, you can check out the Duuce marketplace to see the current prices.

#5: Self-Publish a Non-Fiction eBook Independently

If you have a marketable skill that people are paying you for, you can package your knowledge into an eBook and create an extra source of income that way.

It’s probably best to publish it independently on your website because that will enable you to maximize its revenue.

For example, today Nathan Barry is best known as the founder of ConvertKit, but he used to be a designer and some of his early entrepreneurial projects were ebooks about design.

In fact, “Designing Web Applications” is still available on his website, with pricing tiers ranging from $39 (just the book) to $249 (the book + tutorials, interviews, and resources).

So how did Nathan make money with his eBooks? He would use a free chapter as a lead magnet, create a landing page for it, and then promote it to build a pre-launch email list, to which he would eventually launch the eBook.

His launches were wildly successful. For example, “Designing Web Applications” brought in $26,679 in just 24 hours!

Some of this success was due to his clever approach to pricing, in particular having several pricing tiers and arranging them from the most expensive to the least expensive.

This same methodology proved to work well for other people as well. For example, UX designer Samuel Hulick, who learned it from Nathan, used it to make $37,000 with his eBook about user onboarding.

It can probably work well for you, too!

#6: Self-Publish Fiction Books via Amazon KDP

You can also make extra money from home writing fiction and self-publishing it on Amazon via its Kindle Direct Publishing service.

However, if you want to succeed at it, you need to understand that it’s not about writing Nobel-prize-worthy literature, it’s about providing high-quality niche entertainment to an existing audience.

This means that you need to choose one of the popular genres, niche down to a popular subgenre, and then start churning out novels that give the readers what they want.

Popular genres include science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and romance, with the latter probably having the most demand.

Subgenres are things like “Amish romance”, “military science fiction”, “Scandinavian noir”, etc. You can browse Amazon’s best-seller lists for each genre to see which subgenres are dominating them.

If you want your books to sell well, they should conform to the genre and subgenre expectations, from the covers to the characters to the plotlines. Straying too far from those expectations will annoy readers, lead to bad reviews, and tank your sales!

Writing entertaining genre fiction is difficult so it’s probably best to limit yourself to one genre until you master it. But if you insist on writing across several genres, do it under different pen names, with one genre per pen name. Otherwise, you risk confusing and alienating your readers!

Also, in order to make decent money with this, you’ll need to put out at least 1 full-length novel a year, though once you go full-time you should start publishing 2-3 novels per year instead. Sounds like an insane pace?

Well, that’s the pace you will need to maintain if you want to make it as a self-published fiction author. There’s no way around it unless you write a mega best-seller like “Twilight”, which you shouldn’t bet on.

Maybe “How To Write A Novel In 6 Months: A published author’s guide to writing a 50,000-word book in 24 weeks” by Thomas Emson can provide some guidance here!

#7: Become an Indie Hacker

If you either know how to code already or are interested in learning it, you might want to consider becoming a software solopreneur (an “indie hacker”).

There’s a survivorship bias in the indie hacker scene where you constantly see people who have succeeded but rarely hear from those who failed.

We can’t know for sure but we believe that “Ask HN: Starting a business is way harder than Twitter-bros claim. Any advice?” is probably representative of the average aspiring indie hacker experience.

After all, 90% of startups fail, a statistic that can be helpful when it comes to managing your expectations.

However, having a full-time job that pays the bills and building software products in your spare time can enable you to limit the downside of entrepreneurship while retaining access to the upside.

Skills, experience, and luck all play a role in entrepreneurial success, with the latter being the most tricky component.

Indie hackers use a methodology that allows them to essentially roll the dice an unlimited number of times provided that they don’t burn out and give up on it.

They take the Lean Startup concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to its absolute extreme by building MVPs in a matter of weeks, days, or, in some crazy cases, hours.

The reasoning behind it is that you cannot predict which product will take off so it’s best to just keep building them until you stumble on one that does.

For example, the indie hacking superstar Pieter Levels has shared that more than 95% of all his projects have failed.

His <5% success rate may not seem particularly impressive until you realize that it has enabled him to become wealthy. At the time of writing, Levels’ apps are generating more than $4.2M per year!

Marc Louvion is another notable indie hacker who used this approach. He built 23 products in the last few years and made over $1M with the one that took off, ShipFast.

Meanwhile, Nico Jeannen built 17 products in just one year and sold two of them for $265,000.

There are no guarantees in entrepreneurship. However, the “ship more” advice does seem to work. After all, in theory at least, if 90% of startups fail, then if you launch 100 products, you’ll have a decent chance at success!

If you genuinely enjoy creating software and can see yourself doing that indefinitely in your free time, the indie hacker path might be the right choice for you. Read Pieter Levels’ book “Make” and start building!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert. 

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating. 

But you can also get it directly from us for free… 

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Easy For Making Money From Home which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Throwing business events can be a great way to strengthen your brand.

However, they are notoriously difficult to organize, as anyone who has ever done it will surely attest.

That’s why today we want to go over the most important things that you need to know about planning your first business event…

Are You in This for the Long Haul?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of event planning, we want to ask you if you see yourself organizing business events every year for the next decade. Why?

Because doing it just once probably isn’t worth it. It’s a recipe for experiencing the downside of throwing an event without benefiting from the upside.

Think about it: you’ll probably end up spending more time, energy, and money to put the event together than you have initially expected.

On top of that, you’ll have to deal with the stress of things going wrong, which they inevitably will at the most inopportune moments.

Finally, on the day of the event, you’ll have to keep everything on track, which is going to be exhausting.

However, realistically speaking, your first business event probably won’t be that great since you have never organized one before.

So you’d be going through all that hassle to throw an event that would most likely be mediocre at best. That’s not going to help you strengthen your brand if that’s what you are hoping for.

The brand-building benefits come from hosting the same event every year, making it better each time, and patiently growing your audience.

Nathan Barry, the founder of ConvertKit, wrote about this back in 2019 before the company’s third Craft + Commerce annual conference:

“The first year it was hard to convince people to try out a new event, in a new city, from a new company. The second year ticket sales were easier and we had momentum, but only about 20% more revenue from ticket sales.

But now in the third year selling tickets is noticeably easier. Because of the reputation built in previous years we sold 175 tickets before we even announced a single speaker. Then the next 75 tickets sold quickly with our next promotion.

If we had given up after fighting the massive up hill battle of creating the conference, or given up when year two wasn’t that much more successful, then we wouldn’t have endured until season 3 when the momentum kicked in.”

At the time of writing, ConvertKit is preparing for their 2024 annual Craft + Commerce conference, so they are still at it five years later!

It’s possible to go from zero to hosting one of the most prominent annual events in your industry but only if you have a long-term mindset from the start because it’s going to take time. 

So ask yourself: are you in this for the long haul?

Start Small if This is Your First Business Event

Don’t attempt to compete with the largest conferences in your industry because you are not going to win.

Instead, come up with the minimum viable product version of your business event that would enable you to create a positive experience for the attendees, deliver real value and leave a great first impression.

It might be best to start by planning a simple event that only lasts one evening. That will not only make it much easier for you to organize it but also to sell the idea to potential attendees.

People may be hesitant to go to an all-day or a multiple-day event that they have never heard of before, but they might be willing to attend it if it’s just one evening, assuming that they find the concept interesting.

You also want to keep it local because no one is going to travel to an unknown event that only lasts a few hours. This has several important implications that we are going to address later in this article.

Decide on the Concept for Your Business Event

Your business event needs to have a clear concept. What exactly is the value proposition?

Zero in on your most important customer segment and then design an event concept that would appeal to that demographic.

Identify a subject that your dream attendees want to learn more about and then create an event that would enable them to do that.

For example, let’s say that your company is an email marketing agency that serves small businesses.

In that case, you want to attract small business owners to your event. The more specific your value proposition, the easier it will be for you to do that.

So instead of focusing on “email marketing” in general, which is way too vague, you could create an event about growing a business email list from zero to 1,000 email subscribers and then give your attendees a step-by-step process for doing that.

We also recommend making the event free if at all possible so that there would be no financial risk associated with attending it. It’s going to be difficult enough to persuade people to come. Don’t make it even more challenging by asking them to give you their hard-earned money!

Pick a Date and Time for Your Business Event

When you are considering various dates and times for your business event, make sure to check what else will be happening in your area.

Ideally, you want to pick a date and time when there won’t be much else going on, at least in terms of industry events that might be in direct competition with yours.

Also, make sure to consider factors such as work schedules, commutes, rush hour, etc., if you decide to host your event on a workday evening.

Choose a Venue for Your Business Event

The best venues for small business events are:

• Private rooms in cafes and restaurants
• Conference rooms in coworking spaces
• Conference rooms in schools and universities

You probably don’t need a big auditorium since it’s unlikely that too many people will show up.

Also, smaller spaces can help you create a more casual and friendly atmosphere. You are not hosting a large conference so you might as well lean into the meetup vibe!

Figure Out the Catering for Your Business Event

Catering isn’t that big of a deal for events that only last one evening but it would be nice to have a few coffee stations with some snacks.

That can help facilitate interactions between the attendees: people will be more likely to chat with each other during breaks if they are gathered around coffee stations with drinks and pastries in their hands.

Look up local catering agencies and call them to inquire how much that would cost. If all you need is hot beverages, snacks and a few waiters to mind the coffee stations, it shouldn’t be too expensive, especially if the event itself is only going to last a few hours.

And if you rent a private room at a restaurant as a venue for your event, then that restaurant can handle the catering, which will make coordinating everything much easier.

Create a Schedule for Your Business Event

Schedule for an Event With One Speaker

You can make the event super short by being the only speaker and giving a lecture on your area of expertise.

You can structure it like this:

1. 45 minutes of content
2. 15-minute Q&A session

That way, the whole event will last just one hour, so you won’t need catering.

Schedule for an Event With Three Speakers

Alternatively, you can have three speakers and schedule the event like this:

1. Speaker #1: 30 minutes of content
2. Speaker #1: 15-minute Q&A session
3. 15-minute break
4. Speaker #2: 30 minutes of content
5. Speaker #2: 15-minute Q&A session
6. 15-minute break
7. Speaker #3: 30 minutes of content
8. Speaker #3: 15-minute Q&A session

In this case, the event will last 2 hours and 45 minutes.

What About More Than Three Speakers?

We don’t recommend having more than three speakers for your first event, even if one of those speakers is you.

Keep in mind that the more speakers you include in your event schedule, the more difficult it will be for you to coordinate with everyone!

Sort Out the Technology for Your Business Event

You don’t need a fancy setup for a small event.

That being said, you want to make sure that you have a laptop, speakers, microphone, projector and a projector screen.

Also, consider getting basic portable stage lights if you want to have an atmosphere where the event space itself is dim but the stage is lit.

Find Speakers for Your Business Event

If you want to go with the three-speaker model, depending on whether you intend to speak yourself, you’ll need to find either two or three speakers who can deliver real value with their presentations.

One way to go about it is to focus on a three-part framework that can help the attendees achieve a specific result and then find three speakers who are each an expert at one part of that framework.

For example, if the main focus of the event is teaching small business owners how to grow their businesses with sales funnels, you could structure it like this:

1. A funnel building expert presentation on building a sales funnel.
2. An email copywriting expert presentation on writing an email sequence designed to convert leads into paying customers.
3. A paid advertising expert presentation on using paid ads to drive traffic to your sales funnel.

That way, each presentation would cover a specific skill but the attendees would walk away from the event having learned the entire framework of designing, building, and launching a sales funnel.

As for the speaker compensation, there are two ways to go about it: either you let them pitch their own product or services at the end of their Q&As or you simply pay them a speaking fee. If you have the resources for it, the latter option is more straightforward!

Hire an MC for Your Business Event

If you intend to do a three-speaker event, you might want to consider hiring a professional master of ceremonies to host it.

A good MC can help you set the mood, deal with unexpected situations and just overall elevate the quality of the event.

It also makes sense to have someone else host the event if you are one of the speakers so that you can focus on your presentation.

Of course, this isn’t strictly necessary, especially for an event that’s only supposed to last a few hours. You can host it yourself if you want to!

Create a Checklist for Your Business Event

We recommend creating a checklist for your business event that covers everything that needs to happen before, during, and after the event.

It should include stuff like coffee station set up, tech set up, mic and sound checks, lights check, the event schedule, things you need to pack and take with you after the event, etc.

Make your checklist as detailed as possible because it’s easy to forget something seemingly minor and then run into unexpected problems during the event (e.g. you forget to check the mic and then it turns out that it doesn’t work).

