There’s some work involved in building a fully automated online business. But once you have done the work, your business can continue running without much input. So how does a fully automated online business work? What do you have to do to get one and how much work is involved?
Fully Automated Online Business
It’s the dream of many to have a lifestyle supported by a constant stream of income! For some this is actually a reality and more are discovering this possibility through the power of the internet and a clever business model. A ‘fully automated online business’ isn’t built overnight though. I’m not suggesting some push and click magic bullet without any work on your part. It is however, a possibility and a very real one for anyone who is serious enough to make it happen.
The Automation Of The Internet
A simple ebook I bought several years ago led me to search for a fully automated online business. The ebook was a strategy to build a business through eBay. You can see the strategy in my article how to start a profitable eBay business.
However, that strategy, despite it working and making a profit, had a flaw. It wasn’t scalable. What I wanted was a scalable internet based business which sold products and delivered them, without me being there. The ebook itself, which I bought for around £10 was a scalable concept. The guy who sold it, had a simple repeatable business model. He could sell the same digital downloadable product through his single listing again and again. He didn’t need to get up from his chair either to do so. It was an autopilot money making system in effect.
A Fully Automated Online Business – Tools, Systems And Strategies
A fully automated online business operates with certain tools, systems and strategies in place. Websites, landing pages and email autoresponders are the tools of the online entrepreneur. The strategies for an online business are the selling of digital products. A business model known as affiliate marketing means that anyone can earn money by promoting other people’s products online. The products you choose will have a massive impact on how your business does. More on this later.
Digital Products
Digital products work well for an online business for a number of reasons. Like in the example of the ebook I bought, they can be automatically delivered over the internet. Digital products also offer affiliates higher commissions on sales. Typically this is 40% of the sale price.
Product owners can pay this much to affiliate marketers because digital products have less costs involved than physical products. With physical products you need to manufacture them, store them and post them out. Digital products are much lower maintenance. They can be stored digitally and sent out over the internet automatically at near zero cost. Their main cost is production and advertising. The affiliate (you) is basically doing the advertising for products and services on the internet. That’s why you can earn 40% of an item’s cost price.
Websites and Landing Pages
Websites and landing pages allow online business owners to showcase their products and build multiple sources of website traffic. They are basically the ‘shop front’ of an online business. However, when someone lands on your website they only have a short opportunity to make a purchasing decision.
That’s why most website owners build a list of subscribers by offering a ‘freebie’ of some kind to their visitors. In exchange for this they can add their visitors email to their list of subscribers. From here they can continue to keep in touch with their subscribers. This extends the time for a purchasing decision to be made. A subscriber can buy something from you weeks after landing on your website if you get them to subscribe.
A website can run on autopilot 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. It doesn’t need any staff, business premises or machinery. That’s why an online business is so much cheaper to start than a traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ business.
A Fully Automated Online Business – Email Marketing
Email marketing lets you continue to promote your products to your subscribers, even after they have left your website. Again, this can be automated so that your emails are sent out in a predetermined sequence over a set period of time. Your subscribers can be ‘drip fed’ your emails as you choose.
As your email list grows so does your online business. With larger numbers of subscribers you can reach a larger customer base and sell digital products through your emails.
Advertising A Fully Automated Online Business
Once you have a business system set up (get one here) with website landing pages and a ready made sales funnel, you can set about promoting it. This can be done in a number of different ways. The fastest way to build and scale an online business is through paid advertising. Paid advertising is good because it is scalable. Once you have discovered a working model which consistently pays out more than your advertising costs you are in a position to scale up. You can do this simply by increasing your budget to reach more people. This can be fully automated.
Most people who try paid advertising run a single advert. They don’t see immediate results so they give up. The people who continue to test and measure advertising by cross testing adverts against each other (with different variables), are the ones who succeed with a fully automated online business.
Learn how to use paid advertising with my free ebook The Ultimate Guide To Online Marketing.
You can also advertise your online business with content generation. This article, for example, can generate more traffic to my website and potentially bring in new potential customers. It can’t be scaled like paid advertising however.
The Right Business Model For A Fully Automated Online Business
As you can see, all the processes to build a fully automated online business are available to use. What’s important is both to get the right business model and the right training in order for it (and you) to work properly.
Selling an ebook is the perfect example of a fully automated online business model. However, an ebook doesn’t offer ongoing value. You will also need to sell thousands of your ebook even to make a modest living. What most businesses benefit from is loyal customers to purchase over and over again. A good business model should also use this strategy.
Subscription Products
Subscription products allow affiliate marketers to earn month after month from a single sale. Products like website hosting and autoresponders (email marketing services) allow affiliates to do this. By choosing products to promote which pay you more than just once, you are working with a better business model than by selling products which only pay you once.
Multi-Tier Sales
A business model which rewards you for sales made by your team can continue to pay out long after you make your initial sales. Multi-tier sales are common with multi-level marketing companies but less well known with affiliate marketing. By positioning yourself at the partner level of a company, you can benefit from multi-level commissions. Learn more here.
Up-Sell Commissions
Up-sells are basically after sales products closed by the product owner (or an automated sales page). These are either the add-ons of a basic sale or higher priced items which offer more value within a sales funnel. Companies like McDonald’s and Burger King always offer the ‘up-sell’. “Do you want fries with that? ” “Do you want to ‘Supersize’ that?” There’s a reason they do. It makes many more sales and profit for the company, even if it’s only pennies they are charging.
High Ticket Products
Small items like ebooks will only earn you small commissions if you promote them as an affiliate. High ticket affiliate programs on the other hand can pay you much larger commissions for a sale. An affiliate commission of $500 is obviously much better than $50 and this can be for a similar or the same work too. To earn $10,000 online you can either sell 200 of the small products or 20 of the high ticket items. Which do you think will be easier? The answer should be obvious – the higher ticket item. Plus with high ticket it is much easier to scale up into the larger income brackets and offset advertising costs if you’re going down the paid advertising route.
Access a range of high ticket products to sell, a community of online entrepreneurs and a ready made sales funnel and easy to set up sales system here.