Business Models?

[John__N]

I'll post this in the newbie section.

The following are the business models to choose from in the affiliate marketing industry.

1. PPC: Test an offer with paid ads and optimize it and profit from it while it lasts and then come up with another.(Adwords/FB Ads/Media Buys to CPA)

2. Quality content site: Choose a niche and provide value to your visitors in terms of quality content and legit link building mixing it up with some grey hat links.

3. Own Product: Physical Or Digital. Build it up and market it with seo, ppc, email, etc.(Ecommerce/Clickbank style)

4. SEO: Built a content site focussing on search engine traffic and some grey hat link building and monetize it while it lasts then built up a new one.

5. Providing programming/design/development/linkbuilding/copywriting services to people who need them.(B/S/T)

6. Email Marketing: Buy lists or grab emails from your site visitors and market them with it.

7. Completely BH Churn and Burn Sites ranked with spammy links.

8. Selling web hosting customized for affiliates. eg. VPS services

9. Providing online marketing skills(ppc,seo) as service to local clients. eg. agencies

10. Developing softwares needed by marketers and providing them as a monthly or one off service eg. ubot, serpwoo

Any more business models?
Any incorrectly listed, feel free to point out.

And which are the LONG TERM ones?

PPC for long has seemed like and termed by many as an unstable business model, but guys who have been doing well with it have been going strong with it long term. Your comments on this? Does it seem like a long term business model?

If you feel if PPC is a good business model, how much money do you feel u need to burn to test, fail and learn and set it up as your main core business?

What do you feel about SEO as business model(Picking up untapped or semi competitive niches, ranking there till u last and then build another)

If you had to choose any one, which one would u choose if your goal was making good revenue and a long term business. Would just PPC figure in there?

 

[CCarter]

PPC is really a marketing channel for your business model, versus a business model. For example SERPWoo or uBot could and do have PPC campaigns. As well as email marketing. I think you should separate business models versus marketing channels to clear things up. Here is how I would group them:

Business Models:
3. Own Product
5. Provide services for people who need them.
8. Selling web hosting
9. Provide online marketing services
10. Saas - software marketers, business or consumers can use
11. Affiliate - selling a product/services/offer on behalf of another business in order to generate commissions.

Marketing Channels:
1. PPC
2. Quality Content - (SEO standpoint)
4. SEO (Same as #2 - unless you can elaborate on the difference you meant)
6. Email Marketing.
7. Churn and Burn site.

In this order the business you have (according to your business model) can use the marketing channels to generate revenues.

Business model
So owning your own product - you can use PPC, SEO, email marketing, or blackhat methods to generate revenue - all marketing channels you mentioned.

You can do that for all the business models mentioned more or less.

Market channel
Marketing channels are used by business with business models to generate dollars. I think in your mindset you have PPC as a standalone business cause traditionally in affiliate marketing you are pushing a CPA offer through PPC. So do you mean CPA where you are selling someone else's offer/product/service?

--

The subsections of business fall into traditionally 2, but now expanding upto 3 categories.

b2b - business to business - think SERPWoo where we service business that service clients. Think along companies that help other business do their jobs better or easier.

b2c - business to consumer - think Apple or Comcast - where the business services end consumers. Think target or amazon.com. (yes apple and Comcast also service business, but you get the idea)

c2c - consumer to consumer - an emerging market - well sort of - it's similar to bartering but with money now as a factor. It's really b2b - but think Fiverr. Where consumers are servicing other consumers on the site. Some individual is doing work/services for another individual. Most good ones eventually evolves into b2c operations if done right.

--

I know I'm probably missing a lot of other possible scenarios for business or marketing, a little too early in the morning for my brain to start working. As I think of more I'll post back here.

Edit: just re-read - where you strictly talking about what's available in the "affiliate marketing" sphere or "online marketing"? Mornings man...​

 

[Member8200]

Ill get into the shoes of a starter cause I know that's what your looking for.

Ill choose number 5-Providing programming/design/development/linkbuilding/copywriting services and focus on it for a few months to give a good B/S/T service like programming etc.

While using 80% of the funds for Number 2- Quality content site. About long term you wouldnt want to provide your skills for someone elses profits, you provide so you can get your own long term business up and running

 

[John__N]

Thanks for the detailed reply CCarter. yes by ppc i meant promoting CPA offers through ppc ie. products through affiliate marketing.

Would you classify the above through ppc as a long term business model?

If yes then would you consider the above as a better business model

OR

Providing software service to a client as a better business model?(For eg. even though you code, lets say I'm a good programmer and you want to hire a programmer for developing a software and you hire me, here the business model would be providing my quality programming service to you).
Also in this model, I have the option of scaling by having 2 competent junior programmers and take more work and designing the work flow for them and check and test once they have written as instructed. Ofcourse scaling would only be done if quality can be maintained 100%.

Thanks for differentiating everything in detail.

The difference between the 2 types of SEO i mentioned was that the first one would focus content(think blogs, user guides, well researched articles) for the user and quality while the second one would would focus on just traffic, landing page(thin sites),products and conversions.

