5 Criteria to Pick the Right Online Business Model
Choosing the right online business model is not easy. Without giving it enough thought many prospective online entrepreneurs jump in and start on the wrong foot. They choose a business model that doesn’t meet the right criteria for them.
Instead of making a strategic decision about which business model they implement, they try the first thing they hear about. Or they buy into the hype of spammy marketers promising overnight riches.
If you genuinely want long-term success as an Internet marketer, select a business model that fits nicely with every aspect of your life.
It should be something that fits within your schedule and budget.
Does it fit within your skill set?
It also has to be something you’re prepared to do based on your skills. Trying that line of work would be foolish if you lack the skills to create graphics.
Will it provide enough money?
Your business model has to give you enough money in the timeframe that you need it to deliver on.
Are you extroverted or introverted?
It also has to suit your preferences regarding how much or how little you want to interact with others.
If you choose something you’re not well-prepared for, you’ll end up frustrated and stressed with your efforts to build your business. All because you didn’t take the time to weed out the options that weren’t a good fit for you.
Below, we’ll look at those essential criteria and discuss how to thoughtfully consider each. You can then set yourself up for success on a path well-suited to your needs, personal preferences, and lifestyle.
How Much Time Can You Devote to the Right Online Business Model?
Business models require varying amounts of time. To be competitive, you might have to contribute more time than you’d like.
Researching how much time you need to invest before pursuing a particular path is essential.
The time you need to invest correlates to the speed you want to earn money, which we’ll discuss shortly.
Time-wise, every person is different, too. Some people can create an entire info product in a few hours, while others take months to assemble one.
Some people can write 5-6 pages an hour, and others can only write one page daily if they’re lucky. So your skills also matter in terms of which business model you pursue.
It would help if you thought about how fast you can do the job, how long you feel it will take to complete projects, etc.
Looking to be a freelance service provider?
Look at the kinds of projects people are bidding on that you’d like to compete for and see if your delivery window aligns with what others are offering.
You might want to do a practice run for creating and launching an info product to see how long it takes to research and write (or record) your product, recruit affiliates, set up listings, and launch.
You don’t have to publish anything. Just see how long tasks take you.
Consider Practice Runs Before Deciding on the Right Online Business model
If you want to be an affiliate, consider the time it takes to research pain points and solutions, write your reviews, and share them on social platforms.
Any business model is viable in any timeframe if you know you want to do it. But whether or not it’s right for you might also depend on the speed you need to earn and your skillset.
The reason it’s crucial to do a practice run for certain things, like seeing how fast you can write or record and research or outline. You won’t not know how long it takes you if you’ve never done it before.
A practice run will allow you to see if a particular business model is suitable for you. Its a cautious step before you fully commit to it, buy a domain and begin going through all of the work it takes to build your online empire.
How Much to Invest Upfront in the Right Online Business Model?
Depending on your business model, you may or may not need to invest money.
Even with one business model, such as affiliate marketing, where you invest a little bit of money upfront, or the free route, where you don’t spend a dime initially.
You never want to go into debt to build your business.
Getting in debt creates unnecessary stress and frustration for you, and you won’t think clearly when making your business decisions.
It’s better to save up and have the money to invest in your business than to charge up your credit cards. Avoid the stress of hoping you begin seeing a return on your investment before the bills are due.
You want to look at all the money you will need to pursue specific business models. You also want to look at what your free alternatives are so that you can save on costs.
Start Up Costs
There are different types of things you have to spend money on.
For example, with most online businesses, you may need to purchase a domain for approximately $12 a year and hosting that you can get for under $5 per month.
But if you create an info product, you will need some video editing software.
If you are recording your product, you’ll need a page builder to build your sales page, and you’ll need to be able to create images for your product image.
For most of these things, you can find free alternatives.
For example, instead of investing in Camtasia, you can use CamStudio. Instead of having to buy Photoshop, you can use Canva.
Even if you decide to be a freelance service provider, you may pay a small fee to utilize all the features on a platform like Upwork.
Or you may take the free route and keep your account at the bare minimum until you can reinvest some money.
A business model may require you to invest a significantly more significant amount of money.
For example, if you decide to sell top-notch electronics using the Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) business model, you would need to purchase a pallet of those products so that you could have your stock kept in Amazon’s shipping centers.
What Skills Do You Have to Build Your Right Online Business Model?
Your skills are an enormous factor in deciding the right online business model. There are many different working parts to running an online empire.
For example, you have to be adept at research. You may have to use tools, such as keyword tools or data analytics, and these can help you in that area.