Rehearse Your Business Event

It’s important to have at least one proper rehearsal with the tech setup, the speakers and the MC at the event venue. And yes, this applies even if it’s a single-speaker event and that speaker is you.

Having a rehearsal is going to significantly increase the cost of your event but it’s worth the expense because it will help you streamline everything and reduce the number of preventable mishaps during the actual event.

Promote Your Business Event

Okay, so now you know how to plan your first business event, but how do you get people to attend it?

Here are a few ideas:

Distributing Flyers

This might seem old school but if it’s a local event, you can print out a bunch of flyers and distribute them locally. 

Figure out where your dream attendees hang out and leave flyers there. You can put them on cars, post them on ad boards, leave them at reception desks, etc. 

Also, if you want to attract local business owners, you can simply walk into local businesses, ask to speak to the owners, and invite them to your event!

Cold Social Media Outreach

You can also do cold outreach via social media DMs.

LinkedIn is probably the most appropriate platform for that but depending on your target audience Facebook and Instagram can also work well. 

Sales Funnel

Finally, you can also build a sales funnel for your event:

1. Create a lead magnet – It can be a case study of how someone achieved a specific result that your dream attendees want to achieve using the framework that you are going to teach at your event.
2. Create a landing page for your lead magnet where you explain what this case study is about and encourage potential attendees to provide their email addresses so that they can get access to it.
3. Create a thank you page that features a video where you explain how potential attendees can download your case study and invite them to your event. End the video with a call to action where you direct them to the event registration page. Make sure to emphasize that your event is FREE.

Once your sales funnel is set up, start driving traffic to it with paid ads. Promote your case study, not your business event. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram ads can all work well here depending on your target audience.

This approach is likely to be more effective than using ads to promote your business event directly. It’s easier to get the attention of potential attendees with a case study that appeals to them.

Plus, it allows you to obtain their email addresses, which means that you can use email to hype up your event with speaker profiles and sneak peeks. Send one email per week leading up to the event to stay top of mind with potential attendees.

After the event, send them a highlight reel with attendee testimonials so that the people who didn’t go could see what they missed. Maybe they’ll attend next time!

Warning: You Need to Account for the Planning Fallacy!

The planning fallacy is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to underestimate how much time and money it’s going to take to complete a project.

If you have never organized a business event before, you are especially susceptible to this fallacy and need to account for that in your event planning.

At first glance, it may seem that organizing a few-hour event is not a big deal, but it’s likely going to be much more difficult than you initially assumed.

Whatever your current estimate of how much time it’s going to take to put your event together, you would probably benefit from doubling it because you will likely encounter all kinds of unexpected delays.

Same goes for the cost of the event. You’ll probably end up going over the budget because of various unexpected expenses.

As you get more experience with event organizing, you’ll learn to create more accurate project estimates.

But for now, it’s best to err on the side of caution and allocate way more resources to your event than you think you’ll need!

Something is Going to Go Wrong So Just Accept it!

No event ever goes according to plan.

It doesn’t matter how well you prepare for it, something is inevitably going to go wrong. That’s just part and parcel of event organizing.

The philosophy of stoicism, particularly its dichotomy of control, can come in handy here: focus on what you can control and accept what you can’t control.

Also, if this is the first time you are organizing a business event, know that you are bound to make a bunch of rookie mistakes that will seem obvious in retrospect. It would be unreasonable to expect anything else when you have never done it before.

So throw the best business event you can but also give yourself some grace once it’s over. It doesn’t matter what went wrong as long as you learn from it. You’ll do better next time!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Essential Tips For A Successful First Business Event which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

There’s no denying that you can use artificial intelligence to make money.

However, it’s important to differentiate between legitimate business opportunities and temporary arbitrage plays.

Way too many people are pursuing the latter without realizing that those income streams might vanish overnight.

That’s why today we want to share five ways to make money with AI that you can leverage to build a real, sustainable business.

This is a long article so feel free to skip around using the table of contents. We do recommend reading it in its entirety, though!

What You Need to Know About AI

What is AI?

“Artificial intelligence” – AI for short – is an umbrella term.

It encompasses technologies that enable machines to perform cognitive tasks that are associated with human intelligence.

Examples of such cognitive tasks include decision-making, problem solving, learning from previous experience, data analysis, content creation, and visual perception.

What is Generative AI?

Nowadays, when people talk about artificial intelligence, they are typically talking about generative AI.

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can be used to generate novel data based on user input.

Do you know how there are all these AI apps that you can use to create text, images, and videos? That’s generative AI!

What are Large Language Models (LLMs)?

Large language models are a type of generative AI that can understand the text in user queries and generate novel, relevant text in response.

They are trained on vast quantities of textual data which enables them to mimic human speech and writing patterns.

This is the technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT that can have unstructured conversations with their users.

What are the Most Popular Large Language Models?

At the time of writing, the three most popular large language models are:

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT
• Anthropic’s Claude
• Google’s Gemini

These chatbots appear to be quite similar so we recommend trying out all of them to see which one you like the best.

You can experiment by giving them the exact same prompts and then comparing their outputs.

What is the Black Box Problem?

This might sound weird but…

It seems that computer scientists at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google don’t know how their own large language models work.

In fact, to the best of our knowledge, no one does. Scientists cannot see what is happening inside LLMs. All they can observe is the data that goes in and the data that comes out.

This is known as “the black box problem” and it’s arguably the greatest bottleneck in artificial intelligence research. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that it’s going to be solved anytime soon.

What are “Hallucinations”?

Since scientists don’t know what is happening inside large language models, they cannot ensure consistently accurate output.

The issue is that sometimes LLMs just make things up. This is known as “hallucinations”.

So far, no one has been able to figure out how to get rid of them. In all likelihood, large language models will continue hallucinating for the foreseeable future.

In practice, this means that you should never blindly trust their output because there is no guarantee that it’s accurate.

For example, if you use ChatGPT to write social media posts, make sure to manually fact-check everything before you publish them.

This problem isn’t limited to LLMs, though. Generative AI models designed to produce images also hallucinate.

Say, one common tell that a photorealistic image generated with AI is too many fingers on people’s hands. Seems obvious but it’s easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention.

If you want to use AI to produce images, make sure to closely examine them before publishing.

Finally, generative AI models designed to produce video content aren’t immune to hallucinations either.

For example, here’s a screenshot from a video that was created with OpenAI’s Sora:

Here’s the prompt that was used to generate this video:

“The Glenfinnan Viaduct is a historic railway bridge in Scotland, UK, that crosses over the west highland line between the towns of Mallaig and Fort William”.

The problem is that Glenfinnan Viaduct only has one railway track. There are more inaccuracies in the video but this is the most noticeable one!

Just like with AI-generated images, if you want to use AI-generated videos, you need to examine them closely before publishing. Does everything look right?

What is Prompt Engineering?

The quality of your prompts is arguably the main factor that determines the quality of generative AI output.

Prompt engineering is the practice of crafting effective prompts that produce the type of output that you want.

Everyone who uses generative AI on a regular basis eventually develops their own prompt engineering style.

However, if you are new to this, we recommend starting with Jeff Su’s prompt formula which consists of these six components:

1. Task: mandatory
2. Context: important
3. Exemplar: important
4. Persona: nice-to-have
5. Format: nice-to-have
6. Tone: nice-to-have

As you can see, the components are listed in descending order, the “task” component being the most important and the “tone” component being the least important.

Here’s how Jeff Su explains it:

Where Can You Learn More About AI?

If you are serious about harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to make money, consider taking Google’s “AI Essentials” course that is available on Coursera.

It consists of five modules:

1. Introduction to AI (1 hour)
2. Maximize productivity with AI tools (2 hours)
3. Discover the art of prompting (2 hours)
4. Use AI responsibly (1 hour)
5. Stay ahead of the AI curve (2 hours)

If you want to get a feel for what this course is like, you can watch the first module for free on YouTube:

“AI Essentials” focuses on teaching people how to effectively use Google’s large language model Gemini.

However, a lot of what you’ll learn will also apply to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and other LLMs!

Legitimate Business Opportunities vs. Temporary Arbitrage Plays

How to Recognize Legitimate Business Opportunities

Understanding the Lindy effect can be helpful here.

It states that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things is proportional to their current age. To put it simply, the longer something has been around, the more likely it is to stay around.

That’s why we believe that the safest bet is to start a business that provides a service that already has proven demand and then use artificial intelligence to increase your company’s output.

This approach is Lindy because it enables you to capitalize on business opportunities that have been around for quite a while and are therefore unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

Meanwhile, pursuing novel business opportunities that have popped up since the release of ChatGPT in 2022 is not Lindy. Why?

Because something that has only been around for a few years is unlikely to still be around a decade from now. Who knows, maybe it will. But we wouldn’t bet on it!

What is the Problem With Temporary Arbitrage Plays?

The problem with temporary arbitrage plays is that they tend to go against the interests of the platforms that they are leveraging.

For example, Amazon has become a go-to place for buying books, both paper and digital. It’s in its best interest to keep its customers happy.

On top of that, the company also needs to keep the book authors happy, including the self-published ones who are using its Kindle Direct Publishing service.

Once generative AI became widely available, Amazon got flooded with low-quality books produced with it.

Needless to say, customers who accidentally bought such books were not happy about it.

Meanwhile, authors were not amused by the fact that their books were being crowded out by AI slop.

There have also been several high-profile incidents when immediately after the release of a long-anticipated book a bunch of AI copycats popped up trying to steal its sales.

Prominent tech journalist Kara Swisher event sent an email to Amazon CEO Andy Jessy asking “’What the f***?’ You’re costing me money” when this happened to her.

Do you think Amazon is going to allow this AI mess to continue when it’s making both the customers and the authors angry, not to mention all the negative publicity the company has received due to this?

Questionable ethics aside, some people have made a lot of money with low-quality AI-generated books, but it’s probably just a matter of time until Amazon develops software for automatically detecting and removing AI slop.

This is the lifecycle of temporary arbitrage plays: hustlers see an opportunity and jump on it, and some of them even make good money with it, but eventually, the platform cracks down on them and everyone gets banned.

Resist the Siren Song of Get-Rich-Quick Schemes!

If you go on YouTube and search “how to make money with AI”, you are going to see a bunch of videos promoting temporary arbitrage plays as a way to get rich quick.

It can be very tempting to pursue these opportunities when you see all these content creators talking about how much money they are supposedly making.

However, as we explained in the previous section, income sources like that might be here today and then be gone tomorrow with no warning.

Some people waste years of their lives chasing quick money without building anything lasting. Don’t fall into this trap because you are going to regret it.

Instead, resist the siren song of get-rich-quick schemes and focus on building a legitimate business. The future you is going to thank you for that!

Best Ways to Make Money With AI

Okay, so with all that out of the way, let’s get to the practical stuff. How can you make money with AI?

#1: Social Media Marketing Service

Social media marketing can be a great way to attract customers.

However, many small businesses, especially local ones, are underutilizing this marketing strategy.

Typically, the owners of these businesses know that they should be posting regularly on social media, they just never get around to it. But they might be willing to pay you to do it!

Consider using:

• ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to brainstorm ideas
• Jasper to turn those ideas into social media posts
• Adobe’s Firefly to generate social media images
• Buffer or MeetEdgar to schedule your posts
• Hootsuite to manage everything in one place

This software stack makes it easy to consistently produce high-quality content. And that’s what success on social media is all about!

#2: Podcast Editing Service

Everyone wants to have a podcast these days but no one wants to spend countless hours editing raw audio files. So why not offer a podcast editing service?

With the AI tool Descript, you can edit audio by editing its transcript so it’s much less tedious than it used to be. Basically, if you know how to edit text documents in Google Docs, you will be able to edit podcasts with this app.

It also has a bunch of neat podcast-specific features that will surely come in handy during the editing process!

#3: Video Editing Service

Video is becoming the dominant medium of the Internet, which means that video editing skills are more prized than ever.

There’s also a growing demand for producing short-form content where the editing needs to be really tight in order to provide value to the viewer.

Video editing used to require mastering complex software like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. And if you want to be good at it, you still need to learn how to use these tools.

But you can get started with the aforementioned AI app Descript which allows you to edit videos by editing their transcripts.

Moreover, you can run long-form videos through OpusClip and its AI is going to automatically identify the best moments and turn them into shorts!

#4: Video Thumbnail Design Service

The thumbnail of a video is arguably the most important factor that determines how many views it’s going to get on YouTube.