More business model scenarios please.

At the macro level lets see what business models exist online and not just affiliate and then classify the long term affiliate ones.

 

[John__N]

Ill get into the shoes of a starter cause I know that's what your looking for.

Ill choose number 5-Providing programming/design/development/linkbuilding/copywriting services and focus on it for a few months to give a good B/S/T service like programming etc.

While using 80% of the funds for Number 2- Quality content site. About long term you wouldnt want to provide your skills for someone elses profits, you provide so you can get your own long term business up and running

dont you feel providing software development service is an excellent long term business model with constant work and well paying clients who appreciate quality.

You have the option of going ahead and launch your own product or tie up with someone and create one and sell it.

Why do you feel no.2 to be a better business model?
More revenue? Less Work? No support?
or More ROI?

Also a quality programmer who has constant work can have a small team of competent junior programmers and scale. Doesnt this sound like an own business generating excellent revenue and building a brand along the way?

 

[John__N]

Ill get into the shoes of a starter cause I know that's what your looking for.

Ill choose number 5-Providing programming/design/development/linkbuilding/copywriting services and focus on it for a few months to give a good B/S/T service like programming etc.

While using 80% of the funds for Number 2- Quality content site. About long term you wouldnt want to provide your skills for someone elses profits, you provide so you can get your own long term business up and running

and did you mean to use the programming skills for your own content websites. How?
Through automated linkbuilding, software with AI which joins and drop links/images in your niche conversation on social media sites and niche forums, youtube videos, etc. and brings targeted traffic, harvests targeted emails and mail people, create bots and promote ur website?

 

[eliquid]

PPC is really a marketing channel for your business model, versus a business model. For example SERPWoo or uBot could and do have PPC campaigns. As well as email marketing. I think you should separate business models versus marketing channels to clear things up. Here is how I would group them:

Business Models:
3. Own Product
5. Provide services for people who need them.
8. Selling web hosting
9. Provide online marketing services
10. Saas - software marketers, business or consumers can use
11. Affiliate - selling a product/services/offer on behalf of another business in order to generate commissions.

Marketing Channels:
1. PPC
2. Quality Content - (SEO standpoint)
4. SEO (Same as #2 - unless you can elaborate on the difference you meant)
6. Email Marketing.
7. Churn and Burn site.

In this order the business you have (according to your business model) can use the marketing channels to generate revenues.

Business model
So owning your own product - you can use PPC, SEO, email marketing, or blackhat methods to generate revenue - all marketing channels you mentioned.

You can do that for all the business models mentioned more or less.

Market channel
Marketing channels are used by business with business models to generate dollars. I think in your mindset you have PPC as a standalone business cause traditionally in affiliate marketing you are pushing a CPA offer through PPC. So do you mean CPA where you are selling someone else's offer/product/service?

--

The subsections of business fall into traditionally 2, but now expanding upto 3 categories.

b2b - business to business - think SERPWoo where we service business that service clients. Think along companies that help other business do their jobs better or easier.

b2c - business to consumer - think Apple or Comcast - where the business services end consumers. Think target or amazon.com. (yes apple and Comcast also service business, but you get the idea)

c2c - consumer to consumer - an emerging market - well sort of - it's similar to bartering but with money now as a factor. It's really b2b - but think Fiverr. Where consumers are servicing other consumers on the site. Some individual is doing work/services for another individual. Most good ones eventually evolves into b2c operations if done right.

--

I know I'm probably missing a lot of other possible scenarios for business or marketing, a little too early in the morning for my brain to start working. As I think of more I'll post back here.

Edit: just re-read - where you strictly talking about what's available in the "affiliate marketing" sphere or "online marketing"? Mornings man...​

I agree with my biz partner, but I'd like to drop in a note as well.

You may already know this and not have to read it, but I recommend picking up the "Millionaire Fastlane" here ( non aff link ) and read it from front to back.

Reason: you will start to see some of the the same biz models listed, but get some insight into why some are better than others.
​

Personally, I would never make my main focus "having clients" again and offering services as my main gig ( it would be ok for some side shit ) unless I ran a business that had 5-7 people under me that actually did it.

For sure I would never want to be a traditional affiliate again.

 

[StackCash]

http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-...-business-model-used-web-based-companies.html

 

[thehobbster]

I was a business model for Getty Images once:

 

[blank_czech]

I agree with my biz partner, but I'd like to drop in a note as well.

Personally, I would never make my main focus "having clients" again and offering services as my main gig ( it would be ok for some side shit ) unless I ran a business that had 5-7 people under me that actually did it.

For sure I would never want to be a traditional affiliate again.

Would you say that having clients was worse for you than being a traditional affiliate?

 

[eliquid]

Would you say that having clients was worse for you than being a traditional affiliate?

yes.

 

[John__N]

I agree with my biz partner, but I'd like to drop in a note as well.

