What the heck is an ‘infopreneur’?

The term infopreneur is still pretty new, but it’s becoming more and more common all the time. An infopreneur is basically someone who’s primary business is gathering and selling information products, usually in digital form over the internet, but some offer the products on dvds, cds, cassettes, and other information storage mediums.

Many full time bloggers, or pro-bloggers, would be considered to be infopreneurs.

It’s actually my major goal right now to become a pro-blogger/infopreneur. I already make a bit of income from this Website, but not nearly enough to ‘go pro’ and quit my day job. My level of success with this blog is now rapidly increasing, and all of this work is starting to pay off! I’m starting to be able to see some light at the end of this tunnel — this week I made nearly $100 and more than doubled my email subscribers!

How exactly does someone make money blogging?

I hear this question almost every day and to be honest, it’s getting a little old — so I guess it’s time to address this issue publicly right here on the blog itself. So from now on when someone asks me how I make money on the internet I can just send them here instead of trying to explain it over and over again to each person who asks.

The best part about being an infopreneur is that you are not limited to making money in any one particular way. There are multiple ways to make money blogging, and there are always new ways popping up as technology and the internet evolve. Each infopreneur can tell you what method might work best for them, but you’ll probably never find one who will tell you they only use one method to generate an income online. Most pro-bloggers and infopreneurs will have up to 5 or more streams of income coming in from their websites, email lists, and marketing campaigns and will never limit themselves to just one or two sources.

Email ‘marketing’

Most infopreneurs will tell you that the first thing to do when you want to start making money blogging is to start collecting email addresses. This isn’t so that you can spam them and annoy the piss out of the people on the other end, it’s so that you can build a relationship with your subscribers and continue to provide them with whatever you have to offer.

A lot of people forget about websites if they aren’t reminded to go back a few times after their first visit, and an email list is one of the best ways to keep in contact with someone after they leave your page. I’ve been a subscriber to many different newsletters and email lists, sometimes they aren’t what I expected so I opt-out, but often I find a lot of really valuable stuff in the newsletters and I end up returning to the authors websites and sometimes I even buy their products after a 2nd or 3rd visit to their pages.

Eventually many of the people who remain subscribed to a newsletter or email list will fork over some cash for a recommended product that they’d like to try or in the form of a donation because they really like your work — maybe one of your articles was really helpful to them and they want to show some gratitude by buying you a coffee or maybe even lunch if they’re feeling really generous. You can buy me a coffee or lunch by clicking here

Putting the word ‘marketing’ after ‘email’ immediately makes most people think SPAM. Well, putting the word ‘marketing’ after anything automatically triggers a negative response from most people, but the truth is that any honest blogger or infopreneur who offers valuable information through their blog or email newsletter will always offer a way to opt-out or unsubscribe from the list. In fact, all of the best email newsletter services like Aweber require you to have opt-out options and contact information to prevent any misuse of the services. I use Aweber myself because they are simply the best email newsletter service available.

You may have noticed the recent additions of a newsletter sign-up box on the right side of Exploring Infinity dot Com, I also added a new opt-in form a few days ago which is impossible to miss — it’s called a pop-over and the whole page fades out after 45 seconds and you are shown an opt-in form that tells you what you get when you become an email subscriber. This pop-over form has been a huge success, doubling my email subscribers list in only 2 days! The form is only displayed the first time someone visits this website, so regular visitors aren’t bothered by it each time they come here.

I added these opt-in forms to begin building my email contact list so I can keep some of the people who found this Website useful but would have otherwise forgotten about it if they hadn’t signed up to gain access to the documentary list.

Google Adsense and other ad-networks

Google Adsense is probably the most common way that people make money with their websites, but it’s one of my least favorite methods. Adsense and other ad-networks pay a blogger each time a visitor clicks on one of the Google ads. Depending on how popular your website is and what it’s about, Google adjusts what each click is valued at.

Google will serve ads from any person or company who pays them, as long as they follow the terms of service. Of course, the Website owner who is displaying the ads can choose which ads show on his or her website and can ban certain websites or products from being advertised as well. This is handy when you write an article exposing Global Warming as a cruel hoax and then have ads for websites promoting the myth — you can go in and ban that ad from showing on your pages, but it’s hard to know what ads are showing on your website unless you hand pick each one yourself, which is a real pain in the arse.