With generative AI tools like Adobe’s Firefly, you don’t need to be a graphic designer to create attention-grabbing thumbnails that people can’t help but click.

There are a lot of YouTubers out there that have great content but their boring video thumbnails are sabotaging their growth.

So why not help them revamp their channels with amazing thumbnails?

#5: Website Design Service

Some businesses have websites that look so outdated that they can make you feel like you time-traveled back to the early 2000s.

It’s another one of those problems that business owners tend to be aware of but never get around to fixing.

If you are a tech-savvy person, you can offer them a complete website makeover where you set up hosting for them, redesign their website, and rewrite its copy.

Popular website builders like Squarespace and Wix now include AI editors so you don’t need to be a web designer to create beautiful custom websites.

As for the copy, we recommend reading our friend Jim Edward’s book “Copywriting Secrets” where he explains how to write copy that converts.

Once everything is done and the website is live, you can pitch the client a maintenance retainer where you will update their website for them.

This might be appealing to people who don’t want to deal with tech stuff!

How to Build an Online Service Business

Clearly Define Your Dream Clients

Your dream clients must:

1. Need your service
2. Be able to pay for your service
3. Be willing to pay for your service

Your target audience will be the main determining factor when it comes to the revenue potential of your company. Go after established businesses if you want to maximize it!

Start by Acquiring Social Proof

Social proof is the evidence that other people trust you. In the business context, it primarily means customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies.

The more social proof you have, the easier it will be for you to get clients, which is why you should focus on acquiring it first. So how can you do that?

You’re probably not going to like the answer: the easiest way to get social proof is to do free work in exchange for testimonials.

For example, if you want to acquire social proof for your podcast editing business, identify podcasts that could use your help.

Then, edit their most recent episodes and send the hosts sound files. Tell them that you can edit 12 more episodes for free in exchange for a testimonial.

Start at the bottom of the hierarchy by reaching out to up-and-comers who probably need your service but may be hesitant to pay for it.

Remember, right now the focus is getting social proof, not making money!

See if You Can Turn Free Work Into Paid Work

Okay, so you completed the free work and have your testimonial. Now what?

Let that potential client know that they can hire you if they want to and name the lowest price possible.

If they are happy with your free work and can afford to pay you, they will probably end up hiring you.

And if they don’t want to hire you now for whatever reason, tell them to feel free to reach out to you if they ever need your service in the future!

Use Cold Outreach to Grow Your Client Base

Start reaching out to your dream clients via email and social media DMs.

Make sure to optimize every cold message by referencing something about that particular potential client.

Then, pitch them a clearly defined package of free work that they can use if they like, with no strings attached.

Follow up that pitch with your most powerful piece of social proof and then provide a link to your business website if they want to read more testimonials.

Finally, end the message with a call to action. Ask them if they are interested, invite them to schedule a Zoom call with you, and share your appointment booking calendar link.

If you don’t get a response, send them a follow-up message one week later and then continue following up once a week until you get a yes or no answer from them.

In your follow-ups, include a P.S. section similar to this one that the founder of LeadFuze Justin McGill used in his cold email campaign:

Get Good at What You Do Before Scaling Your Business

Entrepreneurs often attempt to scale their businesses too early, which leads to negative word-of-mouth.

Realistically speaking, if you just started providing a particular service, you are probably not that great at it.

If you offer to do free work for someone, they likely won’t be expecting much. That gives you an opportunity to learn.

However, once you start charging for your service, the stakes get higher. If people pay you and you disappoint them, they will be unhappy about it and might complain to others. And if enough clients do that, it can ruin your reputation.

That’s why it’s best to focus on getting good at what you do before you worry about scaling. Otherwise, you might end up accidentally scaling brand damage!

Scale Your Business With a Webinar Funnel

Once you are ready to scale your business, you can do that with a webinar funnel.

It should have three pages:

1. The registration page is where you introduce your webinar and encourage potential clients to register for it.
2. The registration confirmation page is where you reassure potential clients that they have successfully registered for your webinar.
3. The webinar page where the potential clients can attend your webinar live or watch the replay.

As for the webinar itself, we recommend structuring it like this:

• A 45-minute presentation on a topic related to your service.
• A 15-minute pitch for your service where you explain what it’s all about, provide social proof, and invite the attendees to book a free consultation with you.

You can use paid advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to drive traffic to your webinar registration page.

Although it’s possible to automate this funnel by using a pre-recorded webinar, we recommend doing it live once a week for at least a year.

That will help you learn what resonates with your target audience and enable you to optimize your webinar script for conversions!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Guide To Making Money With AI which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

As Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of DuckDuckGo, put it in his book “Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth”:

“Almost every failed startup has a product. What failed startups don’t have are enough customers.”

According to him, the number one cause of failure isn’t the product, it’s the poor distribution. 

He argues that many entrepreneurs who build great products simply don’t have a good distribution strategy. 

In his view, when it comes to startup success, the only essential thing is growth. Everything else follows from that.

We agree with this perspective because you can have the best product in the world but it won’t matter if you can’t get enough customers to keep your business afloat.

That’s why today we want to share our complete guide to customer acquisition for startups…

Niche Down as Much as Possible

Founders often make the mistake of going after the largest possible target audience when they should be doing the opposite and zeroing in on the smallest possible niche.

For example, Facebook, which had over 3 billion monthly active users in the last quarter of 2023, started out as a social network for Harvard University students in 2004.

It then gradually expanded to other Ivy League universities, then to all universities in the United States, and then finally became available to the general public in 2006, two years after its launch.

Facebook almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to gain traction if the company had gone after everyone in the world who had Internet access right from the get-go.

So figure out the smallest possible niche that you could target that is still large enough for you to generate enough revenue to keep the lights on. Once you dominate that initial niche, you can start gradually expanding your target audience!

Conduct Extensive Customer Research

We’ll be blunt:

You probably don’t understand your dream customers as well as you think you do. And the further removed you are from your target audience, the more likely that is to be the case.

That’s why we recommend conducting extensive customer research before you start thinking about customer acquisition:

1. Figure out where your dream customers are hanging out online and join those spaces.
2. Figure out who your dream customers are following and start following the same influencers, thought leaders, and content creators.
3. Figure out what content your dream customers are consuming and start consuming it yourself.

You want to immerse yourself in the online world of your dream customers as much as possible because that will give you the context you need to create effective marketing campaigns and write persuasive sales copy.

Pay special attention to the exact words, phrases, and metaphors that your dream customers use to describe the problem that your product can help them solve. You want to use the same language when selling your product!

Take Stock of the Resources at Your Disposal

As our friend Alex Hormozi loves to say, the first rule of entrepreneurship is “Use what you have”. 

That’s why we want you to take stock of the resources that you have at your disposal. 

Marketing strategies that we are going to discuss in the next section all involve a trade-off between time and money to some extent: the less money you are willing to spend, the more time you will need to invest.

Choose a strategy that will allow you to capitalize on the resource that you have more of, whether that’s money or time. 

Beyond that, you want to look at everything else that you have that you could use to your advantage, including your talents, skills, and connections.

Ideally, you want to go with a marketing strategy that will allow you to play to your strengths and won’t require learning completely new skills from scratch because that will enable you to hit the ground running.

Of course, that isn’t always possible, but try to make the most of what you already have!

Choose a Marketing Strategy

We recommend choosing one of these marketing strategies and focusing on it exclusively until you hit the point of diminishing returns:

Marketing Strategy #1: Cold Email

Cold email is the most accessible marketing strategy but it is also extremely time-consuming and best suited for B2B as opposed to B2C.

It’s impossible to predict conversion rates in advance but you should be prepared to send 100 cold emails per day to schedule 10 sales calls and make 1 sale. 

And just to be clear: we are talking about personalized cold emails where each message is customized for that particular recipient.

Don’t send potential customers low-effort copy-paste spam. Not only does it not work, it can also get you in legal trouble!

Set Up a New Domain Name and Email Address

Start by setting up a new domain name that is similar to the main domain name of your startup and then create a new email account associated with that new domain name.

This is a precautionary measure in case your cold emails get marked as spam and you end up getting blacklisted by email service providers like Gmail. It’s best not to put your main domain name and your main email address at risk.

Also, before you start your cold email campaign, use a service like lemwarm to simulate back-and-forth email activity. That should make you look more legit in the eyes of email service providers and hopefully help you avoid spam filters.

Find a Lead Generation Expert and Buy 100 Leads

After that, go on Fiverr, find a B2B lead generation expert, and order a spreadsheet with 100 leads based on your dream customer criteria.

That spreadsheet should include a list of target companies, a contact person for each of them, and their full name, job title, and email address.

If that lead generation expert does a good job compiling leads, you can order a spreadsheet with 1,000 leads the next time.

Start Cold Emailing Leads

It’s best to start slow – perhaps with just 3 cold emails per day – because a sudden spike in your email activity can seem suspicious and might get you blacklisted by email service providers.

Gradually increase the cold email volume until you are sending 100 cold emails per day. Don’t go beyond that because that may be crossing into the spam territory.

Use Justin McGill’s QVC Framework

We recommend following the QVC framework that Justin McGill, the founder of LeadFuze, used to go from zero to $30k in monthly recurring revenue in just one year:

• Question – In your subject line, ask a question related to the problem that your product addresses. Ideally, it should hit the key pain point. That will help you get the potential customer’s attention and hopefully prompt them to open your email.
  
  In the body copy, ask a similar question that hits the same pain point, but use a more detailed phrasing. That will hopefully get them interested enough to continue reading.
• Value proposition – The intro question should be followed by a few value proposition sentences that explain what your product is about. You want to present it as a solution to their problem.
• Call to action – End the email by asking the potential customer if they would be interested in a demo. Make sure to phrase it as a yes or no question!

Here’s a sample template that follows this framework:

Continue Following Up Until You Get a Response

The odds are that the people you are reaching out to are pretty busy so you may not get a response straight away.

That’s why it’s so important to follow up with them. Justin McGill said that he has seen a lot of success with this four-email email sequence:

1. QVC cold email that we just discussed.
2. Case study email – It should showcase how your product helped someone just like them.
3. Value add email – This can be another case study but it can also be a blog post link, a relevant news article, or something else that they might find interesting.
4. Break-up email – Let them know that you won’t be following up anymore and encourage them to reach out to you in the future if they ever want to learn more about your product.

McGill would also add this “P.S.” section to all his emails, starting with the initial QVC one:

This is a great idea because it enables you to continue following up while also being respectful and providing that person with a way out if they don’t want to hear from you anymore. 

Make Sure to Stay Organized!

When you are only sending a few cold emails per day, keeping track of everything is easy.

But once you start increasing the volume, it can get out of hand really quickly as the replies, the back-and-forth, and the scheduled demo calls start piling up.

That’s why we recommend setting up some sort of customer relationship management (CRM) system right from the start.

Our software includes a CRM functionality that can be really helpful here!

Marketing Strategy #2: Cold Calling

Cold calling is similar to cold email in that it’s an accessible but time-consuming marketing strategy that works best for B2B businesses.

All you need to get started is a list of leads that meet your dream customer criteria, your phone and a cold call script.

We recommend using Patrick Dang’s five-step cold calling framework:

1. Research the prospect because that will make everything else much easier.
2. Build rapport with the prospect by bringing their attention to something that you have in common.
3. Explain why you are calling, set the agenda for the call, and ask them for permission to get started.
4. Ask questions to uncover the pain points related to the problem that your product addresses.
5. Leverage the pain points you uncovered to position your product as a solution to their problem and ask them if they would be interested in a product demo.

If they say yes, ask them for their email address and tell them that you are going to send them a calendar link with available times, then thank them for their time and end the call.

Once you hang up, send them that calendar link immediately and then continue following up once a week, the same way you would if it was a cold email instead of a cold call.

Factors like energy level, tonality, and cadence of speech matter a lot in cold calling. You might want to record your cold calls and then listen to how you sound so that you’d have a better understanding of how you are coming across.

Just make sure to check whether that’s legal where you live because the laws regarding recording phone calls vary between jurisdictions.

Also, just as with cold email, it’s important to stay organized when you are making a lot of cold calls every day, which you can do with our customer relationship management (CRM) system!

Marketing Strategy #3: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is about getting other people to promote your product to their audiences and then paying them a commission from each sale.

It’s another affordable but time-consuming marketing strategy, though a big difference between affiliate marketing and cold outreach is that affiliate marketing can work well for B2C as well.

