Passive Income Ideas: we all want that right?
But where do you start? IF you are willing to put in the work that it takes I’m gonna give you 5 ways that can make you earn money while you sleep and finally be your own boss.
hello, I’m your host Kaycinho, I’m a digital alchemist, and in this video, I want to share 5 proven ways to make passive income online, depending on your skillset, and the amount of active work you are willing to put in before you can reap the benefits later.
Now there are more passive income streams than what I’m going to share in this video, but these are some of the best ones in my opinion at the time of recording this video.
You will see that some are connected but can live on their own and it’s actually a good thing because it means you can diversify your income, so that if one fails, you still have options. I will talk about a bunch of tools and services, and you will find all the links in the description or in the companion blog article.
Disclaimer : this article contains affiliate links
So, let’s dive into it!
1. Create and sell digital products
What do you need?
That one requires you either to have a skillset that can translate to a digital product, so it will cost you time but little money to get started, or you could also outsource the creation part to someone with the skillset and then sell the final product online, but of course it means you need to have a budget to start with.
Other than that I strongly advise you have your own website, but in some cases you may get away without one.
What kind of digital products can you sell?
Well as I said it depends of your skillset, but :
- if you are a good writer you could sell ebooks
- then you could make audio books
- if you are a musician or sound engineer you could sell songs or audio effects
- if you are a graphic designer you could sell logo templates, infographics, photoshop templates
- if you are a photographer you could sell stock photos and Lightroom presets
- if you are a filmmaker you could sell stock videos and LUT files for color grading
- if you are a web designer / developer you could sell layouts for the WordPress Divi theme or the WordPress theme builder Elementor
- the list goes on but just think about what you are good at, and what you use in your daily work, that solves a problem and that you could package into something deliverable in the digital format
Where can you sell?
You can sell your products on your own website and through your own social media channels, that way you retain most of the money.
So if you do choose that path, you will need a way to get paid on your website, and you can do that with free tools such as WordPress, the Woocommerce plugin, and PayPal or Stripe. Technically PayPal and Stripe are not free, since they take a small percentage on every sale, around 2.9% but at least there’s no money to put on the table upfront.
But bear in mind that if you choose that path, if you don’t already have an audience of your own that leads to trafic on your website, then nobody will know about your products. So you will more than likely have to run ads either on Facebook, Instagram and Google. Now even if you have an audience, you will have to run ads if you want to scale up.
Now the other way would be to sell your products on marketplaces such as Envato Market, Amazon Kindle for ebooks, iTunes for music and so on.
Of course that means that you get less money per sale, because the marketplace is going to take its cut and that can vary from 20 to 50 percent and even more in some cases, but you get the benefit of an established marketplace with lots of qualified trafic that is eager to purchase products like yours. So you don’t have to spend money on ads so much.
2. Make money from Ads
What do you need?
For that one, you will either need to create a blog, or a Youtube channel, or both.
How will you make money?
You will make money when your audience interacts with ads on your blog or channel./
Where is this happening?
There are many solutions to display ads and get paid for it, but the most famous is of course Google Adsense but as you may have heard in the last couple of years, a lot has changed and if you want to make the kind of money that could translate in a full-time income with ADS, you really need to have a lot of trafic, or views depending on the platform.
Plus, if Google decides to shut down your account as we’ve seen happening more and more, and sometimes for no apparent reason, you would lose your income.
So, I’m not ditching Google Ads completely, I’m just saying that this should only be one of your income streams and not the main one, and certainly not when just starting out.
Now some YouTubers make a lot of money from ADS so it is possible to make a comfortable living with ADS, just know that it takes time, requires huge amounts of trafic and it’s risky.
3. Create an online course
What do you need?
For that one, you will either need to have a website or to be signed up as an instructor on an online learning marketplace.
You will need decent equipment to create online courses : at the minimum a good webcam or smartphone, a good microphone, decent lighting and video editing software.
Now the good news is that it is completely possible to start with a limited budget by using your smartphone (if it’s good enough), a 20$ lavalier mic, natural lighting or cheap led lighting and free editing software like iMovie on Mac or **Lightworks** on Windows.
If you have more budget, then you could invest in a mirrorless camera or a dslr with a good lens, a better sounding microphone, like the RODE lineup offers, led lights that allow you to control the image temperature and intensity and video editing tools such as Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, and Screenflow or Camtasia if you want to do screen capture, which is convenient for online courses.
How will you make money?