But you must still be skilled in recognizing patterns, trends, and opportunities.
Your Right Online Business Model Will Need Content Creation
Another skill you have to have is content creation. No matter what business model you choose, you will be writing content.
You might write bids or a profile and portfolio as a freelance service provider.
As an affiliate marketer, your job will be to write comprehensive product reviews that give readers or viewers insight into where they should spend their money.
Your job will require content creation if you are an info product creator. But it won’t just be the product itself.
Create Affiliate Resources
It would help if you created joint venture (JV) pages for your affiliates, sales pages for every level of your funnel, email autoresponders for your subscribers and buyers, and more.
Even if you are using a business model such as drop shipping or FBA, you still have to create listings that attract attention from prospective consumers so that they will click through to the product and purchase it.
You may also need some semblance of graphic design skills or the ability to determine what type of images work well in a graphic design.
For example, which fonts are fitting and how to use the tools required to assemble something professional.
Networking will be a skill you may need to use
Whether you are networking with your customers, colleagues in the industry who may serve as your competitors and affiliate, or just as people who can provide insight, this may be necessary to reach your success.
When it comes to skills, you only sometimes have the skills yourself to do the job.
If you want to be an info product creator and have great ideas, you can outsource content creation to someone who can do the job for you.
However, this will require a budget allowing you to delegate your tasks to someone else.
Another option is to partner with someone who brings skills you don’t have to the table, almost in a bartering scenario – where you provide something else to the arrangement.
How Important Are Speed and Earnings From The Online Business Model?
Choosing the right online business model revolves around many people’s need for more income.
You may need to supplement your current earnings in another job or for your retirement, or you may need to earn more or even be unemployed and need to earn enough to pay bills.
Some people want to get involved in this career to share their passion and interest with others.
Those individuals can take their time to do things right, slowly and perfectly, and money isn’t the primary factor in their decision.
Although rare, it does happen. For most individuals who are researching Internet marketing, choose a business model that pays you more quickly than others have the potential to do.
Many business models offer a reasonably quick payoff
These would include freelance service providing, info product creation, coaching, and so on.
You can even promote products as an affiliate marketer that will pay you in a couple of days or a week.
But other affiliate programs require a two-week, 30-day, or even two-month processing time to get the money you have earned.
With some business models, the speed with which you make money may depend on getting your site ranked in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Your ranking directly impacts getting enough traffic to your domain so that you can start monetizing your efforts.
Search Engine Rankings and Competition for your right online business model
Ranking in search engines is something that takes time to happen. You may need to work your way up to the top of the SERPs. This requires you to build your site to the degree that it can topple your competitors.
Another thing to factor into your decision is the amount that’s possible for you to earn with a particular business model. What is one sale worth to you? This is an important consideration in selecting the right online business model.
Trading time for money vs. more passive income
For example, you exchange time for money if you work as a freelance service provider.
And while you may be thinking you can raise your rates, there is always a ceiling of what the marketplace is willing to pay for services.
With other business models, such as affiliate marketing, info product development, drop shipping, and others, the expansion of your income results from you doing more work. Produce more products, reviews, content, and listings online.
Keep in mind that you can always earn more online simply by tapping into another business model at a later date.
So if you hit the ceiling in one path, you can always add another to diversify your income stream.
Does Your Right Online Business Model Involve Interaction with Others?
Lastly, you’ll want to consider how much interaction you like with others. Personal interaction may be a minor factor to some.
Still, many introverted people pursue this career path because it allows them to work behind the scenes without interacting with people.
If you are launching your info products, you will likely have to interact with your customers and prospective affiliates.
Learning how to drive traffic to your offers without affiliates is possible, but it’s different from the usual path most people take.
Affiliate Marketing
As an affiliate marketer, you are the go-between or middleman advising the general public about what products they should purchase.
The only interaction you will have to do is usually responding to comments on your blog or social media posts.
Think about what goes into whatever business model you want to pursue.
Freelancing
If you decide to be a freelance service provider, you must deal with clients regularly, which means all of their demands, praise, and complaints.
Ads Only
You can even have a completely hands-off approach by building a website in your niche and monetizing your online content with AdSense ads.
That way, you never have to engage with anyone because your goal is for them to click through an ad.
Selecting a business model is one of the two first steps you’ll take in becoming an online entrepreneur – the other being picking a niche.
Take your time making an intelligent decision on the right online business model for you but don’t panic if you find out it’s not the right choice. You can always change direction, which is the beauty of this industry.