If you do enough customer research, you should already know who your dream customers are following online. Make a list of these influencers, thought leaders, and content creators, find their email addresses, and start cold emailing them.

For example, you can create a webinar funnel for your product, reach out to potential affiliates, and pitch them a partnership that looks like this:

1. They promote your webinar to their followers
2. You organize and host the event
3. You split the sales proceeds with them

That’s what our co-founder Russell Brunson did during our first year in business and it worked really well!

Also, once you have success with one affiliate partnership, you can use it as social proof in your cold emails and leverage it to get more affiliates on board!

Marketing Strategy #4: Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is super affordable and less time-consuming than cold outreach. However, it will likely take you a few years to gain momentum.

As such, this marketing strategy is perhaps best suited for people who have full-time jobs and are working on their startups on the side.

Pick a social media platform that allows you to play to your strengths, which is going to boil down to the choice between the text medium and the visual medium.

Then, create a content schedule that you can keep up with indefinitely. Ideally, you want to post at least once a day, but quality is more important than quantity.

You should also incentivize engagement by rewarding it. If someone leaves a comment under your post, like it and reply to it. That will serve as positive reinforcement.

Be warned that social media marketing can be demoralizing because, in the beginning, your follower growth is likely going to be extremely slow.

However, if you stick with your content schedule, keep the content quality high, and reward engagement, eventually, it will start accelerating!

Marketing Strategy #5: Video Marketing

Video marketing is similar to social media marketing in the sense that it will likely take you a few years to gain momentum. However, it is also both more time-consuming and more expensive.

That being said, a YouTube channel has more staying power than a social media following, which makes it a more valuable asset from a business perspective.

This marketing strategy is best suited for people who not only have full-time jobs and are working on their startups on the side but who also either have video production skills already or are genuinely interested in learning them.

You want to publish one YouTube video per week, target a keyword that your dream customers are searching for, and make sure that your video is better than all the other videos that are currently ranking for that keyword.

Production quality doesn’t matter much as long as the audio is decent so no need to overthink it. What’s important is content quality. Your video needs to meet the search intent of its target keyword.

Once you publish your video on YouTube, cut it up into shorts and then publish those shorts both on YouTube and on TikTok.

Video marketing can be demoralizing at first due to slow channel growth, but if you continue publishing one video per week and make sure that it’s good, your channel will eventually start gaining momentum.

Also, if you want to grow your channel faster, we recommend watching this video by Vanessa Lau where she shares a bunch of tips and tricks that can help you accelerate growth:

Marketing Strategy #6: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization can still work well in 2024.

However, we wouldn’t recommend this marketing strategy unless you either have previous experience with it or are targeting a niche where your competition is clueless about SEO. Why?

Because getting organic traffic from Google Search is becoming increasingly difficult and this trend is likely going to continue in the foreseeable future.

Here are some factors that you might want to consider:

• There are only 10 spots on the first page of search results.
• The top search result has an average click-through rate of 27.6% and is 10x more likely to get a click than the tenth search result.
• The top three search results get 54.4% of all clicks.

Realistically speaking, this means that in order to get organic search traffic, you need to not only reach the first page but also rank in the top three search results.

It’s unlikely that you will be able to do it by creating high-quality content alone since backlinks play an important role in search rankings. And link building can be difficult if you don’t have any connections.

Also, now that anyone can use large language models like ChatGPT to produce content at scale, the Internet is getting flooded with “AI slop”. This has sparked a lot of discussion on whether SEO as we know it is dead.

All this makes search engine optimization an uphill battle that may not be worth it, especially considering that you could be investing those resources into growing a social media following or building a YouTube channel instead!

Marketing Strategy #7: Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is the best marketing strategy for those who have more money than time.

It can work really well for startups that have a substantial war chest as well as for solopreneurs who have high-paying jobs and don’t mind spending money on growing their side hustles.

Of course, it’s still a skill: you’ll need to invest time in learning how to run ads on your platform of choice, testing various campaign ideas, optimizing your campaigns, etc.

The learning curve can be pretty steep but the feedback loop is fast. You’ll know whether your campaign is working or not within a few days.

Mastering paid advertising is empowering because it gives you the ability to drive traffic wherever you want, whenever you want, which you can then use to promote anything.

If you have no previous experience with it, Udemy is probably the best resource for learning the basics because it has paid advertising courses for all major social media platforms.

Wait until the next sale and you should be able to get a course for less than $20!

All of These Marketing Strategies Can Work Well!

First-time founders often spend too much time obsessing over which marketing strategy they should choose.

The truth is that all of the strategies listed above can work well if you are willing to put in the time to master them and have the patience to play the long game.

So pick one that makes the most sense considering the resources that you have and get to work!

Build a Sales Funnel

We believe that the best way to grow a startup is to build a sales funnel for it and then drive traffic to it with your marketing campaigns.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a system designed to convert visitors into leads, leads into customers, and customers into repeat customers.

How to Build a Lead Magnet Funnel

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address.

The most straightforward sales funnel that you can build is the lead magnet funnel which consists of just two pages:

1. A squeeze page where you present your lead magnet and encourage the potential customer to type in their email address to get it.
2. A thank you page where you thank the potential customer and explain how to get access to your lead magnet.

Once you have their email address, you can use email marketing to pitch them your product.

For example, you could have a lead magnet that teaches them how to solve a specific problem and then use email marketing to pitch them your product as the best tool for implementing that solution.

This is what we do: we use our lead magnets to teach people how to build sales funnels and then pitch them our funnel builder software!

Once you have your sales funnel set up and ready to go, you can start driving traffic to it by using the aforementioned marketing strategies to promote your lead magnet.

Launch a Weekly Email Newsletter

Just because someone gave you their email address doesn’t necessarily mean that they are ready to buy your product. And that’s okay!

Continue building trust by providing free value via email and make sure that you stay top of mind with them.

The best way to do it is to launch a weekly newsletter. Send your subscribers an email that follows the same template every week on the same day at the same time.

Link roundup newsletter format can work really well for this. Share links to interesting content from around the web: blog articles, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, etc.

You can model it on Tim Ferriss’ “5-Bullet Friday” newsletter. Obviously, don’t copy his exact template. Instead, come up with something similar that makes sense for your industry.

Add a “P.S.” section at the end of every newsletter issue and use it to promote your product. Say, if you run a software startup, you can encourage people to sign up for your free trial.

Once you launch your newsletter, you can use it as a lead magnet and create a marketing campaign for it.

Follow the 50% Rule!

In his book “Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth”, Gabriel Weinberg discusses what he calls “The 50% Rule”.

The idea is simple: you should spend 50% of your time working on your product and the other 50% of your time working on customer acquisition.

We highly recommend adopting this approach, especially if you are someone who is great at creating products but not so great at marketing and selling them.

Otherwise, it’s easy to fall into a trap where you stay in your comfort zone, endlessly tinkering with your product, and then have to shut down your startup because it isn’t making any money!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Customer Acquisition Guide For Startups which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Pricing a new product or service can be challenging.

If you don’t charge enough, it will be difficult to remain profitable and if you charge too much, you will struggle to make sales.

That’s why it’s so important to find the right balance where your price is high enough for you to have healthy profit margins but also low enough to be appealing to your dream customers.

Today we are going to share ten pricing strategies that can help you with that…

Pricing Strategy #1: Economy Pricing

Economy pricing is a strategy where you offer the lowest price possible and hope that sales volume will be high enough to make up for low profit margins.

This strategy makes the most sense if you are selling a commodity product to price-sensitive customers.

Supermarket chains use it when they offer store-brand versions of staple groceries that compete with the name-brand versions on price alone.

Some companies even build their entire businesses around economy pricing. Walmart is a classic example of this approach.

Pricing Strategy #2: Cost Plus Markup Pricing

Cost plus markup pricing is a strategy where you calculate the cost of producing a product or providing a service and then add a fixed markup percentage on top of it.

This approach is typically used to price custom products and services that adhere to the buyer’s specifications.

That includes various government contracts, services like home construction and interior design, products like tailor-made clothing, etc.

Pricing Strategy #3: Competitive Pricing

Competitive pricing is a strategy where you research how much your competitors are charging for similar products and services and then price your product or service lower to undercut them.

This approach works best for products and services that don’t differ much from one company to another and have already reached market equilibrium where their prices are relatively stable.

Offering lower prices than your competition while remaining profitable isn’t easy. You will need to find inefficiencies in your industry and capitalize on them in order to pull it off.

You can do that by analyzing how your competitors are running their businesses, including how they are handling manufacturing, storage, transportation, marketing, and sales.

It might be possible to reduce the costs by streamlining your workflow with software, hiring remote employees from low-cost-of-living countries, and using digital marketing to promote your business.

You probably won’t be able to maintain the advantage that you gained through competitive pricing forever because sooner or later, your rivals will catch onto it and begin implementing the same tactics to get their costs down.

Also, if you come up with something truly innovative, you can expect to see a bunch of copycats once the word gets out.

All that being said, competitive pricing can help you get your business off the ground, so it’s a strategy worth considering!

Pricing Strategy #4: Penetration Pricing

Market penetration pricing is a strategy where you price your product or service extremely low – maybe even selling it at a loss – in order to carve out a market share for yourself with the intention of increasing the price in the future.

This approach is typically used by companies that have a ton of money already, either in the form of their own war chests or in the form of capital provided by their investors.

VC-funded tech startups often use penetration pricing to accelerate growth. A classic example of this is Uber, which initially captured ride-hailing markets across the world by undercutting local taxi companies.

However, it can take a long time to achieve profitability this way. Uber was launched in 2010, but despite the popularity of its service, the company only turned a profit for the first time in 2023.

Another issue is that raising prices might prove to be more difficult than you expected. There’s no guarantee that customers will be willing to pay more for your product or service.

Several popular food delivery apps have successfully used penetration pricing to gain market share, but they are still operating at a loss.

For example, DoorDash, which was founded in 2013, has never generated a profit except for the second quarter of 2020 when demand surged due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It remains to be seen whether this business model is viable. It may turn out that people are unwilling to pay for food delivery if the prices are high enough to make these services profitable.

Finally, penetration pricing tends to attract price-sensitive customers, which makes it difficult to establish a loyal customer base. Competitors who have more resources than you can steal your market share by charging even less.

Pricing Strategy #5: Price Skimming

Price skimming is a strategy where you set a high price for a new product and then gradually lower it over time. It’s the opposite of penetration pricing.

This approach is popular in the gaming industry. Studios typically set high launch prices but then lower them over time and also regularly put their games on sale with discounts as steep as 90%.

This strategy seems to work best for companies that already have loyal customer bases. It enables them to maximize profits from their biggest fans who want to get their latest products immediately.

However, if you attempt to use price skimming as a brand new business, it might backfire because you haven’t proven yourself in the eyes of your dream customers yet.

For example, gamers who are happy to pay $30+ for a game from a studio that they like probably won’t be willing to pay that much for a game from a studio that they have never heard of.

It’s also worth noting that in the gaming industry, customers expect price skimming and aren’t offended by it. Some even capitalize on it by waiting for the prices to drop and picking up the games they want on sale.

However, if you attempt to use this pricing strategy in an industry where it’s uncommon, you might end up alienating your customers. People who paid the high launch price might feel cheated once they see it drop later.

That’s why it’s best to reserve price skimming for industries where it’s already the norm!

Pricing Strategy #6: Bundle Pricing

Bundle pricing is a strategy where you bundle several products together.

This approach can enable you to charge more than you could by selling those products separately as long as the bundle offers convenience.

For example, in countries where ginger-lemon-honey tea is a popular hot beverage, grocery stores bundle the ingredients together and sell ginger-lemon-honey tea kits.

Customers could buy the ingredients separately at those same grocery stores at a lower total cost but they prefer to just grab a ready-made kit instead, even if that means paying more.

Ultimately, bundle pricing is about combining several products to provide a solution to a specific problem that the customer has. See if you can bundle your new product with something else to create a complete offer.

Pricing Strategy #7: Performance-Based Pricing

Performance-based pricing is a strategy where you charge not for the service itself but for the results that it delivers.

This approach can make it much easier for you to sell your service but it only works when the results can be easily measured.

For example, it’s easy to track conversion rates across sales funnels, which is why some professional funnel builders charge a fixed percentage of the funnel profit. If there’s no profit, they don’t get paid.

Meanwhile, ad agencies sometimes use the cost plus performance pricing strategy where the client covers the ad spend and the agency gets paid a percentage of the profit from the ads.

Keep in mind that if you use performance-based pricing, providing that service is going to be less like regular freelancing or agency work and more like a partnership with your clients.

