Small Home Based Business Case Study

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It Takes Money To Make Money?

Now that Michele has given us the insights on how to start your home based business, I would like share with you a recent experiment that I made three days ago of which I believe is a great complement to that of what she was saying in her post. This also proves a theory that “It Takes Money To Make Money” is not at all just a myth. In addition, this also may provide a point that if you are in doing things seriously, then “where there is a will”, “there is a way”.

Before I head over, I would like you to know that you should not necessarily need to invest a lot of money when starting your online business. In the long run, however, as you see your home based business growing, you will see that in a way, it is something that will be inevitable. So bear with me.

To get you started, you should have one thing in mind and that is to make a plan and believe in it. I say “believe” because you have to execute it accordingly. No sense in planning without taking action and if it succeeds, you are good, and if not, find out why it didn’t, and start again (trial and error). The idea is to make it a calculated risk, to minimize your $$ exposure.

So, here is what I did:

The Product: First and foremost is finding a product that you believe adds value and if possible that you have tried yourself. For me, this was no brainer as it was actually the easy part (not always like this – luck also played an important role).

Anyway, my good friend Hesham of famousbloggers.net told me about it and Dan Lew the owner of the product also told me about it here in a comment. Keyword Winner is the product that I am talking about. I am not going to extend myself here, and if you are interested in finding out more about it, just head over to the link under the domain section :). Direct Cost $0.

The Domain: Everyone says that you should try to get a domain name that matches your topic or product. This is absolutely true because it helps a lot for your SEO. The more “keywords” you get in there the better.

So after using one of my methods of finding keywords, I was able to register the domain name, keywordplugin.com. Not ideal, but it was good specially because it is a dot com and is related to the product. Direct Cost $10.

The Hosting: This is where it gets a little tricky as if you do not have one, you will either have to use a free hosting such as blogger.com or if you already have one like I do which is unlimited domains for one single account, then the cost should be very little to you.

I have two accounts with my hosting provider. I pay $6.95 a month for each of them and among other things, I get unlimited domains (that’s why I like them). In one of my accounts, I have over 15 domains running and with this addition, makes 16. If you do the math, each domain cost me roughly $0.43 per month. So this project’s hosting cost is just that, 43 cents. This is taking advantage of your hosting fees and spreading the cost via several domains. Anyway, and as I said, it could easily be done with blogger.com. Just remember to read, How To Become A Better Blogspot User, it helps.

The Marketing: Well part of it is to create a website for this, so this is what I did. I set up a website and created one “landing” page and a post. Nothing fancy but it should do the trick for the time being.

Then, I promoted it like crazy. Made some comments on commentluv enabled blogs, Tweeted, sent an email to my small list, splattered banners on several of my related websites and that’s about it. Remember, I only had three days to do this all.

The SEO: Keywords in the domain name, keyword product, keyword on title, keyword on… Well you get my drift. If you really want to know, here is a nice study of what are the most important factors for SEO.

The Sale: Note that this does not happen as fast as it is suppose to, and it might not be a lot to begin with. But what I wanted here is for you to get the idea and motivation to get things done. Anyway, after all this, I went to my ClickBank account and hold and behold, a sale. A big surprise! Got a commission of $21,24.

keywordwin_sale

Conclusion: As you can see, experimenting sometimes is a good way to see how things can work for you and this is just proof of that. The principal idea though is that you have to plan on it and take action. It won’t work on its own.

Finally and just to let you know, I did purchase the product mentioned above, but that was because I wanted it for myself. The bottom line of this small venture, generated a profit of $10,81 (Sale-Domain Name-Less hosting Cost). The “project” in itself already generated a small profit and all it takes is two more (not difficult) for Dan to virtually giving me his product for free Smile. Hopefully it will.

What do think of this example? Is there something I missed? Have you done something similar? Let me know.

This also proves a theory that “It Takes Money To Make Money” is not at all just a myth. In addition, this also may provide a point that if you are in doing things seriously, then “where there is a will”, “there is a way”.

DiTesco

DiTesco is a Business and Inbound Marketing Consultant, and founder of iBlogzone.com. iBlogzone's main objective is to help startups and small business owners achieve success in their online ventures. | More About Me and my Digital Marketing Services in SP Brazil.

24 thoughts on “Small Home Based Business Case Study”

  • That is fantastic DiTesco!! I love it! Like you said, “if there’s a will, there’s a way!” Goes to show you if you follow a simple formula that increases your chance of success by the much; keywords in url, some SEO, marketing and marketing!

    I have a question for you (just in case you plan on more of these experiments 😉 ). Do you think it would be more beneficial in the long run as oppose to creating a landing page with the affiliate link/banner, creating an optin page providing a free report related to that topic and once opted in upselling them on the keyword plugin? Do you think by doing so will decrease your chances of conversions?

    My thinking is this, you can capture the emails and create relationships for future marketing with already interested buyers.

    But to get this done in 3 days…very impressive!

