7 ways to Spend Money to Make Money Online

People are making $100K+ online by little investing. That's insane, right! I know. But it's true. 
Just take a look at the woman in the image below. Wanna be like her?

No need to worry.

I will guide you, which help you decide and set goals to earn money online.

Everyone wants to make money!!! That's a known fact!!!

Their reasons are different for different people, revolve around meeting their needs.

Thanks to technology, people now able to make money from home.

Have you heard that people can make tons of money without spending $0?

Traditionally, everyone knew you needed money (capital) to make money.

Talking about making money online, people just seem to assume they can do it without spending anything.

Some folks even believe with just a mobile device and a strong internet connection, they are good to go!

We should not blame them.

With millions of bloggers and expert advisors out there saying things like

"I made $100K from affiliate marketing with zero investment", 
"I started my online business with just $1."

It is usual for people to think it's possible to make money online without spending a dime.

But let no one fool you; you gotta spend money to make money online.

The best means of making money on the internet require you to make some sort of investment.

Being honest, you can spend a little and still able to make money online.

Here we described the top 7 strategies, or you can say money earning methods through you can generate more than 7 figure income with just a few investments.

7 ways how smart people spend a little and generate long-term money

Before we jump into the first step, remember that you have to pick any of the one categories at a time, at least for the beginning.

Otherwise, it will be challenging to focus on one method at a time, and eventually, the result will not be satisfied, and you will blame yourself.

1. Starting a Dropshipping Business

Dropshipping is one of the highly lucrative business you can start online with little or no investment.

What you'll find in this section:

• What is dropshipping?
• Guide to starting a dropshipping business
• Niche selection
• Find a Supplier
• Create an online selling platform
• Comparison between a free and invested dropshipping business
• Possible ROI statistics

What is dropshipping?

A dropshipping business is where a customer purchases an item from your online store. That order is forwarded to your supplier. Once your supplier receives the order, they ship the item directly to the customer under your business name while earning the profit margin.

How to start a dropshipping business: a brief guide

There are two ways to start a dropshipping business.

1. Build from Scratch
   
2. Buy Existing Dropshipping Business
   

You can buy a ready-made dropshipping business from any of the following platforms:

• Exchange
• Flippa
• AliDropship Forum
• AliDropship established stores

Want to build from scratch? Follow the below steps:

i.) Choose a Niche

The first thing to do for starting a dropshipping business is to choose the niche you want to venture in. That is the selection of industry you want to sell.

Ideally, a niche should be chosen based on its "profit-making potential and frequent market demand."

Generally speaking, using two methods, one can identify a profitable dropshipping niche.

The first is to go with any of the traditionally profitable niches. Here are some of the most profitable niches of all time:

• Health & Fitness (Best for 2021)
• Women's Clothing & Accessories
• Toys
• Home & Garden
• Jewelry & Accessories
• Beauty
• Sports & Entertainment

Secondly, you can identify a profitable niche by looking for trending keywords (products) on popular search tools like Google's Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, and Google Trends.

ii.) Choose a Supplier

The next thing is to decide who your dropshipping supplier is going to be.

To find legitimate suppliers, you can follow the following tips:

• Contact the manufacturer of the product you want to sell
• Search on Google: Simply type "{product name} supplier" into the Google search box, and you'll get a ton of suppliers to choose from.
• Use Oberlo
• Attend trade shows
• Use your competitor to find suppliers

iii.) Build your dropshipping business website or online store

• BigCommerce
• Magento
• Volusion
• Demandware
• 3dcart
• Shopify
• Kibo

There are two methods you can use to build the store or website you want to sell on.

You can either set up your e-commerce store using WordPress or sell on any popular e-commerce website.

When you opt to sell on an e-commerce site, your store will be hosted on the site's server, leaving you to worry only about how you'll design your store.

It doesn't take more than 15 minutes to create a store on an e-commerce site, be it a Shopify dropshipping store, Amazon dropshipping store, or an eBay dropshipping store.

Here are several other e-commerce platforms you can choose from:

Why you gotta spend money to make money in dropshipping?

Below is a table comparing a zero-investment plan with a paid dropshipping business plan.

Hypothetical cost of running a dropshipping business and possible ROI

Let's say you get a product for $20 from your dropshipping supplier, and you sell it for $40. After cutting the shipping costs and advertisements' cost, your actual profit over the product is $10.

If you sell 3 of such products in a day it become 90 in a month.
‍
$10 profit x 90 orders in a month = $900 per month

$900 per month x 12 = Approx. $11,000 per year

From the table above, the estimated starting and running cost of a dropshipping business should be:

• Cost of store = $29 per month
• Cost of product testing = $50
• Cost of ads = $150 for a one-month ad campaign

TOTAL = $229

For a $229 monthly investment, if you're able to realize up to $900 monthly, I don't think that's a bad business.

2. Starting a Blogging Business

Blogging is another goldmine for making money on the internet. But just like dropshipping, you need to spend money to make money from blogging.

What you'll find in this section:

• What is a blog?
• How to start a blogging business
• Choose a niche you want to blog about
• Setting up your blog
• Tips to make money from blogging
• Cost to start a blogging business
• Expected ROI from a blogging business

What is a blog, or what does blogging mean?