That’s why you need to do your due diligence before you accept new clients. You should only work with established businesses that are selling proven products. Otherwise, performance pricing may be too risky!

Pricing Strategy #8: Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing is a strategy where you price your product or service based on its perceived value.

Factors that determine that perceived value include your brand, your industry, your target audience, your social proof, your marketing, your sales copy, the quality of your product or service, and of course its price.

Optimizing these factors can help you increase the perceived value of your product or service and enable you to charge more for it.

Pricing Strategy #9: Premium Pricing

Premium pricing is a strategy where you position your product or service as high-end and charge more than your competitors.

People tend to view price as a proxy for determining value so this approach can help you increase the perceived value of your product or service.

However, you need to make sure that your branding, marketing, and sales copy are consistent with this pricing strategy if you want it to work.

Apple is a great example of premium pricing: the company is able to charge several times more for its products than its competitors who are selling similar products.

Of course, this strategy only makes sense if your dream customers can afford what you are selling. This means that you will need to target an affluent demographic if you want to charge premium prices.

Pricing Strategy #10: Promotional Pricing

Promotional pricing is a strategy where you sell your product or service at a discount for a limited period of time.

Businesses often use this approach for product launches with 24-hour, 48-hour, and 72-hour launch sales.

It’s also common to hold sales on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and various seasonal holidays.

Finally, some companies are running sales so frequently that the only purpose of having “regular prices” appears to be increasing the perceived value of their products so that the “discount” prices would feel like a bargain in comparison.

On the one hand, promotional pricing can help you increase sales volume, but on the other hand, it teaches your customers to wait for the next sale instead of buying your product or service at full price.

Also, using promotional pricing is probably a bad idea if your primary strategy is premium pricing. Keep in mind that holding sales can cheapen your brand in the eyes of your dream customers!

The Most Important Skill That You Will Need to Sell Your New Product or Service…

You can have the best product or service in the world but guess what?

If you can’t convey its value to your dream customers, you will lose out to competitors with inferior products or services but better copy. Sad but true.

That’s why if you are serious about building a business, you need to learn copywriting.

In fact, we would argue that it’s the single most important entrepreneurial skill.

Our friend Jim Edwards wrote a best-selling book “Copywriting Secrets” for busy entrepreneurs just like you.

In this book, he covers everything you need to know in order to start writing copy that CONVERTS.

“Copywriting Secrets” is available on Amazon where it has over 1,800 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from Jim for free.

All he asks is that you cover the shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “Copywriting Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Key Pricing Tips For Launching New Products & Services which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Entrepreneurship has become so glamorized in our culture that it’s easy to underestimate just how hard it is to get a startup off the ground.

We are constantly bombarded with success stories of founders who have made millions – or, in some cases, billions – of dollars with their startups.

It’s important to remember survivorship bias here: if we only look at the successes without also looking at the failures, we will develop an inaccurate perception of reality. And the reality is that 90% of startups fail.

However, if your dream is to build a successful startup, you shouldn’t let that statistic demoralize you. It’s not something that is completely outside of your control like winning a lottery.

In the world of entrepreneurship, your behavior has a significant impact on your outcomes. You can increase your odds of success by taking the right actions.

That’s why today we want to share the seven key strategies that can help you overcome common startup challenges…

Strategy #1: Bootstrap Instead of Seeking Funding

VC-funded startups that are coming out of Silicon Valley get the most media attention so it’s understandable if you believe that the only way to succeed is to get funding.

However, we encourage you to examine that assumption. There’s an entire subculture of software entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping their startups without bringing in outside investors.

These software entrepreneurs call themselves “indie hackers”, have an ethos of scrappiness, and aim to build self-sustaining, profitable businesses.

Typically, indie hackers either have regular jobs and build their startups as side hustles or save up money from their salaries and then use it as a “runway” to focus on their startups full-time.

There’s also a huge overlap between the indie hacker subculture and the digital nomad subculture: indie hackers often move to low-cost-of-living countries in order to extend their runways.

The most successful entrepreneur in that scene is undeniably Pieter Levels. At the time of writing, he’s generating over $350k/month in revenue. That’s more than $4.2M per year!

Levels is an extreme outlier but there are plenty of indie hackers out there who are making six figures with their bootstrapped startups.

Of course, survivorship bias applies here as well. If you start following the indie hacker scene on Twitter, seeing all those success stories can make you believe that everyone except you is making tons of money with apps that they built over the weekend.

That’s why it’s important to temper your expectations. “Ask HN: Starting a business is way harder than Twitter-bros claim. Any advice?” post on Hacker News is probably more representative of the average aspiring software entrepreneur experience than what you see on Twitter.

Also, some people who pursue this dream develop severe mental health problems and burnout.

You might want to read “I am done. I give up” on Hacker News. This post was written by an aspiring entrepreneur who gave up after three failed attempts at building a startup and spending some time institutionalized.

All that being said, the indie hacker approach is the least risky way to build software startups. If that’s what you want to do, it might make sense to explore this path instead of seeking funding.

Of course, if you have an idea for a hardware startup or a biotech startup, then it’s an entirely different situation. It might not be possible to build it without raising capital. You will need to seek funding in that case.

Strategy #2: Focus on Something That Already Has Proven Demand

The startup world is obsessed with “innovation”, “disruption” and “going from zero to one”. But we would argue that it’s leading aspiring entrepreneurs astray.

If you already have a big idea that you want to pursue and you know that you will regret it if you don’t, then by all means do that if you are willing to take on the associated risks. Who are we to tell you that you shouldn’t?

But if you want to build a sustainable business in order to create a better life for yourself and your loved ones, innovation is not the best path towards realizing that dream.

You’ll have much higher odds of success if you take something that already has proven demand and figure out how to make it better.

For example, when Nathan Barry launched ConvertKit back in 2013, there were plenty of email marketing apps already.

However, the big players in that space like MailChimp and Aweber were offering generic solutions. They were okay tools that got the job done but left much to be desired when it came to specific use cases.

That’s where Barry saw an opportunity. As a blogger, he knew what the popular email marketing apps lacked for that particular use case, so he decided to focus on making ConvertKit the best email marketing tool for bloggers. Over time, he expanded his target audience to all kinds of online creators.

Now, more than a decade later, his company is generating eight figures. At the time of writing, its monthly recurring revenue is $3.5M+, which adds up to $42M+ in annual recurring revenue.

We recommend following a similar strategy: pick something that has proven demand, niche down to a specific, clearly-defined demographic, and then focus on creating the best product for that particular use case. You can always expand your target audience later if there’s a need for that!

Strategy #3: Sell Painkillers, Not Vitamins

Marc Louvion, an indie hacker who makes nearly $60k/month with his apps at the time of writing, explained the difference between “painkiller” products and “vitamin” products on his blog.

He shared that once he spent an entire year working on a gamified habit tracker called Habits Garden. Despite having 10,000 accounts and a ton of happy users, this app was making less than $400/month.

Meanwhile, one of his other products, his now-discontinued escape room marketing tool called VirallyBot, was making $600/month, despite the fact that at the time, Louvion hadn’t touched it for several years.

According to him, the key difference between these two apps was this:

•  VirallyBot was a must-have “painkiller” product that addressed a painful problem (escape rooms need marketing).
• Habit Garden was a nice-to-have “vitamin” product (it’s cool to track habits). 

He argued that if you want to reach profitability faster, you should focus on building painkiller products instead of vitamin ones!

Strategy #4: Understand That the Only Way to Validate Your Product is to Build it and Charge for it

Dan Norris’ article “Is Startup Validation Bullshit?” is well worth a read.

In that article, Norris questioned some of the approaches to idea validation that were popular at the time when it was published.

He also shared his experiences with his app Informly and what he learned from them.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• People saying that they like your idea doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Dan got a ton of positive feedback from those around him.
• Thought leaders saying that they like your idea doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Dan got positive feedback from a famous venture capitalist.
• Building a pre-launch email list doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Dan had a pre-launch email list with more than 1,000 subscribers.
• Getting free users doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Informly had 4,000+ free users but only 15 of them converted into paying customers.
• Favorable media coverage doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Informly was covered by several popular tech websites, including Mashable and The Next Web.

At the time, everything was seemingly indicating that Informly was destined to be a success but it still failed despite all that.

In our view, the most important lesson here is that ultimately, the only product validation that counts is people paying for your product and using it!

Strategy #5: Build MVPs as Fast as You Can

The concept of a minimum viable product (MVP) was popularized by Eric Ries in his 2011 book “The Lean Startup”.

An MVP is supposed to be the minimum viable version of your product that only has the core functionality needed to provide value to the user.

One of the most notable differences between how VC-funded entrepreneurs approach creating software and how indie hackers approach it is the speed at which they build MVPs.

VC-funded entrepreneurs tend to take months to launch their MVPs while indie hackers do it in weeks, days, and in some cases, hours.

For example, once Nico Jeannen saw a tweet where someone said that they would pay for an app that allowed them to enhance the picture quality of old photos.

Jeannen already knew how to do it because he had previously edited old photos for his mom using AI. So he decided to build an MVP for an AI photo editing app.

He saw that tweet early in the morning and challenged himself to launch an MVP by 7 PM because he already had plans for that evening. Guess what?

He started working on it at 7.45 AM and managed to not only launch PhotoRestore but also make the first sale by 1.40 PM!

Jeannen’s MVP was a landing page advertising a photo editing service where he would edit the customers’ photos himself and send them the HD version within 24 hours.

He intended to turn PhotoRestore into a software product if he saw enough demand for it. In around two weeks, this service made $39.78. It has since been discontinued.

While PhotoRestore did not become a success, it’s a great example of how indie hackers build and launch MVPs at breakneck speed.

The reasoning behind it is simple: if you keep building products, eventually some of them will take off.

This approach does seem to work:

• Pieter Levels built 70+ products in the last decade
• Marc Louvion built 23 products in the last few years
• Nico Jeannen built 17 products in just one year

We should once again remember survivorship bias here. There probably are quite a few people out there who built a bunch of products in a short period of time and still failed.

However, if you want to make it as an indie hacker, this seems to be the best way to go about it. Luck is an important factor and the more times you roll the dice, the more likely you will be to succeed!

Strategy #6: Get Your First Users With Cold Outreach

The greatest challenge for any new startup is customer acquisition. So how can you get your first users?

We would argue that the best way to do that is cold outreach:

Cold Calls

If your startup is in the B2B space, cold calling probably makes the most sense.

Go on Fiverr, find a lead generation expert, and ask them to compile a list of 100 leads based on your criteria (industry, company size, annual revenue, etc.)

That list should include the phone number and the email address of each company’s founder or CEO.

(Unless you want to target a different decision-maker. For example, if you are selling something super technical, it might make more sense to cold-call the CTO).

Once you have your lead list, start calling the decision-makers. You can use this cold calling framework:

It’s impossible to predict what your conversion rates are going to be but a good initial target that you can aim for is 1 sale for every 100 cold calls!

Cold Email

Cold email can be another great way to acquire customers in the early stages.

For example, Justin McGill used cold email to grow his startup LeadFuze from zero to $30k in annual revenue in one year.

His cold email template was based on a “QVC” formula:

1. Question – Lead with a question that is somehow related to your business.
2. Value proposition – Explain how your product can help make their lives better. What’s in it for them?
3. Call to action – Ask them if they would be interested in seeing a product demo.

Here’s a sample cold email that follows this formula:

A few days after that initial cold email, McGill would follow up and then continue following up once a week until he got a yes or no answer.

It’s worth noting that he would add this P.S. section to all his emails to provide the prospect with a way to opt out:

Cold Social Media DMs

All major social media platforms allow their users to send direct messages to other users, which means that you can also do cold outreach via social media DMs.

That being said, you’ll probably have more success if you use social media marketing to build a following and then DM people who already know who you are.

Strategy #7: Build a Sales Funnel for Your Product

Our co-founders Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson launched ClickFunnels back in 2013.

In just five years, they bootstrapped their software startup to $100M+ in annual revenue. So how did they do it?

Their secret was the Value Ladder sales funnel that was developed by Russell:

If you have already validated your product idea by getting your first customers, we recommend building a Value Ladder sales funnel for your business.

We believe that this is the best way to sell software. It can help you grow your startup faster than you ever thought possible!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in just five years.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free…

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Tips To Tackle Common Startup Problems which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Ever heard the story of how Product Hunt got started?

The platform gained its first 2,000 users in under a month – thanks to just two blog posts.