    • Hi Michele. Thanks. I’m telling you, we should be a team and do something together 🙂 I think your idea is awesome. Creating an optin page first offering something for free and then upselling them the plugin. Sounds good to me. Best of both worlds. Will need another three days, haha. JK

  • Hi DiTesco

    You sure know your stuff. Also you have the benefit of understanding the basics of all that makes up a successful launch which you have shared freely here. Great that you saw a return for your money so quickly which goes to show with due diligence it can work.

    I have just done my first product review and opened my Etsy store so will be interested to see if going the blogging way reaps the rewards as I do have a great group of loyal readers on my small niche blog.

    Patricia Perth Australia

    • Hi Patricia. Good to see you here and congrats to launching your products on etsy. I have seen it and it looks great. Clean and neatly organized. If properly promoted, I’m sure you will reap rewards from your effort. One suggestion though if I may. I have seen the page on etsy and I noticed that the “profile” is empty. You might want to fill that up as users generally like to see who is behind the products. You will also make it easier for them to drop feedbacks which is very important. That aside, you are good to go and I wish you good luck.

      • Duly noted and done. Feel free to check the bio and any more suggestions graciously received cos you’re walking the walk and I’m just starting. Have a couple of questions to ask you so will email. Thanks for visiting my store and for the helpful suggestions. Much appreciated.

        Patricia Perth Australia

  • Home Based Business Case Study: Does this prove that “It Takes Money To Make Money” to succeed with your home ba… http://bit.ly/b3eGi6

  • Don’t forget – list list list! ie, make sure to always build your list as much as possible too.

    That’s where the real long-term profits lie, in my opinion.

    • HI Barbara. Yeah, list, list… It is important and maybe if I had a bigger list, I would have had more conversions 🙂 Never know but I’m working on it. Was never that much of a fan for “list” building. Thanks for stopping by.

  • Pretty darn impressive for 3 days worth of work. You have just capsulized the basic business strategy for any business online. Build more content and work on your marketing, you should have continued success.

    • Hello Donnie. Good to see you here. I knew that the “three” day thing will call attention but you should know that aside from having some luck (choice of products, getting that domain name, etc), and doing a plan, I already knew the steps to execute it. As I told @Josh, it could be replicated and all the timing is the only variable that I can see could be different. Other than that, it is very doable and after its done, then the work continues :).

  • That’s pretty cool that you had success in 3 days. I’m looking into affiliate marketing to see if it’s right for me. Would you say that your experiment is something a new affiliate marketer could replicate? I understand SEO and online marketing but I’ve never gotten into niche affiliate sites and the more time I spend online the more interested I’m getting. Thanks

    • Hi Josh. About your question, YES I think that anyone can replicate this experiment and that is the whole idea. The steps are all there and I made in a point to provide some links where you can get familiar with certain aspects of kick starting it. The only difference that I think there will be is the timing. Most likely, it won’t happen in three days (this was luck for me as well), but it will certainly happen if you take action on it. I already knew what to do and the parts of the plan where executed accordingly. Finding products is not easy, getting a domain name that matches your needs is sometimes daunting, and it can go on. But the idea is to stick with the plan and go, go, go.

      Having niche sites is good Josh, but you have to have the time to manage it. Those “auto” things in my experience don’t work for me, so that’s that. Thanks for stopping by.

  • This is a similar process to what I do with the exception of rarely using a special landing page as I tend to use blog posts styled as reviews.

    One thing that I believe worked well for you though was the added video on your landing page…you could have saved the hosting fee by using a hoster that has add-on domains meaning a bunch of unique urls all hosted under one account 😉

    btw,
    I tackled the question on MSB of whether it takes money to make money and the answer is YES!

    • Hi Caleb. good to see you here. Been a while. If you noticed the landing page is really not a “squeeze page” per say but rather just a page without the sidebars and tailored to look like a landing page :). Thanks for stopping by

  • This is a great post. You are one of the best at explaining things, so that even I understand it. I am new to all of this, and your site is a massive amount of information that is needed by me. Thanks, and keep giving the advice and I will keep using it. 🙂

  • Congratulations. I think it’s a brilliant idea, but I also think that luck had a lot to play in that sale. Then again the domain name may have helped because it gave credibility to the buyer who was obviously searching for that or a similar product.

    Who really knows, but the main thing is you made the sale. I wish you many more happy customers.

    • Hi SIre. Thanks. I know that in this while process, luck played an important role in virtually everything. To make things even “spicier” Google the term “keyword plugin” and see for yourself. Now that is cool :)! Hopefully aside from trying to get more sales, I can replicate this on other domains I am thinking of launching still this year. We’ll see. Thanks for stopping by

      • Top 10 huh 🙂

        That’s the beauty of having the keyword as your domain name. I reckon if anyone can make this idea work for them it would be you.

        • LOL, thanks for the compliment. Soon I will be posting a new experiment I just did last week and just waiting for one thing to happen. It has something to do with domains also 🙂 and it could be a great form of making an extra $$

  • DiTesco, you are going to make a killing! I am blown away at your ability. 3 days is amazing. You definitely know what you are doing.

    • Hi Evan. Many thanks for your compliment. I learned to do so many things in this past two years of doing business online that, today I am in a position to also share my experiences with all the community. It takes a lot of effort and patience to do it, but it can be done.

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