Business Models for Starting a FREE Business Online
When it comes to starting a business online 99% of people expect everything to be free (thanks google…). In this post I will briefly go over the two popular business models for starting a ’FREE’ business online and how to convert free into dollars and cents.
1. Advertisement Driven Business
If you can produce content or a product that will get a lot of people to view or use with a minimal cost start up then advertisement is the route to go. Think of it as every person who reads or uses your product converts over to $1 a year (this person will probably consist of 100 or so visits a year, so the $1 is NOT equal to a visit but the impact one person will have). A great way to start advertising is to use Googles AdSense it allows you to quickly place ads around your content. The down side is that you have to share the revenue with Google. The other alternative (after you have a proven base roughly 30-60k views a month) is to venture out and find company’s that would benefit from your target audience. Look at competitor’s sites/blogs and see what company’s are advertising on their sites and contact them (and like companies). There are different variations on advertising online IE: Pay-Per-Click, Per-Impression… but I don’t want to go into those. I simply want to convey that if you build it, and they come… Toss some ads on there if you’re looking for some dollars and cents.
2. Premium Product
Another way of producing money, but also offering a free product is to have a stripped down version of your final product. IE: Only let people read half of your eBook, If its an image sharing site only allow free users to upload 10 images and where the premium (paid) version allows people access to the entire product/system. This is a good way to hook them in with the free version, and then show off the benefits they’re missing without the premium version. You could also put ads in the ‘free’ version and no ads in the premium version. There are a lot of ways to play with this model.
The difference between offering something for FREE and offering it for .01 is HUGE. People don’t have to think; don’t have to pull out their credit card… If all people have o do it click to use/view your product then you will start a base that you can then tailor to you ultimate goal > $$.
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Loading ...Tips To Design Better Banner Ads
- Use the words “Click Here” or “Enter” every time you design a banner.
- You may think that these two words are overused online, but tests have proven that these words are able to increase the effectiveness of a banner ad by 20-30% without changing anything else in the banner. They inspire the reader to click on the ad if the headline of the banner interests them.
- Animate Your Banners.
- An animated banner will increase your banner ads effectiveness by 30-40%. The key in using animation in your banner is keeping it small. The reason that you don’t want big pictures or images that look like live video in your banners is the fact that the banner will load too slowly on people’s pages. The visitors just won’t see it.
- Use an awesome headline in your banner.
- Don’t think that just having a good looking banner will make people click through. The key to effective banner advertising is having a good headline. A good technique to use is to keep the same headline on your banner ad that you have on your entry page. Then when they click through the banner, they will come to see the same headline that sparked an interest in them in the first place.
- The best word to use in your banner headline is “FREE.”
- This doesn’t mean that you just need to put the word “FREE” on your banner without any other text. Tell them exactly what they will be getting for FREE. Using the word “FREE” in virtually any headline will make your response rate increase dramatically.
- Change your banner ads frequently.
- Studies have proven that most banner ads start losing effectiveness after the third time a person has seen it. If they haven’t clicked on it by then, they probably never will. If you are spending a lot of money on advertising and purchasing hundreds of thousands of banner impressions, you will need to come up with a lot of different banners.
- Be clear in your graphics and messaging.
- Your main objective is to have people take a particular action after viewing your ad. A strong, clear message will help capture their interest. Clear communication requires that you understand your message, what you are selling and the benefit that you are offering potential customers. You will often want your primary message to be the strongest visual element in your ad.
- Less really is more.
- As you create your design, remember that less cluttered messages will make a stronger impact with the online viewer. Limit the number of elements — the colours, fonts, graphics and words — that you use in your ad and ask yourself whether your primary message is clear.
- Use contrast to capture attention.
- Your ad will likely include these elements: background colours, a bold text message, and a photograph or drawing, and animated. To be effective you need to have contrast between these elements. Contrast can be achieved using different font sizes and bolds and colours.
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