Ten years later, it’s one of the best-known platforms for startups and generates an annual revenue in the high seven figures.

It’s proof that when content is done right, it can have a huge impact.

Even if you’re starting from scratch.

But how do you craft content that engages your audience and drives the actions you want?

In this post, we’re sharing 12 genius ways to write engaging content for your audience, with real-life examples.

Let’s dive in!

Benefits of Using Engaging Content as Part of Your Marketing

Historically, businesses could survive without “content” as we know it today.

Before the rise of digital marketing and the Internet businesses relied on location, word-of-mouth and face-to-face interactions.

We’re talking about businesses that had a shopfront on ‘Main Street’ or ‘Downtown’.

Their location was enough to bring in new customers. (And sometimes traditional forms of advertising like Yellow Pages, flyers or newspaper ads.)

Today, there are still businesses that can survive without content marketing:

• Highly localized services (e.g., street vendors, small local shops, or certain tradespeople) may rely on foot traffic, community reputation, and customer referrals rather than digital content.
• Certain monopolies or industries where the product or service is in high demand with few competitors may not need to market themselves as aggressively. Utilities like water or energy suppliers often fall into this category.
• Luxury brands that cultivate exclusivity sometimes limit their content to a select, controlled few channels to maintain an aura of inaccessibility rather than mass-market campaigns.

If You’re Looking to Build One of These Businesses Below, You’re Going to Need Content

It’s all very well for businesses that can survive without online content.

But what about the rest of us?

If you’re looking to build a business online, you’re going to need content to stand out, build your brand and win new customers.

Here are the types of online businesses that are popular among ClickFunnels users, where engaging online content is critical for success:

1. SaaS (Software as a Service) – Businesses that provide cloud-based software solutions to solve various user problems. They rely heavily on content to showcase features, educate users, and build trust.
2. E-commerce Stores – Businesses selling physical or digital products online. Content is vital for product descriptions, customer education, reviews, and marketing funnels.
3. Online Courses & Digital Education – Entrepreneurs who create and sell online courses rely on content to establish expertise, attract students, and nurture leads through value-driven blog posts and email marketing.
4. Coaching Services – Life coaches, business coaches, or health coaches depend on content to demonstrate their value, share testimonials, and engage potential clients.
5. Consulting Agencies – Consultants in marketing, sales, or tech industries use content to position themselves as thought leaders, educate prospects, and drive inquiries for their services.
6. Membership Sites – These platforms offer premium content to paying members, including exclusive articles, videos, or webinars. Engaging content is the core product of this model.
7. Affiliate Marketing – Marketers who earn commissions by promoting other people’s products need constant, fresh content to attract and convert an audience through blogs, reviews, and email campaigns.
8. Freelancing Platforms – Businesses offering freelance or gig services, such as copywriting or web design, use content to build credibility, share portfolios, and attract new clients.

5 Stats About the Power of Engaging Content

Each of the online businesses above relies on engaging content to build their brand, attract customers, and scale.

In fact, sometimes engaging content is the most powerful form of marketing they engage in.

It has key advantages over other types of advertising, like paid ads.

Take a look at these stats about the impact of engaging content:

• Content marketing costs only 28% as much as outbound marketing and generates three times more leads (Respona).
• 44% of users consume 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a business (Respona).
• The three most popular content formats are how-tos, news, and guides (Statista).
• 70% of users prefer receiving information from blogs rather than advertisements (Ahrefs).
• Almost 50% of buyers read a company’s blog when making purchase decisions (HubSpot).

How do You Write Good Content?

So what actually is engaging content?

Here’s a definition.

Engaging content is helpful, useful content that genuinely educates and helps people solve problems. It provides value by addressing the needs of your audience, making them more likely to trust and interact with your brand.

It’s important to distinguish between viral content and content that drives action.

Many businesses mistakenly think that viral content is automatically good content. While viral content may get a lot of views, what truly matters is creating content that builds your brand and brings in new customers.

10 Top Quotes About Engaging Content

So how do you create content that’s both useful and drives action?

Let’s look at what a few content marketing experts have to say about engaging content.

• ​​Ann Handley – “You need to create ridiculously good content—content that is useful, enjoyable, and inspired.”
• Andrew Davis – “Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.”
• Marcus Sheridan – “Great content is the best sales tool in the world.”
• Ellen Gomes – “One of the best ways to sabotage content is to not tie it to your goals. Know why you’re creating content.”
• Brian Clark – “These days, people want to learn before they buy, be educated instead of pitched.”
• Tim Ferriss – “People don’t like being sold products, but we all like being told stories.”
• Seth Godin – “Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don’t.”
• Leo Burnett – “What helps people, helps business.”
• Rand Fishkin – “Best way to sell something: don’t sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect, & trust of those who might buy.”
• Jay Baer – “Make your marketing so useful people would pay for it.”

Where Will Publish Your Engaging Content?

Engaging content can be applied to formats like video and podcasts. But this post is specifically about writing great content.

So, you’ll most likely be looking at a handful of publishing platforms and formats.

Here are the most popular places where online businesses (especially those run by ClickFunnels users) place their content:

1. Blogs – Found on their own websites or through guest blogging, blogs are crucial for SEO, establishing expertise, and driving organic traffic.

2. Social Media Platforms:

• Facebook – For building communities, running ads, and engaging directly with customers.
• Instagram – Great for e-commerce, coaching, and personal branding through visuals and stories.
• LinkedIn – Important for B2B SaaS, consulting, and professional services to share insights and connect with industry professionals.
• TikTok – Increasingly used by e-commerce and personal brands for viral content and product promotion.

3. Email Newsletters – Essential for nurturing leads, offering value-driven content, and promoting products or services directly to subscribers.

4. Lead Magnets – Content such as reports, interviews or guides specifically designed for conversions, such as collecting leads.

5. Online Communities (Facebook Groups, Discord, Reddit) – Places for engaging with customers, offering support, and building loyal communities around a brand or service.

12 Real-life Examples of Engaging Content

Rather than giving you theories, we wanted to share real-life examples of engaging content with you.

Each example contains more lessons in them than we can cover in this blog.

But hopefully, you’ll find one example that directly relates to the business you’re looking to build. Use that example as your roadmap for success with engaging content.

Let’s go!

1. How Product Hunt Used 2 Blogs to Get it’s First 2,000 Users

Type Of Engaging Content: Blog

Key Result: First 2,000 users

Backstory: Product Hunt acquired its first 2,000 users through strategic guest posts and personalized outreach. Ryan Hoover, the founder, wrote two key blog posts—one for FastCompany and another called “PandoDaily”—to capture the attention of tech enthusiasts and startup communities. These blog posts explained the vision for Product Hunt, attracting early adopters. Hoover also leveraged personal connections, sending private invitations to startup founders and influencers to contribute and share feedback. This created a sense of exclusivity and involvement, helping to build a loyal early community before the platform’s official launch. By focusing on personalized outreach and community building, Product Hunt grew organically and rapidly.

2. How Buffer Used Guest Blogs to Get 100,000 Customers

Type Of Engaging Content: Blog

Key Result: 100,000 customers in 9 months

Backstory: Buffer’s co-founder, Leo Widrich, leveraged guest blogging as a core strategy to grow the company’s user base. Over a period of 9 months, Widrich wrote around 150 guest posts across various blogs and websites. Although the initial posts barely drove traffic, consistency paid off, with the strategy eventually attracting 100,000 customers. Widrich focused on signing up users rather than just driving traffic, with guest blogging accounting for nearly all of Buffer’s early user acquisition. The posts provided valuable content, promoted Buffer’s unique scheduling tool, and built crucial relationships in the social media and tech communities. This helped to organically spread awareness and grow Buffer’s customer base.

3. How Mint Used a Personal Finance Blog to Get 20,000–30,000 Beta Signups

Type Of Engaging Content: Blog

Key Result: 20,000–30,000 beta signups

Backstory: Nine months before the official launch of Mint, founder Aaron Patzer started a personal finance blog as a cost-effective marketing strategy. Mint created unique content, such as “Train Wreck Tuesdays,” which highlighted readers’ financial disasters, making others feel better about their own finances. Another feature, “What’s in Your Wallet,” featured tech celebrities and personal finance bloggers discussing their financial tools. Mint’s blog posts heavily featured guest content from other personal finance bloggers, who would cross-link back to Mint, driving traffic to their site. This blog ended up generating more traffic than its established competitors. To convert this audience, Mint added a call to action promising early beta access, which helped them capture 20,000 to 30,000 email signups. They further incentivized bloggers by offering special VIP beta access if they added a Mint badge to their sites, resulting in 600 backlinks, and boosting SEO and traffic.

4. How Plausible Analytics Used Blog Posts and Community Engagement to Grow to $2,750 MRR in 135 Days

Type Of Engaging Content: Blog and Community Engagement

Key Result: $2,750 MRR and 427 paying subscribers

Backstory: Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics, achieved remarkable growth without paid advertising, affiliate marketing, or sponsorships. By publishing useful blog posts addressing pain points in web analytics and engaging with communities on platforms like Hacker News, Twitter, and Reddit, they saw a 2,200% increase in visitors and significant growth in paying subscribers (427) over 135 days. Blog posts tackled issues like privacy and user tracking, making them relevant to a growing market. Plausible also actively participated in discussions, published guest posts, and reached out to relevant audiences via cold outreach, leveraging organic methods to boost their subscriber base and build trust.

5. How Coding Sans Used an Industry Report to Double Their Website Traffic

Type Of Engaging Content: Industry Report

Key Result: Traffic doubled and $300,000 in new projects

Backstory: Coding Sans, a small software development agency, aimed to build trust and generate quality engagement online. In 2017, they launched their State of Software Development report, an annual, gated industry survey report exploring trends and challenges in software development. This report, which took 260 hours to create, became a key asset for driving backlinks, shares, and leads. In its first year, traffic to the Coding Sans website doubled, and the report’s popularity continued to grow. By 2019, it had accumulated 26,700 visits, over 5,000 downloads, and 291 backlinks, leading to an estimated $300,000 in new projects attributed to the report’s indirect impact. The effort paid off significantly by building authority and engaging their target audience.

6. How Stewart Surfboards Used Instagram to Boost Engagement and Sales

Type Of Engaging Content: Consumer-Generated Instagram Content

Key Result: 272% increase in story views and direct sales

Backstory: Stewart Surfboards, a handcrafted surfboard brand, wanted to transform its image from “dad boards” to “family legacy boards” by targeting its audience of middle-aged “surfer dads.” They implemented a consumer-generated content strategy on Instagram, encouraging users to share photos of their Stewart boards in exotic locations. The brand leveraged Instagram Stories to repost user content, adding engagement with features like Instagram’s “ask-a-question.” This interactive campaign asked followers, “Where has your Stewart board taken you?”. During the launch phase, Stewart saw direct sales from social media for the first time.

7. How LogoMaker Used Keyword-Focused Blog Content to Boost Revenue by 548%

Type Of Engaging Content: Blog and How-To Guides

Key Result: 548% increase in revenue year-over-year

Backstory: LogoMaker, a DIY logo design platform, targeted small business owners and startups by creating keyword-driven blog content focused on logo design, branding, and startup advice. Their blog topics, such as the use of colors, shapes, and fonts in logo design, were designed to rank well in search results and offer practical value to their audience. In addition to logo-related posts, the company featured how-to guides on topics like business naming and trademarking. A content plan designed for longevity helped sustain traffic, with older articles like a 2012 post on creating a Gmail signature still receiving 5,000 monthly visits. This content strategy resulted in a 47% increase in blog sessions, a 49% increase in new users, and a 548% increase in revenue year-over-year.

8. How FounderOS Used LinkedIn to Drive $200,000 in MRR

Type Of Engaging Content: Social Media

Key Result: 639,643 LinkedIn followers and $200,000 in MRR

Backstory: Founder Matt Gray of Founder OS grew his LinkedIn presence from zero to over 639,643 followers, generating $200,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from the platform without any paid ads. Gray focused on sharing consistent, value-driven content using specific post formats like long-form lists, carousels, and hook-stacking posts to engage his audience. By posting regularly and optimizing his profile as a lead generator, Matt attracted new followers at a rate of over 112,341 per month. He also built relationships with other LinkedIn creators to expand his reach. This organic content funnel became a core engine behind Founder OS’s growth.