You may already know this and not have to read it, but I recommend picking up the "Millionaire Fastlane" here ( non aff link ) and read it from front to back.

Reason: you will start to see some of the the same biz models listed, but get some insight into why some are better than others.
​

Personally, I would never make my main focus "having clients" again and offering services as my main gig ( it would be ok for some side shit ) unless I ran a business that had 5-7 people under me that actually did it.

For sure I would never want to be a traditional affiliate again.

Thanks eliquid.

I went through the book. Havent read it completely yet. What I got from it is that if u want to be a millionaire in 5-10 years.

1. The business model should solve painful needs.
2. Painful needs of a LOT of people.
3. Or needs of a few people where you generate a lot of revenue per customer.
4. The business should be scalable.
5. Time should not be traded for money.
6. Entry barrier should not be too low.

From the above, the problem with traditional affiliate model is only the low entry barrier. You do not like it coz of this reason?

For selling software to clients the prob is you have to trade time for money unless like u said u have a small team whom u direct. Why not do that?

If you feel both of the above models are not very good ones, which one would you term as good one. eg. please?

 

[Member8200]

dont you feel providing software development service is an excellent long term business model with constant work and well paying clients who appreciate quality.

You have the option of going ahead and launch your own product or tie up with someone and create one and sell it.

Why do you feel no.2 to be a better business model?
More revenue? Less Work? No support?
or More ROI?

Also a quality programmer who has constant work can have a small team of competent junior programmers and scale. Doesnt this sound like an own business generating excellent revenue and building a brand along the way?

This is a great plan of yours however each and everyone has their own role to fill out. If your expert in that field and you know you can make it bigtime then go with it.

For me its not possible, I know a lot of programming languages but providingfor me seems like a churn and burn business model, building multiple site is like building your own passive income and use my skills to correct designs, complete the sites instead of hiring a programmer and a lot more but no automated link building :ugone2far:

 

[mortalis]

For a business model, you want something that scales "easily".

As a freelance SEO guy, can you take on 1000 new clients overnight? Most likely not.

Can your SEO software take on 1000 new users overnight? If done right, absolutely.

You want a business where you can eventually separate yourself from it. This will require you to delegate and work "on" the business. AKA creating systems where the business can scale and barely need you eventually.

For example, as a startup/new business, its ok for you and your partner to do the marketing, sales, the coding, the accounting, client support and everything else.

As you start to generate cash flow, you want to delegate, outsource, build systems.

You build a script/book for all the possible support issues. You build a training system to train your new support guys.

You do the training yourself at first, then you hire someone that will do the training for you (or delegate that role to someone else.

For sales, you write a sales manual for your team, the common objections, the main value proposition. You write a training program for sales, and teach it. Then you can hire a sales manager that can take care of it.

Hire an accountant for the finances, etc.

You get the picture.

You don't have to start from scratch either, you can model people/organization that have great success in each area.

Your role as the business owner should be the conductor of the orchestra.

Books to read:

The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco (business, and why you wont be a multi millionaire working for someone else)
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results - Gary Keller. How focusing only on one thing is critical to achieve success
Personal Power 2 by Anthony Robins. Self Help, Motivation, introspection, how to achieve your goals.

 

[John__N]

I read Millionnaire Fastlane a bit.

The message I get is i got to look for painful problems which are either unmet or meet them more efficiently.

The solution should be scalable.

At the moment working on a few campaigns, learning to code as well as keeping an eye on what problems can be solved on a mass scale using systems like you mentioned.

 

[eliquid]

Thanks eliquid.

I went through the book. Havent read it completely yet. What I got from it is that if u want to be a millionaire in 5-10 years.

1. The business model should solve painful needs.
2. Painful needs of a LOT of people.
3. Or needs of a few people where you generate a lot of revenue per customer.
4. The business should be scalable.
5. Time should not be traded for money.
6. Entry barrier should not be too low.

From the above, the problem with traditional affiliate model is only the low entry barrier. You do not like it coz of this reason?

For selling software to clients the prob is you have to trade time for money unless like u said u have a small team whom u direct. Why not do that?

If you feel both of the above models are not very good ones, which one would you term as good one. eg. please?

Most affiliate models suffer from this:

1. Time is traded for money, you are as the affiliate normally the only one doing everything ( most affiliates ). You have to design, code, test, babysit, etc

2. Not getting paid from affiliate network, getting copied, getting capped, getting denied on your ads, etc. ( not fastlane at all )

3. The affiliate model doesn't really solve a painful need. You are just an advertiser.. you dont OWN the product that solves the need. You are replaceable with 100's of others pushing the same product.​

 

[John__N]

i got that.

So in the affiliate/online industry would you consider only the following as the ones in the fastlane:
1. Own Digital Products.
2. Saas/Fremium etc. kind of innovative concept that fulfill a need.
3. Developing own software for a specific market problems and selling it to them one off.

?

 

[John__N]

I'll add to that one more I feel.
4. Established high traffic content website not completely dependent on google and which has room to expand.