If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that being able to diversify your income has huge benefits-cue the passive income stream. Passive income is a great way to make money beyond the chair, and once you have the right systems in place, you can make money while you sleep. While this might sound too good to be true, or maybe a little complicated, passive income streams can be an easy way to make extra money and build your brand. So, if you are ready to scale your business and your bank account, here are five easy ways to diversify your revenue.
Join an affiliate program
Affiliate programs are a great way to earn extra money while supporting products you believe in. Affiliate marketing is performance-based and allows you to earn a commission on the sales of a product or service you have promoted. This might be a shampoo, hair vitamin, or even a laser cap that supports hair growth. Affiliate programs typically offer a base commission, and the sales are tracked by a unique URL or discount code that will track your sales of that product. Typically, when joining an affiliate program, you will want a place to house your affiliate links. This might be on your social media account, your blog, or even just through a referral at your shop. You can find affiliate programs through product websites or affiliate networking sites like ShareASale.
Some things to look for when picking an affiliate program are the commission rates and the cookies. You might be thinking, what do cookies have to do with this? Well, sorry, we aren’t talking about tasty chocolate chip cookies here. Instead, we are talking about the time it takes for a customer to purchase the product. When a potential buyer hits your affiliate link, they have a certain amount of time to make the purchase. So, if a company offers 30-day cookies, that means anyone using your link will have to purchase within that time frame for you to make a commission. Typical cookies are around 30 days, but some programs offer 60 days or more.
Start a blog
If you already have a blog or have considered starting one, now’s the time! Monetizing a blog has many benefits, and the added content can support SEO, driving more traffic to your website (and your barbershop). You can make money from your blog a few ways, and it doesn’t take too much effort.
- Add Google AdSense to your blog.
Google AdSense is an easy way to earn extra money without doing anything. Google manages ads that they place on your website (in the banners or other places) that relate directly to your website visitors’ interests. When one of your website visitors clicks on a Google ad, you get a share of the ad revenue. To add Google AdSense to your website, you need to apply and meet Google’s requirements. This is a reasonably straightforward process, and once you add the Google AdSense link to your website, Google handles the rest.
- Add affiliate links to your blog.
As mentioned earlier, you can add affiliate links to your blog posts. For instance, if you write a post about hair loss, you can join affiliate programs for laser caps, hair vitamins, and other hair restoration products that will earn you money when someone buys through that link. One thing to note is that you want to have steady website traffic to monetize through affiliate links, and you should always add a disclaimer to let your readers know that you do earn a commission from these products.
- Write sponsored content.
If you already have excellent website traffic, you can easily score sponsored posts through other companies. A sponsored post is more like an ad, and you work with a company to write out content that will support their sales. For example, let’s say you want to be paid to try out a new product. You would write a review, link to their product, and add photos of you using the product. The benefit to sponsored posts is you receive compensation for the posts themselves, not just the sales. In order to get sponsored posts, you will need to reach out to the companies you want to work with. They will typically want to know about your niche, your brand, and what type of website traffic you receive every month.
Build a course
Online courses are a great way to share what you know while earning an extra income. You can create courses on cutting techniques, marketing your barbershop, how to start a barbershop, or any other unique knowledge you can share with others. You can host in-person events and charge for attendance, offer live video streaming classes, or build out an online course in a program like Kajabi or Teachable. If you use Teachable or Kajabi, payment, marketing, and branding are all built on one platform, making it an easy process. The benefits of online courses are you only need to build out the content one time, and then you can sell it indefinitely, on autopilot.
Start an email list
If you haven’t already, setting up an email list is a must! This is a great way to keep in contact with your customers, offer sales, and add affiliate links and the sponsored posts mentioned earlier. Email marketing is a great way to build your client base, and the more subscriptions you have, the more money you can make through sponsored posts, selling your courses, and you will drive more traffic to your website.
Start a YouTube channel
Starting a YouTube channel is another great way to earn a passive income stream. YouTube will start paying you once you hit a certain number of subscribers based on ads played during your video, but there are other ways you can earn an income. You can use YouTube as a way to promote a course, create content for sponsored posts, or review products for affiliate income. Getting started on YouTube is easy. You can create a channel, post your videos and build your subscribers. This does take more time to build than the other mentioned income streams in this article, but it has long-term benefits you shouldn’t miss out on.
As you can see, there are many benefits to creating passive income for your business. You can build more brand awareness, have many income sources, and develop more relationships online. So, try out these tips and start building today!
About the Author
Tiffany Fuller is a writer with a passion for holistic wellness, working for illumiflow, a revolutionary brand dedicated to helping you fight hair loss.
