Introduction
Are you looking for a way to start making money online? Or perhaps you just want to create another income stream that brings in a reliable source of cash?
Either way, here are five proven ideas for slipping an extra $500 into your pocket every week…
Set Up an FTM Site
A fixed-term membership site is one that only runs for a set amount of time, such as three months, six months or even a year.
Here are two of the big benefits of this site:
- Higher retention rates versus ongoing membership sites, since people who start something usually want to finish it. And this sort of site has a definite end date.
- You can run it on autopilot. Just upload all your content to an autoresponder and have it dripped out to members for the duration of the site.
Now take note: your front-end income is just a fraction of what you’ll likely make on the backend.
For example, you may find that 25% to 50% of your income comes through selling memberships, with the rest of your income coming in through the product and service recommendations that you pitch on the backend of your site.
So let’s take a look at a couple examples…
Let’s imagine you’re selling memberships for $10 per month. If you have 100 members paying you $10 per month, that’s $1000 monthly (or $250 weekly).
Now imagine your front-end profits are 50% of your income. You can make an additional $250 per week just pitching products to your list on the backend.
For instance, maybe you sell a high-ticket coaching offer on the backend for $500. You only need to sell two of these per month.
Add this $1000 to your $1000 in membership fees, and you’re pocketing $2000 per month.
Here’s another example…
Let’s suppose you raise the prices on your membership site to $20 per month. If you still have 100 members, then you’re making $2000 monthly.
You’ve already cleared your goal of making $500 per week, so everything you generate on the backend is just gravy!
Now the next idea…
Sell Info Products in a Sales Funnel
You probably won’t get rich selling just one product.
And while you can certainly make $500 per week with just one product, over the long term you’ll make a lot more money if you create a sales funnel.
Let’s take an example…
Let’s imagine you bring people into your sales funnel with an enticing free lead magnet.
From within this lead magnet and within your follow up emails you pitch a tripwire product.
This is a low-cost, high-value, “no brainer” offer that gets people scrambling to the order button. Let’s say your tripwire product is $7.
You then put your tripwire customers into an autoresponder series that focuses on selling one of your main flagship offers.
For example, maybe you sell a product for $97.
Those who buy your $97 offer are encouraged to take advantage of a high-ticket offer for $500.
And all throughout this sales funnel you sell a variety of products at a variety of price points.
So let’s look at how you’d get to that magical $2000 per month…
You find just one customer per day to purchase your tripwire product. (Totally doable, right?) That means 30 customers per month X $7 = $210.
Seven of these customers (that’s roughly 25% of your buyers) purchase your $97 in any given month. That’s 7 X $97 = $679 per month.
Two of these customers purchase the $500 premium offer. That’s another $1000 per month.
So far that’s $1889. You need to pick up an extra $111 to meet the $2000 per month goal.
If 10% of your original 30 buyers purchase another $50 product from you, then you’ve surpassed it.
So here’s the point…
It’s easier to get an existing customer to purchase another product from you rather than always seeking out new customers to purchase your offers.
So while you most definitely should be seeking out new customers, don’t forget that the real money in your business lays hidden in the backend, and you can tap it by selling to repeat customers.
Next idea…
Create an Online Shop
The idea here is to set up a shop online for selling physical products.
This might be a CafePress.com or Zazzle.com shop, where you can sell a variety of shirts, tote bags, bumper stickers and more.
Or you might handcraft something and sell it in an Etsy shop.
You can do this as a standalone idea, or you can add it to your existing website as a new revenue stream.
For example, let’s suppose you have a dog-related site.
You can quickly and easily go to a platform like CafePress and start designing dog-related t-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise.
Choose something with a message that people will want to share with others. E.G., “Adopt, Don’t Shop” or “I Love My Poodle.”
Or you can go for something humorous such as, “My Dog Is Smarter Than Your Honor Child.”
Alternatively, maybe you design and craft handmade dog jewelry, such as bracelets. In that case, you’d set up an Etsy shop.
Here are the advantages of setting up these sorts of shops:
- You can design merchandise easily on platforms like CafePress and Zazzle.
- The platform takes care of order processing. In the case of shops like CafePress and Zazzle, they also take care of fulfillment and delivery.