9. How KickFlips Used a Newsletter to Grow to $48,000/year in Revenue

Type Of Engaging Content: Newsletter and Discord Community

Key Result: $4,000/month in revenue

Backstory: Casey Woodard launched KickFlips, an email newsletter, and Discord community for sneakerheads, which tracks limited-edition sneaker and streetwear releases that can be resold for significant profit. KickFlips sends out emails on every drop day, informing subscribers where to buy and how to resell these high-demand items. The free version of the newsletter offers basic updates, while the paid Pro version provides exclusive insights on even more profitable items like gaming consoles and graphics cards. KickFlips grew quickly, generating $4,000 per month in revenue by helping subscribers flip items for profit with useful content. The combination of targeted, value-packed email content and a supportive Discord community has allowed KickFlips to carve out a profitable niche in the reselling space.

10. How Exploding Ideas Used Reddit to Grow to 5,000 Subscribers in 3 Months

Type Of Engaging Content: Online Communities

Key Result: 5,000 subscribers and profitable within 3 months, using Reddit

Backstory: Eric Lam, founder of ExplodingIdeas.co, launched a weekly newsletter that explores startup ideas and emerging trends for side hustles. By targeting Reddit communities and offering high-value insights into profitable business opportunities, Lam quickly gained 1,000 subscribers in 12 days with $0 in customer acquisition costs. After three months, the newsletter grew to 5,000 subscribers, and Lam introduced paid features, including deep business idea insights. The newsletter became profitable within four months, thanks to organic growth through Reddit and personalized engagement with subscribers. Eric’s focus on addressing subscriber needs helped build a loyal audience and generate revenue from consulting and sponsorship deals.

11. How Content Mavericks Used One Blog Post to Land a $100,000 Job

Type Of Engaging Content: Blog Post

Key Result: $100,000 in revenue with $688.71 in ad spend

Backstory: Chris Von Wilpert, founder of Content Mavericks, used a blog post as a strategic tool to land high-value clients for his content marketing business. Chris wrote a detailed case study that reverse-engineered the content marketing strategies of HubSpot and targeted his Dream 100 clients in the SaaS space. By promoting the post through influencer outreach, the blog post generated over 1,000 leads. This single piece of content helped Chris land a $100,000 job at AppSumo, proving the power of combining targeted content creation with strategic promotion to build high-quality leads and clients.

12. How Dan Koe Used Newsletters and Content Repurposing to Build a $2.6M Solopreneur Business

Type Of Engaging Content: Newsletters and Social Media

Key Result: $208K in monthly revenue

Backstory: Dan Koe, a solopreneur, built a business generating $2.6 million annually by leveraging newsletters and a content repurposing strategy for social media. Starting as a freelancer, he grew his brand by offering free long-form newsletter content and courses while focusing on short-form content repurposed for social platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This strategy allowed him to expand his audience to 2.6 million followers. His paid offerings include a membership program, Modern Mastery HQ, and courses like Digital Economics, which range from $150 to $8,000. Dan’s focus on continuous learning and community building has made his business a success with a 98% profit margin.

Tips to Measure the Results of Your Engaging Content

Hopefully, the examples above have sparked inspiration and shown you the power of well-crafted content.

But the key to driving real success lies in defining and working toward specific goals.

Creating engaging content is only one part of the puzzle – you need to know how to measure its impact effectively.

Here are some metrics you might focus on to track the success of your content:

• Newsletter subscribers: How many new subscribers are you gaining from your content?
• Social media followers: Are your social posts leading to a growth in followers across platforms?
• Free trial signups: Is your content driving people to take advantage of a free trial for your product?
• Conversion rate: How well does your content lead visitors to take action, like signing up or making a purchase?
• Revenue: Is your content helping you generate sales and grow your business?
• Paying customers: Are readers moving from free trials to paid customers?
• Engagement: Are readers interacting with your content (comments, shares, likes)?
• Referral traffic: How much of your web traffic is being driven by your content shared on social media or other sites?
• Time on page: How long are visitors staying on your blog posts or articles?
• Lead generation: How many qualified leads are you gaining from your content?

The next question is…

How will you actually track these metrics and build the system to collect subscribers, manage payments, and nurture leads?

This is where ClickFunnels becomes your ultimate solution.

ClickFunnels is an all-in-one platform that allows you to build and optimize every stage of your content and sales funnel.

Here’s how it can help you:

• Email collection and automation: Use ClickFunnels to create landing pages that capture email addresses and nurture your newsletter subscribers with automated email sequences.
• Social media integration: Connect your ClickFunnels pages to your social platforms to track and grow your follower base directly from your content.
• Lead generation: Build optimized funnels that guide visitors from initial interest (via blog or social content) to becoming paying customers.
• Sales and payment systems: ClickFunnels integrates payment gateways, making it easy to collect payments from customers who are ready to purchase.
• Conversion tracking: Monitor your free trial signups, conversion rates, and revenue growth in real time with ClickFunnels’ built-in analytics tools.
• Split testing: Test different versions of your content pages and funnels to find what works best for increasing conversions and driving results.

By using ClickFunnels, you’ll have a comprehensive system to create engaging content and drive actions.

You’ll also be able to measure its effectiveness easily.

And ultimately you can use it to continually scale your content and revenue side-by-side.

Try ClickFunnels Free for 14 Days

Final Thoughts: Writing Engaging Content for Your Online Audience

In conclusion, creating engaging content is a powerful way to grow your online business and connect with your audience.

We’ve seen how powerful it is through the various examples shared in this post.

Whether it’s blog posts, newsletters, or social media strategies, the key is to be intentional and track your progress toward specific goals.

Focus on the metrics that matter most to your business such as: growing your newsletter, increasing free trials, or driving revenue.

The good news is that you don’t have to build this process manually.

With tools like ClickFunnels, you can manage everything from capturing leads to tracking conversions and collecting payments, all within one platform.

Now it’s time to take action, apply these strategies, and watch your content deliver real results.

Try ClickFunnels Free for 14 Days

Thanks for reading How To Write Content For Your Audience which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Need to make money ASAP?

Today we are going to discuss five ways to do that…

Start With Your Mindset

Oftentimes, what prevents people from making money is not the lack of opportunities but their own attitude.

That’s why we want to begin this article by discussing the mindset that you will need in order to make it as soon as possible.

Be Realistic

It’s important to understand that desperation makes you vulnerable.

There are a lot of grifters out there who peddle various get-rich-quick schemes.

You want to stay clear of anyone who is saying that they can teach you how to make a ton of money in a short period of time.

It’s much better to be realistic: if you are in a difficult financial situation, the fastest way out of it is to get a full-time job and also have a side hustle on top of it.

If you do that, you should be able to get some money coming in within a month and hopefully stabilize your finances in three to six months.

Also, if your situation is so dire that you don’t know whether you’ll be able to afford food and shelter, you need to seek help from family, friends, religious organizations, charities or governmental institutions immediately.

Keep in mind that it’s going to be extremely difficult to get back on your feet if you are homeless and starving, so you need to avoid that at all costs. And if you are already there, you should focus on securing food and shelter first before you start looking for work!

Accept the Fact That You Might Need to Sacrifice Status

Humans are social animals and as such we are wired to be concerned about status. This desire to be respected by others can get in the way of making money, though.

People who don’t have a source of income are often unwilling to go with the most obvious solution – which is to get a minimum-wage job – because they are afraid of what their peers are going to think.

After all, McDonald’s is always hiring but if you are terrified that someone from your social circles will see you working there, you might find yourself engaging in all kinds of mental gymnastics in order to avoid seriously considering that option.

And it’s completely understandable. There’s no denying that losing status can be painful. However, learning not to care about it can become your superpower.

Perhaps Sam Altman’s essay “How To Be Successful” can provide some food for thought here, especially the section about being internally driven.

He argues that most people are externally driven and do what they do because they want to impress others.

According to Altman, being externally driven is bad for two reasons:

1. It makes you care more about what other people think, which can influence your career decisions and prevent you from doing truly interesting work.
2. It makes you focused on playing competitive games and keeping up with your peers, which can lead to miscalculating risks when making decisions.

Interestingly, he argues that smart people are especially vulnerable to being externally driven, which is why they need to work super hard to avoid it.

If you are an intelligent and ambitious person who has fallen on hard times, working low-status jobs can be a great opportunity to practice caring less about what people think and become more internally driven!

Drop Your Sense of Entitlement

As we go through our lives, it’s easy to develop a sense of entitlement without even realizing it, which only becomes apparent when it is challenged by our external conditions.

This unexamined sense of entitlement is another common obstacle that prevents people from making money as quickly as possible.

If you subconsciously believe that you are entitled to a certain kind of work, a certain kind of pay and a certain kind of schedule, you will hesitate to do whatever it takes to get some money coming in ASAP.

In fact, you might find yourself ignoring the obvious solutions that are right in front of you and waiting for the opportunities that you believe you “deserve” while the clock is ticking and your financial situation is getting worse.

Moreover, this sense of entitlement can make it much more difficult to take advantage of the opportunities that you do have.

For example, if you get a job that you believe is beneath you, you will probably struggle to fit in, won’t do good work, and might even get fired.

Finally, this idea that you “deserve” so much more than what you currently have will make you feel fed up, resentful, and angry. Entitlement is bad for your mental health so it’s best to just drop it.

Here’s how our friend Alex Hormozi explains it:

Be Prepared to Work More Than 40 Hours a Week

As we already mentioned, the fastest way to dig yourself out of a financial hole is to get a full-time job and then add a side hustle on top of it. That will probably add up to around 60 hours per week.

That is not sustainable in the long run but doing it for three to six months can help you stabilize your situation so that you could then scale back to the regular 40-hour work week.

Of course, not everyone can do that. If your health, familial responsibilities, or something else is preventing you from working that much, this advice won’t be applicable.

Make Sure That You Take Care of Your Health!

Realistically speaking, if you start working 60 hours a week, your health is going to suffer. There’s no way around that.

However, that makes it extremely important to take care of yourself so that you can minimize the damage.

Here’s some basic stuff that can help you survive the grind:

• Getting enough sleep
• Eating enough calories
• Eating enough protein
• Watching your caffeine consumption
• Refraining from alcohol and partying
• Taking time to wind down at the end of each day
• Doing chores, running errands, and then just lounging around on your days off so that you could maximize recovery.

Obviously, doing all that may not always be possible if you are juggling a full-time job and a part-time job or a side hustle. Sometimes you simply won’t have enough time due to your work schedule.

However, if you are serious about stabilizing your finances, you need to be willing to go into “sleep, eat, work” mode until it’s done. Remove everything else from your life. That will make it much easier for you to get through it.

Okay, now with all that out of the way, here are some ideas on how to make money as soon as possible…

#1: Get a Gig Economy Job

What is the Gig Economy?

The term “gig economy” refers to a labor market where companies hire workers on a freelance basis to do various tasks that are often referred to as “gigs”.

This type of work is typically facilitated via tech platforms that connect the companies, the gig workers, and the customers.

Local Gig Economy Jobs

If you live in an urban location and have a driver’s license and a car, you may be able to find work as a rideshare driver for companies like Uber and Lyft or their local equivalents.

Alternatively, you may find work as a delivery courier for companies like DoorDash, Deliveroo or their local equivalents. You don’t even need a car for that, you can use a bicycle or a scooter to deliver food.

Just remember that you will need to handle your own taxes, health insurance, vehicle insurance, etc. There are also vehicle maintenance costs. Finally, if you are driving a car, you’ll have to pay for gas as well.

That’s why it’s important to do the math, calculate how much money you will be left with once everything is accounted for and decide whether doing this type of work makes sense from a financial perspective.

Something to keep in mind here is that driving any vehicle is going to put wear and tear on it and if you do it long enough, you’ll have to pay for repairs and eventually replace it.

This means that the longer you work as a rideshare driver or delivery courier, the less profitable it becomes due to the expenses associated with the wear and tear on your vehicle.

Remote Gig Economy Jobs

You might also be able to find remote gig economy work.

The most popular platform for that is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk but there’s also Prolific, CloudResearch, and others.

Businesses use these platforms to find people who can do tasks like labeling AI training data, doing usability testing, filling out market research surveys, and so on.

Meanwhile, academics use them to find participants for their scientific studies that are based on surveys.

Typically, these tasks don’t take much time to complete. For example, according to Amazon, most tasks on Mechanical Turk can be done in less than five minutes.

People who do this type of work usually sign up for several platforms so that they can do it full-time.

It used to be possible to make $1,500/month this way but it appears that things have been going downhill since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nowadays, you can expect to make $5-10 per day if you work exclusively on Mechanical Turk and maybe $15 per day if you work across several platforms.

