Monday, August 23, 2010

Auto Pilot Income – How to Make Thousands of Dollars Working From Home

Many people today are looking for ways to make money from home in order to supplement their income. They are looking for ways to make money without putting in a 40-hour work week. Fortunately for them, there are plenty of what I call “Auto Pilot Income” opportunities. These opportunities will allow you to make several hundreds or thousands of dollars monthly from your home without requiring you to make a full time effort.

The key elements of the Auto Pilot Income opportunities are advertising, fulfillment, need, market size, and urgency. Mastering each of these elements will allow you to become very successful and achieve the financial goals you have created for yourself. A brief discussion of each element follows.

Advertising – People need to know you have something to sell them. Connecting the buyer and seller is what advertising is all about. Putting your message in front of the prospect and allowing them to evaluate it and take action. There are many ways to advertise in this age. One of the most popular methods is online and more precisely pay per click advertising. With this method, the advertiser (that’s you) only pays the advertising fee when someone clicks on the advertisement. If your campaign is setup correctly, it’s a great way to ensure that the people you are trying to target are seeing your ad. There is a bit of a trial and error period for novices but there’s plenty of resources to steer you in the right direction as well.

Word of mouth advertising is also still popular as evident by the number of network marketing systems in place. Network marketing is a great way to inform people about you and your product or service. It’s a low-cost method that allows for a somewhat personal touch. Given enough time and with enough people, you can communicate your message to the masses in a very effective manner.
Print advertising is still alive and well but not as popular as in previous times. People still read newspapers and magazines but the majority of your prospects will be online these days. You should attempt to negotiate a hard bargain when it comes to print advertising. Be sure you get the facts on how many people receive the periodical and the frequency it goes to print. Also ensure that your ad is picture perfect before it goes to print because it can’t be updated once it has been printed.

Fulfillment – There was a time when a business owner received an order, packaged the product, and shipped the order to the customer. Now, with the help of technology, the business owner can be thousands of miles from the fulfillment center. Many products that are shipped come from warehouses in which the business owner rarely visits. An order can be placed online then sent to the fulfillment center. The fulfillment center staff receive the order, package the product, and ship it to the customer. The business owner is not tied to the warehouse and in many cases, is unaware of the fulfilled order until he or she reviews the production reports. There are many companies that excel in fulfilling orders and will gladly take the responsibility off of your hands, for a small fee of course.

There are also many companies that provide services that once were the sole obligation of the business owner. These companies can learn about your business, train their representatives in the most efficient manners to provide the quality services the business owner once provided. Outsourcing has become a very popular strategy for large companies but the small business owner is learning how to profit from the strategy as well.

Need – Regardless of the type of advertising you select and whether you fulfill the product or service personally or outsource those tasks, it is imperative that your business addresses and solves a need in the market place. Without a real need, it is going to be difficult to convince someone that your imitation alligator laptop carrying case is a real bargain – at any price!

Identifying a need is critical and should be the first step when starting a new business or launching a new product or service. What is it that people are willing to pay their hard-earned money for these days? What is going on in the world around you? Where are people going? What are people doing? What will people be doing? Ah ha! Being able to predict the future is necessary if you want to be successful with identifying a need. Before you go digging through your attic for the crystal ball that you’re now seeking, let me assure you that there are plenty of market research companies that have put a lot of time and effort into predicting the future for you. There are countless marketing reports available at a price that will help you in your search for a need.

There are also numerous resources that will help you gather your own market data. The point is that a need must be uncovered before money or energy is spent on advertising. One such need that has been covered in depth recently by the media is retirement and more specifically, retirement for baby boomers. Many baby boomers are quite concerned about their ability to afford retirement. Many surveys have shown that people from this group are delaying retirement and working longer because they have not saved sufficiently for their future.

Market Size – Size does matter in this case. Your market size will determine how much money is available for your product or service. Do you want to be a big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond? The market size should be large enough to accommodate you and future competitors that Carpe Diem also. Is your market large enough locally or will you need to launch a national campaign in order to reach your financial targets?

Taking the baby boomer market example which, by the way, consists of approximately 77 million people, one can see numerous opportunities or needs within one group. 77 million people is a really big market. As a matter of fact, many of the large companies in the world today have been marketing to this group for a long time. They see the importance of reaching this target audience because of the size of it as well as other reasons.

Urgency – This is what is used to get them off of the fence. Retailers use one-day only sales in order for customers to pull out their wallets. “This opportunity won’t last long” is common among advertisers stressing the deadline for a particular promotion. Without urgency, your prospects will delay their decision to purchase until they have enough reason to purchase (if any). Urgency must be created so your prospects will take appropriate action which is to buy what you’re selling.

Many online business owners utilize limited-time promotions or limited inventory in some cases in order to create a sense of urgency. The prospect needs to feel compelled to take the next step if you are going to be successful.
Do you think the baby boomers facing retirement feel a sense of urgency? Are they running out of time and options? How serious would it be if they ran out of money? Do you get the picture?

Becoming successful with the advertising, fulfillment, need, market size, and urgency elements will ensure your financial success.

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