I hope you already know that blog is an informative website for discussing a particular subject in detail. Where you can find enough go through articles to learn for some specific topics. Blogging is the process of creating unique content and frequently publishing the basis on a web portal.

Although some folks might have you believe that you can make money with $0 from blogging, we will show you why their advice is wrong soon.

How to start a blogging business

It's quite simple and easy to start a blog.

i.) Choose a niche (something you want to blog about):

Ideally, this should be something you're passionate about. But since you're looking to make money off it, you should instead choose a niche based on its "audience revenue potential." That is, based on how likely it is to make money in that niche.

Source: successunscrambled.com

ii.) Set up your blog:

To get your blog online, you can do it on a freeway, or you can find a paid plan.

Now, the decision you make at this point will determine the revenue potential (how much money you can make) of your blog in the long-term.

Below are some of the most popular blogging platforms you can choose from:

1. Wix (Free and Paid)
2. Squarespace (Paid)
   
3. Yola (Free)
   
4. WordPress.org (Paid)
   
5. WordPress.com (Free)
   
6. Tumblr (Free)
   

More on how free blogging platforms limit your revenue potential later.

With the free platforms, you won't be paying for anything. Just drag-and-drop a few buttons on the blogging platform, and your site is ready to go.

However, for the paid platforms,you'll need to buy a domain name and pay for a hosting company to host it for you. Most commonly, people use WordPress as the platform and Blue Host as the hosting company.

The content on the blog

After setting up your blog's technical aspect, the next thing to focus on is the content.

Content is the king of the blogging world.

That's the main thing that drives traffic to your website. So, you need to focus on creating quality content all the time. That is the gold fetching egg.

See, there will be times when you'll be out of ideas on things to write about. When this happens, do not hesitate to hire a pro writer who knows how to write a blog.

There's nothing wrong with hiring writers. Even the best blogging platforms of this world do!
‍
You should also consider SEO friendly content. Otherwise, it will be difficult for a search engine to identify your content and rank it.

How to make money from blogging

Once your blog is live, there are several things you can do to monetize it. They include:

1. Affiliate marketing: Tailor the content you create on your blog to promote other people's products, and you will get a commission for it. We will see this method in detail later.
2. Advertisements: let people run ads on your blog and get paid for it.
3. Sell Ebooks
4. Sell Courses
5. Sell Digital Products
   
6. Sell Coaching Services
7. Secure Sponsorships

Alternatively to all these, you can monetize your blog using "Google Adsense."

Once you create your GoogleAdsense account, Google will start displaying targeted ads on your blog that are either relevant to your site's content or to users' previous searches, based on its proprietary algorithms.

Once your blog visitors start clicking on these ads, Google will pay you a commission for it. Typically, this commission per click usually ranges from $0.20 to $15.

The cost involved in a blogging business

Yes, you can start blogging with $0. But we do not suggest it. Do you want to know why?

We are going to highlight these reasons by pointing out all the costs involved in the blogging business. There are four of them.

1.) Hosting cost:

If you use BlueHost, you can get your blog started for as low as $8.99-$25.99/month. However, if you use free blogging platforms like WordPress.com, Wix, and Blogger, you won't be paying any hosting cost.

On the downside, free blogging platforms lower your chances of making money by:

• Preventing you from publishing ads, which means you can't use Adsense.
• Restricting your blog design, meaning you can't tailor your blog to suit your people's demands.
  
• Restricting your bandwidth (how many visitors your site can hold). If you can't carry enough visitors, how could you possibly make enough money?

2.) Theme cost:

For just $89/year, WordPress theme like Divi will offer you a ton of layout options to design your blog to your taste.

Unlike free themes where your design options are limited, paid themes are easily customizable, allowing you to design your blog in the most professional and visitor-friendly way.

3.) Email marketing cost:

A perfect way to make money on your blog is via email marketing. After people subscribe to your email, you can begin to send them updates about your digital products, resource materials, and other exciting offers you can use to get money from them.

With a zero-investment blogging plan, you'd have to rely on free email services to build this list. Unfortunately, free email services only allow you to add a certain number of subscribers that will apply a limit to monetize your blog.

Hypothetical cost of running a blogging business and possible ROI

Putting the price of hosting ($8.99 for BlueHost), design ($89 for Divi), and ads ($20 for email services) together, a blog should be good to go at anything around $118.

However, that does not include marketing costs like (SEO, guest posts, Social Media, etc., which could be $150 - $300 or more.

Possible Revenue Source

Let's say you subscribed for Adsense and got $1 CPC for your niche, and you get 500 visitors on your blog in a day, 25% clicked on an ad. Google will pay you $125. Over 30 days, that's $3,750.

For 12 months, it become $45,000.

From these estimations, it's evident that the fastest way to make money from a blogging business is an audience. The more audience you get, the greater the chances of ads getting clicked, and the higher the commission you're likely to get.

But to get traffic, you need to double down on the quality of content and your blog's marketing efforts.

Seeing as it is, that would cost you money!