Allowing Google to show any old ad on your blog or Website will leave you advertising products you don’t want to promote, advertising for competitors, and showing ads for things you have no idea about — this is why I dislike Google Ads. Even though I am currently displaying Adsense ads on this site again, I don’t really like them. But they have been generating a decent bit of income during this trial run of ads, so I might end up leaving them on this Website for a while yet — I haven’t quite made up my mind yet. I usually prefer to advertise products and services that I am familiar with and that I honestly believe my subscribers would benefit from.

Many high traffic websites do extremely well with Adsense ads, some of them earning 6 figures a year just from Google ads alone! There is huge potential for generating income using ad-networks like Google Adsense, but you need to have a website with an extreme amount of daily traffic to really make it with this method.

In my opinion, there are much better ways to generate an income than using ad-networks, but on the flip-side, setting up an ad network is extremely easy and you can start earning a bit of an income within just a few minutes of putting the ads on a blog or Website.

Affiliate commissions

In my opinion, this is what it’s all about — earning commissions on recommended products. This is where I have made the most money so far on my journey to becoming a self-employed infopreneur. Basically, when I find a product that I really like I go searching for an affiliate program that will pay me a commission on every sale that I send their way.

You can find some examples of affiliate programs on my recommended products page. I also write articles and link to recommended products and services that I mention in my articles. A prime example of affiliate article marketing can be found in my posts about back pain, I have made several sales through the Healthy Back Institute just by mentioning their products in some of my articles.

Affiliate marketing has become a huge hit in the online world and is still gaining popularity. As a way of making money, this method is still in its infancy, many great companies still haven’t even heard about affiliate programs and how they could benefit from them. I’ve approached several companies who don’t yet have an affiliate program in place and explained to them how setting one up is a win-win situation for everyone. They get more business by encouraging already satisfied customers to go out and promote their products for them — essentially they get free advertising. The people who promote their products are compensated for their efforts when they send a new customer to the product website.

Most affiliate programs pay anywhere from 5 to 90% commissions, depending on the product. Digital products usually pay higher commissions because it doesn’t cost anything to reproduce them. Physical products usually pay anywhere from 5-15% commissions, and some affiliate programs pay set amounts on each product and don’t offer percentage commissions. Either way, if you really like a product and genuinely find it valuable, many of your subscribers will too. It’s easy to sell a product that you honestly believe in, and with affiliate programs it becomes an easy way to make some money online.

Another great thing about some affiliate programs is that you can often sign up other bloggers and aspiring infopreneurs under your commission structure and earn commissions on sales that they refer to the product or service provider as well! That means if you sign up a fellow infopreneur to an affiliate program that you’re already involved in, you can earn money when they earn money — no more effort on your part! Second tier commissions don’t take away from the other person’s earnings either, so everyone stays happy with 2nd tier commission programs.

An example of programs offering 2nd tier commissions is Site Build It! and SiteSell. I recently started recommending this company because of the incredible value they offer to their customers. They actually teach people how to become highly successful infopreneurs, even if they don’t know squat about building websites, setting up email lists or RSS feeds, or any of the other technical stuff that you usually have to learn when attempting to start a successful online business. When someone signs up for Site Build It! or another SiteSell product, I earn affiliate commissions, but the best part is that when another infopreneur signs up to become an affiliate and promote the product themselves, I earn commissions every time they make a sale too! As you can see, if you get a few successful 2nd tier affiliates signed up under you it’s possible to start making a serious passive income.

I like affiliate marketing because it can be done in a genuine and honest fashion. I only recommend products that are extremely good and that I use myself. I can honestly recommend them to other people because I like them so much — I go looking for affiliate programs for the products that I like. This brings a level of trust into my business, you know that when I officially recommend a product that it’s going to be the highest quality and you’ll get what you pay for.

This doesn’t mean that all bloggers and infopreneurs work this way, there are tons of people out there who are just trying to make a quick buck, but with affiliate marketing at least you get to pick and choose what you promote and advertise, unlike the ads that are displayed through ad-networks like Ad-Brite or Google Adsense.