- You set your own prices. The platform is going to take a commission, OR they’re going to set the wholesale price. Any amount you charge above the wholesale price is yours.
So let’s take an example. Let’s imagine that you’re selling a variety of products that some with a variety of profits for you.
Specifically:
- You sell 20 t-shirts per week with a $5 profit, which is $100 for you.
- You sell 25 tote bags per week for a $3 profit, which is $75.
- You sell 50 mugs with a $5 profit per week, which adds up to $250.
- You sell 100 bumper stickers for a $1 profit, for $100 per week.
The total for this example is $525, so you surpass the weekly goal.
That’s just one example. You might set low prices to generate high conversions a lot of sales. Or you might sell higher-priced items to fewer people.
Here’s a hint: people will pay premium prices for personalized products.
So let’s stick with this dog example, and let’s imagine that you have the skill to quickly paint or draw personal dog portraits. You can sell these for $125, $150, $200 or more.
Imagine… you’d only need to sell three per week at $200 to meet the weekly goal of $500 (after deducting supplies and platform commissions).
If you can do them fast – in a day or less – then you make a nice chunk of money, while having the rest of the week free to do as you please.
Now here’s another idea…
Buy and Flip Physical Products
Instead of making your own products, the idea behind this strategy is to find low-cost products and quickly flip them for a profit.
Here are common ways to find these products:
- Look for local store closings, overstock sales and similar events where prices are slashed drastically.
- Visit local secondhand thrift stores to find deals.
- Browse local flea markets, yard sales and estate sales for good deals
- Check CraigsList for private owners selling antiques, collectibles, etc. Be sure to also check the “free” section of CraigsList, as sometimes people giveaway good merchandise that you can sell for a profit.
- Place ads on CraigsList.org saying that you buy specific types of antiques, collectibles and other products.
- Search eBay for merchandise lots/bulk items. When people sell something in bulk, you get a good deal – which in turn means you can sell the pieces individually for a profit.
- Snap up new gadgets and popular items around the holidays that are likely to be in high-demand, as desperate Christmas shoppers will pay top dollar for a “must have” gadget, toy or other item. You can also go to door-busting Black Friday sales and buy merchandise for a steep discount and sell for a profit later.
For example…
Let’s imagine you buy a bulk lot of 200 collectible knives from someone who is going out of business.
All you have to do is mark them up to collect a $10 profit per piece (after all your payment fees and other expenses), and you’ll make $2000 in profit if you sell them in one month.
You can sell them on eBay or even CraigsList.org.
TIP
At a low markup of $10, you might even be able to sell them in smaller lots. This means less packing and shipping for you and less time managing your auction or ads.
Or you can raise your markup to $20 a piece, so you only need to sell 100 knives in a month to meet the $500 weekly goal.
Offer a Service
Here’s a time-tested way to make at least $500 per week: use your skills and talents to provide a service for others.
The benefit of this particular idea is that you can get up and running nearly instantly.
For instance, while having a website is useful to help land clients, you don’t need one to get started.
Instead, you can bid on projects on freelancing sites such as Upwork.com.
Or if you want to do it up old school, you can cold call local businesses to offer your services. But either way, you can start landing clients as soon as today.
So what kind of skills can you offer? Your best bet is to go to a site like Upwork.com to see what sort of projects people are posting.
However, here’s a short list to give you an idea:
- Write. This includes blog posts, emails, reports, sales copy, social media content, website content (such as an “About Us” page) and more.
- Web design and/or development.This can be as simple as installing and customizing platforms such as WordPress, or you might offer full-blown web design and development.
- Design. These could be for virtual covers, online or offline ads, and more.
- Software development. This includes server-side software, desktop software and mobile apps.
- Customer service. Some companies hire remote staff to help with the customer service desk.
- Virtual assistant. This covers a wide variety of jobs, from tasks such as data entry to market and product research.
Again, this is just a sampling. Take stock of your own skills, and then head to a freelancing site to see what kinds of projects you can bid on.
Conclusion
Would an extra $500 a week make a difference to your lifestyle?
You bet it would. And that’s why you’ll want to try out one of the five ideas you just learned for making money online.
If implemented the right way, any one of these ideas could put $500 (or more) in your pocket each and every week.
But don’t take my word for it – try these ideas out for yourself to find out just how well they work for you.