Well, this one is pretty straightforward. People will either come on your website and purchase one of your courses through PayPal or Stripe via Woocommerce, or they will find you on a learning platform and pay to follow your course.
Where can you sell?
Now as explained previously for the digital products, there are advantages to selling the course on your site and thus controlling the pricing and profit, but there are also advantages in using established platforms with lots of qualified trafic.
Now depending on whether or not you have an audience, one might be better than the other, but if you’re just getting started, I would start on established platforms and take it from there until you have a large enough audience, to sell on your own website.
4. Sell on-demand merchandise
What do you need?
Okay this seems like it’s not strictly digital, but technically what YOU will be producing is actually the digital file that will allow on-demand printing platforms to sell merchandise with that digital file.
For this one, you can totally do it without a website, but I would strongly advise you do have one, even if only for credibility.
Other than that, you need to either be good with communication, good with graphic design or good with outsourcing to freelancers that have good communication and graphic skills.
If you’re doing it on your own, you will need a computer with graphic editing software like Adobe Illustrator or, one of my favorites Affinity Designer.
How will you make money?
If you already have your own audience, then you will serve them with merch that resonate with your branding and content. So for example, if you have a large community on Facebook about playing guitar, you would design concepts, or write quotes that would resonate with your audience and then use on-demand printing services.
Then, once someone wants to purchase say one of your t-shirts, the on-demand printing company would then print the t-shirt, send it to your customer, handle customer support, returns and so on, and once the sale is confirmed, you would get a commission per item sold. So you don’t have to purchase anything upfront.
Where can you sell?
For this one, you have to create a free account with popular services like Spreadshirt, TeeSpring, or the army of clones that exist and then you can send trafic straight to your store on their platform, or, depending on the platform, you may be able to embed your shop on your own website for a more seamless experience, but the rest of the process is the same since everything is handled by the platform itself.
5. Make money from other peoples products
What do you need?
It is called affiliate marketing, but what it is really is just you telling an audience about a product that can solve a problem for them, or bring them entertainment and so on.
What you need for this one, is an audience or advertising budget, or both. It doesn’t have to be huge, but the more people that will come across your content, the more opportunities you will have to make a sale.
You can do this on a blog, in which case, the assets you need would be at a minimum a smartphone to write your blog posts, even if personally I prefer to create content on computers. Your blog can be on existing platforms but again, I advise you to post on your own website and build your brand around it.
You can do this on a Youtube channel, on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, Pinterest, and so on.
HOW will you make money?
There are many ways to find products, but personally I prefer recommending products that I already use and love recommending naturally so if you’re the same, you won’t really have to look far to find products.
On most websites of the companies selling those products or services, you will find “Affiliate programs” down in the footer.
All you have to do is read the conditions and apply if you’re eligible. Now bear in mind that often times, having a website can be a requirement. But for the rest, most of those programs are free to get in.
Once approved, you will get personal affiliate links to the products you are trying to sell. And basically when someone clicks on your links, it will store a cookie on that person’s computer or smartphone, that cookie being a file, that will tell the affiliate program that the sale came from you, and in return, you will get a commission on the sale. The commissions vary from 2% to… sky is the limit really.
Where can you sell?
Everywhere! Because all you have to do is share your link, and the rest takes care of itself.
If you have an audience, you can share your links and of course be transparent about it.
If you don’t have an audience, you can always run ads to get trafic.
My advice is to only recommend products you trust and love.
My advice is to only recommend products you trust and love, that way:
- your audience wins because you brought them a solution or a product that they love
- the product or service owner wins because you brought them sales that might have never come their way without you
- you win because you get a commission for triggering business between your audience and the affiliate partner
It’s a great way to make passive income and a great way to get started and learn about products and services that sell without having to work for months or even years on creating a product that might not even sell!
So, I hope that this video helped you narrow down some of the best ways to create passive income streams for the future and if I left out some of your favorite passive income streams please let me know in the comments. Now did you already try some of those ideas? Let me know in the comments and by the way, you’ll find the companion video on my youtube channel.
If you watch the companion video and if you liked it, please give it a thumbs up, as it really helps growing the channel and if you know someone that could benefit from it please share it now.
Now if you want to brand, market and grow your business it in the Digital Age make sure you subscribe to my email newsletter so that you never miss your share of digital alchemy, tips, tools, services and case studies that can help you grow your business online.
So I hope to see you around here or why not on the Youtube channel, and in the meantime, do you happen know what time it is? I think you do, it’s time to invest in your success!
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