This means that if you do it full-time without days off, you might be able to make between $150 and $600 per month.

If you live in a developed country, it’s probably not worth your time because you would likely make more money by getting a minimum-wage job.

However, if you live in a developing country where the minimum wage is within that range, then it might be an option worth considering.

If you want to learn more, check out the MTurk subreddit where Mechanical Turk veterans and newcomers alike share their experiences on that platform.

Future Opportunities

Local gig economy jobs can be a great way to make extra cash when you need it, especially if you have a lot of free time.

Meanwhile, remote gig economy jobs can be an appealing alternative to minimum-wage jobs if you live in a developing country.

However, we can probably safely assume that the profitability of doing this type of work is going to continue decreasing.

So don’t hesitate to participate in the gig economy if you want to make some money but don’t get too comfortable because there’s no future in it. Never stop looking for better opportunities!

#2: Get a Temporary Seasonal Job

What is a Temporary Seasonal Job?

A temporary seasonal job is a job that offers a short-term contract for the peak season of a particular industry.

Types of Temporary Seasonal Jobs

Retail Warehousing and Delivery Jobs

Businesses involved in retail warehousing and delivery tend to hire temporary workers in the run-up to the winter holidays.

For example, in September 2023, Amazon announced that it was hiring 250,000 temporary employees for the holiday season.

Hospitality and Catering Jobs

Catering agencies that provide waiting staff for various events start hiring temporary workers in September and continue doing so until Christmas.

This means that you can always find work in the hospitality industry in October, November and especially December when companies are throwing their Christmas parties.

January, February, and to some extent March is the low season after which catering agencies start hiring temporary workers again in April.

You should be able to find work from May to July because of all the weddings and summer events.

Then you can expect it to be quiet from August to October when the cycle starts again.

Vacation Destination Jobs

Popular vacation destinations typically have an on-season when they are crazy busy and an off-season when they look like ghost towns.

It’s usually easy to find temporary work during the on-season because everyone is hiring: the hotels, the restaurants, the souvenir shops, even the supermarkets!

How to Get a Temporary Seasonal Job

With retail warehousing and delivery jobs, it’s best to either apply via the company’s website or respond to the job ads on local online job boards.

The same goes for hospitality and catering jobs: you can either go to the websites of local catering agencies and apply there or you can respond to their ads on local online job boards.

Meanwhile, with vacation destination jobs, check to see if any of the big chain hotels, restaurants and supermarkets are looking for temporary workers.

Also, if you live relatively close to that destination, it might make sense to go there at the very beginning of the on-season and spend a day handing out your CVs to local businesses. This approach may be old-fashioned but it still works!

Future Opportunities

Finding reliable temporary workers can be difficult so if you do a good job you will probably have an opportunity to come back next year.

Also, in some cases, seasonal work can be a stepping stone towards full-time, regular employment. For example, Amazon is known for extending full-time job offers to some of its temporary employees.

Meanwhile, in the hospitality industry, if you leave a great impression on the managers at a particular venue, they might offer you a full-time waiting job the next time they have an open position.

After all, it makes more sense for them to hire someone who has already proven themselves than to take chances on random people.

There might also be opportunities for advancement within the catering agencies. It’s quite common to see people in administrative roles who started out as waiters and waitresses!

#3: Get a Minimum-Wage Job

What is a Minimum-Wage Job?

A minimum-wage job is a job that pays the legally mandated minimum wage.

If you don’t know what the minimum wage is in your country, you should be able to easily find that information online.

Types of Minimum-Wage Jobs

Minimum-wage jobs tend to revolve around doing straightforward, repetitive tasks that don’t require formal qualifications, extensive training, or prior experience.

The most common types of minimum-wage jobs include:

• Warehouse jobs
• Cleaning jobs
• Retail jobs
• Supermarket jobs
• Waiting jobs
• Bar jobs
• Fast food jobs

Arguably, waiting and bar jobs are the best option if you need to make money as quickly as possible, assuming that you live in a country where it’s customary to leave tips.

However, it’s also important to take your strengths and weaknesses into consideration. What type of minimum-wage job can you see yourself excelling at?

How to Get a Minimum-Wage Job

It depends on the type of job that you are interested in but minimum-wage jobs can be found everywhere.

Big chains usually have a “Careers” section on their websites and encourage people to apply directly.

Meanwhile, smaller companies tend to post ads on local online job boards and expect you to apply that way.

You can also find work by handing out your CVs to local businesses. Simply walk in, ask to talk to the manager, and give them your CV.

This strategy can be especially effective for landing a job at a small restaurant or bar because places like that usually don’t have a streamlined hiring process.

That being said, it can also help you get a job at a chain restaurant. Some managers prefer to hire walk-in applicants!

Future Opportunities

This varies depending on the employer but it’s pretty common for new employees who do good work to get promoted to a supervisor position within a year.

Moreover, some companies are known for hiring from within and providing a legitimate career path for those who are interested in that.

McDonald’s is a good example of this. If you get a minimum-wage job there, you may be able to rise through the ranks until you reach the regional manager position, which can be a six-figure job in some countries.

Of course, that would be predicated on you excelling at each role and would likely take at least a decade. Still, it can be a good opportunity, especially if your ultimate career goal is to have a high-paying, white-collar job.

Finally, working a minimum-wage job, especially one that cannot be easily automated, provides an opportunity to learn marketable skills that might come in handy in the future.

Sure, minimum-wage jobs are low-skilled jobs, but the managers still prefer to hire people who have done something similar before.

This means that if you ever find yourself in a precarious financial situation again, you will be able to fall back on your previous experience and get another minimum-wage job!

#4: Start a Local Service Business

What is a Local Service Business?

A local service business is a business that provides services to customers located in a particular geographical area.

Types of Local Service Businesses

The most common types of local service businesses include:

• House cleaning businesses
• Landscaping businesses
• Painting businesses
• Laundry businesses
• Catering businesses
• Moving businesses
• Trade businesses

How to Start a Local Service Business

Take stock of your strengths, your existing skills, and the resources at your disposal. Make a list of services that you can begin providing immediately. Identify which service will allow you to make the most money. That’s what you should focus on.

Then, design simple black and white flyers for your business. Explain what service you are offering, list pricing information and provide your contact details. Consider getting a Google Voice phone number for this.

A6 is probably the best size for these flyers because it will enable you to get four flyers out of one regular A4 sheet of paper. That can help you keep the printing costs down.

If you don’t have a printer at home, do some research and see who is offering printing services near you. Typically, you can print stuff at libraries, Internet cafes, and stationery stores.

Ideally, you want to distribute at least 100 flyers per day. If you have A6-size flyers, that’s 25 sheets of paper. Meaning, you’ll need to print out 750 sheets of paper every month.

In the first month, you might want to print your flyers in three separate batches of 250 sheets, which will produce 1,000 flyers per batch. This will allow you to spread out printing expenses and minimize dumb mistakes.

Do these three batches at three different printing places. When you are there, ask about volume discounts. How much would it cost to print out 1,000 sheets of paper at once?

See who can offer you the best price and go to them once you are done with your initial three batches and need flyers for the next month.

Generally speaking, out of every 1,000 flyers that you distribute, you can probably expect to get 10 leads and 1 paying customers.

This means that if you distribute 100 flyers per day, meaning 3,000 flyers per month, you should be able to get at least 3 paying customers in your first month.

How to Grow Your Local Service Business

The most straightforward way to grow your local service business is to simply do more of what’s already working.

Start increasing your daily flyer distribution target and continue doing so until you hit the ceiling due to time constraints.

By the way, did you know that people who get paid to distribute flyers do 1,000 per day? It takes them about 8-10 hours. Just saying.

Also, if you improve the copy of your flyers, you may be able to get more leads from the same amount of flyers.

Our friend Jim Edwards, who is a world-class copywriter, wrote his book “Copywriting Secrets” for business owners who want to learn copywriting. We highly recommend reading it.

You can buy “Copywriting Secrets” on Amazon where it has more than 1,900 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating. But you can also get it directly from Jim for free. All he asks is that you pay for shipping!

In addition to that, if you improve your sales skills, you may be able to close more leads that you are getting from your flyers.

Reading Robert Cialdini’s “Influence” can help you understand the key principles of persuasion. Just make sure that you get the new and expanded edition.

Meanwhile, Brian Tracy’s “The Psychology of Selling” is a classic introduction to sales and a great way to learn the basics.

You might also want to read Daniel H. Pink’s “To Sell Is Human” because it deals with selling in the digital age.

Finally, if you focus on doing excellent work, eventually you’ll start getting referrals. As time goes on, word-of-mouth will likely become the main driver of growth!

Future Opportunities

In popular culture, entrepreneurship is associated with tech startups from Silicon Valley, but the reality is that local service businesses have much better odds of success.

Serial entrepreneur Nick Huber talks about this a lot. In his view, the Shark Tank and Tech Crunch culture is ruining the spirit of low-risk entrepreneurship:

“In college, I connected with a lot of other entrepreneurs, and of the 20 or so people pursuing tech and “new idea” startups, not one succeeded. They all went and got real jobs.”

Meanwhile, he started his storage business by letting his fellow students keep their stuff in his room and has since grown it to 62 locations in 11 states.

There are tons of opportunities like that in industries that are not glamorous. It’s possible to grow a humble local service business to six figures in annual net profit. You might even be able to eventually sell it for seven figures.

If you are interested in entrepreneurship and want to learn more about the potential of local service businesses, we recommend checking out Nick Huber’s website where he discusses “sweaty startups”.

#5: Start a Freelance Business

What is a Freelance Business?

A freelance business is the self-employed equivalent of having a remote job.

Freelancing can be especially appealing for people who are based in low-cost-of-living areas where the money they make remotely goes a long way.

It can also be a great option for those who are housebound due to disabilities or health problems.

Types of Freelance Businesses

Typically, freelance businesses revolve around skills like:

• Software development
• UX and UI design
• Graphic design
• Content writing
• Technical writing
• Copywriting
• Paid advertising
• SEO

…etc.

Don’t have a marketable skill but want to start freelancing?

We recommend learning copywriting. Of all freelance writers, copywriters are the highest-paid.

Again, Jim Edward’s book “Copywriting Secrets” covers all the basics so we highly recommend reading it. You can get it for free if you pay for shipping!

How to Start a Freelance Business

The best way to get your freelance business off the ground is to:

1. Clearly define your dream clients
2. Make a list of leads that meet your dream client criteria
3. Start cold emailing those leads and pitching your services

We recommend getting some social proof first, though.

You can do that by working for free. For example, if you want to be an email copywriter who works with B2B SaaS businesses, start writing email copy for companies that fit that description. You don’t need permission for this, just do it and send it to them for free.

If they decide to use your copy and it converts well, ask them if it would be okay to include it in your portfolio. Now you have something that you can show to potential clients!

How to Grow Your Freelance Business

It’s possible to grow your freelance business to six figures in annual net profit via cold email alone.

That being said, this approach to lead generation can be extremely time-consuming, so you might want to move away from it eventually.

You can do that by building a lead generation funnel for your business and driving paid traffic to it.

Also, if your clients are happy with your work, you will probably start getting referrals eventually!

Future Opportunities

Successful freelancers can make low six figures in annual net profit.

Also, once you have a track record of delivering great results for your clients, you can package your knowledge into an info product.

Info products like eBooks and online courses have extremely high profit margins so you may be able to create an additional five-figure or even six-figure stream of income that way.

Finally, you can transition from freelancing to running an agency. Building an agency is a notoriously difficult endeavor but if you succeed at it, you might be able to reach mid-to-high six figures in annual net profit.

Something to consider here is that a successful agency is an asset that can be sold. While agency valuations tend to be pretty low compared to more lucrative business models, it is nevertheless possible to have a seven-figure exit!

Want to Learn How to Write Copy That CONVERTS?

You can have the best product or service in the world but guess what?

If you can’t convey its value to your dream customers, you will lose out to competitors with inferior products or services but better copy. Sad but true.

That’s why if you are serious about building a business, you need to learn copywriting.

In fact, we would argue that it’s the single most important entrepreneurial skill.

Our friend Jim Edwards wrote a best-selling book “Copywriting Secrets” for busy entrepreneurs just like you.

In this book, he covers everything you need to know in order to start writing copy that CONVERTS.

“Copywriting Secrets” is available on Amazon where it has over 1,900 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from Jim for free.

All he asks is that you cover the shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “Copywriting Secrets” for FREE!

Thanks for reading Quick Ways To Make Money Fast which appeared first on ClickFunnels.