Making a Profit

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2.6K followers

Whether you are investing time or money in your online business, you are going to want to see an ROI (return on investment) in this article I would like to look at several ways a person might do this within a given industry.

For this hypothetical exercise I am going to use the “hiking and Camping Industry”

Notice first that I called it an industry, not a niche, my rule is that if you are competing with ten large organisations for keywords and content on a regular basis it is an industry not a niche.

So let’s look for a niche in this industry, one way to achieve this is by being area specific. In this case let’s choose “Hiking in Texas”. Hypothetically you could write a guide blog to walks, climbs and campsites in Texas, where people would come for information. Because this has narrowed the field of competition, your efforts should rank much higher in Google; this would be what I would call a niche.

So next to monetize this niche.

Let’s look at four basic options for making money from this niche as an affiliate.

Firstly you could point people to reference books or maps on Amazon and make what would probably add up to $1 per sale. I would not recommend this route as if you have 3000 visitors to your site each month, and they all bought an item from you the maximum you would make is $3000 dollars per month, and obviously most people will not buy anything.

Secondly you could decide that you were going to sell people 3 season tents, obviously some people planning a hiking or camping trip will need a new tent or replacement tent. Selling tents for Amazon will earn you between $10-$30 per tent; however it is likely you will sell less tents than guide books or maps. But ask yourself this, are you less likely to sell a tent to someone who needs a tent, than a guide book to someone who needs a guide book? The answer is yes due to timing and your position in the buying cycle in this instance, but are you 10-30 times less likely? ………………….…..Probably not.

So the second example would be more profitable than the first.

A third and much more profitable way would be to become an affiliate for a hiking and camping store, this may pay 10-20% commission per sale. This way you would just advertise the store on your blog, people then may shop for many items and you would be paid a commission on the whole purchase.

Two reasons for this option are firstly, a store would provide a greater range of products that might interest and provoke a visit from a customer. Secondly, the average spend per customer would be higher.

The third option would be more profitable than the first two.

The fourth option, and I do not know if it is available in this niche as it is not my niche, it may be possible to be an affiliate for an insurance company who provide insurance to people who go camping and hiking. These people probably in many cases have annual premiums to cover accidents, loss of earnings and equipment theft. It may be possible that instead of a one off check for recommending a customer, you may be paid a cut of their monthly premiums for as long as they are a customer or a lump of commission once a year when they renew. This fourth option would provide you with a repeating walk away income year after year.

If this were my niche I would be doing option 3 and 4 as there is plenty of room on a blog for banners or adverts for both.

Scale ability, do you think enough people hike and camp in Texas that you can make a living promoting to them? Of course there are.

But what if your income reaches a level and plateaus? Set up another blog called “walking and camping in California” and repeat what worked on the first blog.

I hope this helps some of you that are new to marketing online.

Thanks for reading, feel free to add ideas I missed, especially you AdSense people.

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Recent Comments

54

Interesting thoughts there Jeff thanks. I must admit if that was my niche, I would not have considered insurance companies as an option. I guess it's all part of thinking outside the box.

Thank you for your kind words, have a great weekend.

great ideas and inspiration. thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to read it, have a great weekend.

Food for thought , thanks Jeff

Thank you for taking the time to read it, have a great weekend.

Thanks for this mini tutorial Jeff. Very useful information.
Jerome

Thank you once again Jerome, have a great weekend.

Thanks so much for this! There's is some very helpful information here. Thanks again!!
Jen:)

Thank you for your kind words Jen.

Have a great weekend.

Jeff

Thanks for sharing Jeff :)

Thank you for reading, have a great weekend.

Regards

Jeff

Really useful thanks for your help :)

Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Jeff

Thank you Jeff .. this is really great stuff. Cheers, William.

High praise coming from yourself William, have a great weekend.

Jeff

Thanks for sharing :)

Thank you for reading OTolo, have a great weekend.

Regards

Jeff

Thanks, the same to you.

Good explanation of your rationale and process for planning an online marketing business. In this case, you looked for multiple income streams, which I think is a super way to think and act.

Marketers are always looking for another way to leverage what they are doing for one stream of income, and the same work you do really does have the potential for much more...

This will also help you shape the website design, the content you create, and the supporting keywords you will want to use. In short, planning like this is the first step....

If it were me, I would use a mind-mapping exercise to get it all down on paper where I can see the whole picture right in front of me, then develop goals, tasks, a timeline, and resources required...

This is starting to look like a business plan hehe, and that is exactly the right way to approach this online marketing business IMO...

From that point, it is a matter of following your path mapped out and checking results, adjusting as necessary to keep moving forward to your goal...

Good read, thanks!

Dave : )

Thank you for your valuable input Dave.

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