Creating a product

Another popular way of making money as in infopreneur is to create your own product or service. I’ve not done this yet myself, but one day I will probably give it a try — I’m just not sure what to do yet.

These days most infopreneurs offer their products in strictly digital format, considering that with the internet we can instantly share things at great distances without having to pay for shipping or handling or even packaging or production of the product, it only makes sense to offer a product or service in this form. It’s rare that an info product is produced in physical form like a cd, dvd, or book, but it still happens. I prefer physical copies of things myself, especially books, but a digital copy is usually just as good.

Creating your own product has many benefits, mainly that you can sell it and get the full amount and not just earn a commission on a product that someone else created. You get to set your own price and charge what you think the product is worth, and you also have full creative control of how it’s marketed.

You can also sell your digital product on sites like clickbank, which makes it easy to offer incentives for other people to promote your product — essentially setting up your own affiliate program. This is a win-win because for a portion of whatever you charge for your product, you can have other people advertising it to their subscribers for you. You don’t have to pay for the advertising, only paying out a portion of your profit when it results in a sale.

The best part is that you don’t even have to deal with setting up a system to sell your product or cut your commission checks to your affiliates, clickbank takes care of all of that for you! You just sit back and let the cash flow in once you’ve got the product made and listed.

I’d like to create my own product sometime, but for now I’m just working as an affiliate until I come up with something of my own. Right now, I don’t think I have anything to turn into a product or service, but I know that eventually I’ll think of something. Until then I will just keep writing good, free articles and recommending affiliate products to my viewers in an honest and loving way. So far, that strategy is proving to be a good one.

Donations

Many bloggers accept donations, including myself. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with accepting donations if someone wants to give them to you. I do think it’s kind of annoying when someone sends me emails begging for donations, whatever their reason is.

If someone finds value in the work of an infopreneur or blogger, they might feel like sending a donation. I’ve heard of some bloggers getting spontaneous donations in large amounts from time to time — into the thousands of dollar range! I’ve never received much for donations, but I’m happy to accept them if someone feels it’s warranted.

I recently added a paypal donation option to this Website, so far it’s resulted in $0.00. No biggie though, I don’t go begging for donations and I’m not disappointed in the results so far either. When someone decides to send me one I’ll surely be happy, if nobody ever sends one, that’s fine too — at least the option is there just in case.

Giving your work away for free

Being an infopreneur is nice because aside from any products you create, you can give away all of your work for free. Giving your work away for free means that everyone can see what you have to offer and it reaches a much bigger audience. Because nobody has to pay for it, nobody is put off by a price tag, and even if a customer can’t afford to spend any money they can still benefit from the work you do.

You don’t get many complaints when you give everything away for free either, if someone doesn’t like what you have to offer they aren’t out any money because they didn’t have to buy anything. They can simply leave your website and never come back, nothing lost, no damage done, and no hard feelings — most of the time.

Giving everything away for free is a really good way to get a lot of traffic, and more traffic results in more advertising revenues and more affiliate sales. In reality, it’s the best business practice ever! This simply isn’t possible with the conventional business that relies on selling physical products from a physical location.

Want to become an infopreneur but don’t know where to start?

If you want to start making money online with your blog, or are interested in becoming an infopreneur but don’t know where to begin, I have a solution.

If you don’t know how to build a website or blog, that’s no big deal. You don’t have to be a techie to make money online these days. There are tons of quality programs out there to assist you in the technical parts of blogging, leaving you to do what you want to do — produce great content! You don’t have to waste your time learning all the skills required to put up a website, let Site Build It! do it for you!

Site Build It! Has all the tools you need in one place for one price. I know several people who have built highly profitable businesses using this service — I’m not joking! I know several people who have quit their jobs to become full time infopreneurs using SBI. They all give credit to the creators of Site Build It! for showing them the way and taking care of the boring techie stuff that they don’t know how to do themselves. Site Build It! makes making money online so easy that even grandma can do it.

Have a look at what Site Build It! has to offer by clicking here.
You can watch the video tour of Site Build It! by clicking here.