In last post “What’ s your passive income system” I’ve gone through the importance of having a system you can rely on. You want to create a stable, passive income and then scale it so you can grow your earnings 2, 3 or 10 fold.

This can be done by getting more of your online income system and I mentioned few things you can do but I thought I could also give you some examples.

Here’s a very basic system, but one any marketer should want to do : building a buyers list. So it would mostly be traffic => offer.

Now if you don’t have a product to sell that’s still fine. You can for still build a list of subscribers. Maybe you want traffic to a squeeze page, maybe you want people to signup through your blog.
I just mention this because if you’re just starting you may think you don’t have enough knowledge or credibility to sell something. “What if they don’t like it, what if they have questions…”

Again that’s okay if you’re uncomfortable now. Notice I said: “you may think”.You can still build a list, it’s still one of the most valuable asset a marketer can own. Plus, creating an offer AFTER you know your market and what they want is certainly a good idea too. We’ll talk about relationships and trust, and knowing your customers in future another posts.

Back to our system.

Now eventually people buy, they’re on your list. That’s it. So what can we do to get more of that system?

• We can get more traffic,  If you only used one source of traffic, you can either spend more on that source, or create another one.
• We can split test copy and designs to improve conversions. Once we have a winner we’d make more sales from the same amount of traffic we had in the past.
• Since people have just spent money, why not have an upsell?
• Since you have a buyers list, you can follow up with affiliate offers, either in your autoresponder sequence or sending broadcast emails when you know your list could benefit from a new product.
• Repeat what makes your system successful for another niche, or create another product to offer that list few weeks later.

Remember the basic system is only : Traffic to Offer. Getting people to see what you have, and improve from the datas you get. Hint: this is called tracking 😉

Passive Income System Improvements

1. Getting more traffic.

Converting at the same rate, we’d make more sales. Either spend more on traffic source, or add another one. So if you are paying for FB ads, create more ads, spend more to reach more people faster.

If you’re into paid advertising, you may also buy from other sources of traffic : media buys on forums, or blogs, and other community sites (targeted to your audience) or other social networks than facebook, and also AdWords and BingAds. Try solo ads. Can you afford to test one?

If you want more free traffic, then you will need to get out there and get your site noticed. But you can also create more content on your site or blog. Here’s what I mean, if your site is just one squeeze page you will have to setup as many traffic sources as possible. If you have a blog, any new post you create is another entry point on your site, and thus towards your optin forms.

That doesn’t prevent you from creating more traffic sources too. Example:

So maybe you were only active on your niche specific forums and you got some traffic from your signature by being helpful. Maybe you can outsource this too? Again, it’s great to have numbers so you know what you can improve on. For example if you know what page of the forum got you traffic then you will know what post you made (category, copy used) generated visits. And you can be more active using these datas (your analytics will tell you). If you outsource you can also ensure to get more posts in this forum in more categories, keeping posts relevant to your audience.

But you can also create videos. Repurpose some of your articles, posts or emails into videos and upload to YouTube. You created a simple video using slides? Create a PDF of those slides and upload it on documents sharing sites such as docstoc, scribd and slideshare.

So you created a new product? And write a press release.

2. Increasing conversions.

That requires some tweaking and testing, but it’s usually the necessary steps to get conversions as high as possible. And there are many elements on a sales page to test, a bit less on a squeeze page 😉 This is not a copywriting course, and there are so many free information you can get about this topic.

Now, when you try to sell something or get people on your list, your message should focus on one thing: your customer, and what they want. Yes, still the same thing. Sure there are conversion elements that can be added in your design, but the message from your headline, bullet points and what your offer does for them better than anyone else will get a better response rate.

Think “how to“, think “numbers“, think “results“, think “problem/solution“.

Testimonials are nice to have too. But you don’t want the testimonial or review that say you’re awesome and so cool, and it’s the best thing they’ve seen. Because everyone is doing it.

A good testimonial is something that explains what your offer has allowed the customer to do. What goal or result they were able to achieved, what problems they solved?

3. Upsell and Follow up offers

Once you have turned people into buyers, this is the best moment to present them with an upsell. They are in buying mood so you should take advantage of it.

Now I know, you may not like upsells. I myself like some kind of upsells and hate some others. For example, I like when it compliments another product but can really be treated as optional. It’s not the main offer, “you don’t need it to succeed”, as they say, but it offers more convenience. It will help you apply what you bought faster, or it may even be a done for you option. Great.

However when someone tells me I don’t need the upsell to succeed while actually I can’t apply the front end principles without the upsell, I’d get pissed off.

For example, the front-end offer is a method, a blueprint to get a given results. You get the training (PDF, videos or both). But when you’re done with the training you learn that you need an app to make it work. Now you complain and the seller will respond that you can still buy the upsell app they developped (but you passed in the first place thinking you’d learn how to do it without the app, and that’s true, you now KNOW) but you can’t apply, or if you don’t want their app you can hire a developper to make an app for you… You will not like that.

Another type of upsell I don’t like is for software with multiple license type. I think all license type should be offered on front end. You bought a WP plugin, it’s the regular license, you are limited to using it on one or 3 sites. If you want to use it on unlimited sites, you need to purchase the developper license. I have nothing against this, but why make it an upsell? The developper license should be available upfront, if I know I will use the plugin on all my site! I have the feeling that I’m re-buying the same thing.

As for follow up offers, these are great additional income streams for yo. You just need to send an email if you are an affiliate. If you create your own products you can target directl people who have proven to trust you enough to buy from you and stay on your list. This is how you make money on demand.

A great back-end system is generally what will make you the most money. That’s basically what most affiliates with a list are doing. When you can get 100% commission, on a $7 product that converts very well, money is made quite easily. And when you have your own list of buyers, people have already proven to spend money on a specific type of offer.

4. Repeating the System

That simply means that you can model what you’ve been doing, with another product. In the same niche or in another one. You trust your system to deliver traffic to your offer, well then you build the same system for another offer. This should usually be done once you have perfected and improve your initial system/offer.

But if you are happy with your previous results and want to diversify your portfolio, it’s something to do. And it makes sense. Having 2 offers is double the chance of getting results.

5. Charging more or promoting higher ticket offers.

This is maybe your end vision: acquiring clients by charging them a low-barrier entry fee in your funnel, or getting them to subscribe to your list. In any case you want to help them reach their goals, and even better, achieve their deams. And for that you charge more.

If you do everything for your clients, you can charge more. If you create products for them, build a high converting sales funnel, and send them traffic, a premium fee is justified. They can even pay a recurring fee to keep getting traffic to the funnel you built for them, and they have access to your personal email, phone or skype for 1-on-1 coaching and support.

Of course this is not something you can offer right now if you’re just starting and don’t know how to connect all the dots yet. But you can get there sooner than you think once you master a system.

That’s how list building/product creation experts charge $5,000 and make most of their income. They even have “cheaper” options such as one hour consultation, or 4 one hour sessions for the week. Again, phone or skype, and that’s $200 to $1,000 an hour.

It’s valuable for businesses because in a very short time they can get insights on their system, or have a completely new system designed for them over the phone that they can now focus on.

Conclusion

So getting the most out of your passive income system is about those few things:

• knowing your customers
• tracking, analyzing your datas and improving from there (testing traffic, testing varioius conversion elements)
• setting up back end offers, either upsells/downsells as well as follow up offers

In any case your getting people ona list. You want to build a true relationship with them and help them solve their problems. This will be something I’ll write about here, so stay tuned.

Your comments are valuable to me and others. I want to hear from you. What are you doing to improve your passive income system and what parts are you having a hard, or good, time with?