3. Starting an Affiliate Marketing Business

Brands, retailers, and online merchants are continually looking for more customers to patronize their business. But due to the vast competition for consumers' attention, many of them don't find it easy to attract customers.

So, what do they do?

They pay people to help them find customers.

These people are called affiliate marketers.

What you'll find in this section:

• What is Affiliate Marketing?
• Guide to Start an Affiliate Marketing Business
• Product or Service selection
• Build a Community
• Finding affiliate products to sell
• Cost to start an affiliate marketing business

What is affiliate marketing, and how does it work?

Affiliate marketing involves sending traffic from your platform (site, blog, or social media page) to someone else's platform to buy their products or services. And once your traffic completes the purchase, you get paid a commission.

For example;

Let say you sign up for an online merchant X's affiliate program and promote its product until people start buying. Once customers make a purchase, you will get a commission for every purchase that comes through you.

Think this is something you can do?

Take the quiz below to learn how sales-y you really are.

How to start an affiliate marketing business

Below is a brief step-by-step guide on what you need to do to start affiliate marketing today.

a.) Choose an affiliate niche:

You're probably used to talks of niches by now. So, we say it as we said it before, Pick a profitable niche.

To do that, follow the same guidelines as the previous two business ideas above.

b.) Build a community:

Your community can either be a blog or a social media page in practice.

Already by now, you know what it entails to start a blog. If not, go back to business #2 above.

How successful your affiliate marketing business will depend not only on the number of traffic coming into your community (blog/social media page) and how strong your influence on the community is. 

How to bring traffic to your community

• If you have a blog, you can work on its SEO. Or you can invest in paid ads or any other digital marketing strategy capable of bringing in traffic.
• If social media, work with influencers or use other alternative means to gain more followers.

How to influence your community

• Feed them with the best useful content and engage with them.
  
• Become their go-to guy on any industry-related matter.
• Portray yourself as an industry expert by providing relevant advice, resource materials, and expert guidance.
  
• Offer freebies in the form of coupons, discount offers, and other gifts.
  

c.) Find affiliate programs:

With a few methods, you can use to find affiliate programs to subscribe to.

• Check Affiliate Networks: The easiest way to find affiliate marketing programs is to join an affiliate network. A few popular affiliate networks include ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Rakuten Marketing (also known as LinkShare), Pepperjam, AvantLink, Impact, LinkConnector, etc.
  
• Check companies' websites: In your affiliate niche, search for popular company names and check whether they offer affiliate programs. Sometimes, some companies which offer affiliate programs don't join affiliate networks. They run their programs in-house, like Amazon Associates program. This method might be your best shot for finding a target affiliate program, even if you cannot find it on any network.
  
• Check affiliate websites: There are tons of sites like RetailMeNot, BradsDeals, Ebates, and SlickDeals, which promote companies that offer affiliate programs. By analyzing these sites, you can find the companies they promote, and from there, you can see which one has an ongoing affiliate program.
  
• Check affiliate program directories: Some sites on the internet like HighPayingAffiliatePrograms.com are useful in listing the best affiliate active programs. Check them out to see which programs are available.
  

Costs involved in affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is so easy that you can run it with no investment at all. However, for the best results, you have to spend money. The table below highlights what you stand to lose when running a zero-investment affiliate marketing business against what you stand to gain when you spend money.

Hypothetical estimation of ROI

Let's say you get a blog started for $118 (to host and design) and then invest $300 in ads and SEO to get the word out about the blog.

That would put your total expenses at approximately $420.

‍Assuming all goes well and traffic begins to flock into this site after a few months at the rate of 5000 monthly visitors (167 visitors per day).

If your content and engagement level are so good, it's estimated that at least 0.3-1% of your traffic should be happy to make purchases through your affiliate links.

If 0.3% of your 5,000 monthly visitors end up making purchases on the affiliate site, you would have sold 15 products.

Let's assume the affiliate program you joined is the Bluehost Affiliate Program; you would earn $65 per each product you sell. 

Of all the web hosting companies, Bluehost pays the best commission!

‍Total revenue for the month = $65 X 15 products = $975.

That's more than twice your investment of $420!

If you calculate roughly for a year, it would be $555 x 12 = $6660

4. The business of selling digital products and services

Do you have the knowledge you think you can share? Do you have a skill you believe people might be willing to spend their money on?

Why not bring it online and monetize it?

While trying to make money with your skill online, you might be tempted to think (or someone tells you) you don't need money in any way.

But I tell you not to entertain such ideas.

There's a reason why not every Tom, Dick, and Harry selling digital services online are making it. And if you don't want to join their club, you need to be prepared to spend some money.

Think this is something you can do?

Take the quiz below to learn how sales-y you really are.

What you'll find in this section:

• Types of online coaching business
  i.) Blog/website in an online coaching business
  ii.) Knowledge acquisition in an online coaching business
  iii.) Certifications in an online coaching business
  iv.) Invest in ads as an online coach
• Make money as an online tutor
  i.) Selling your ideas or knowledge as a course
  ii.) Compiling your ideas into an eBook
  iii.) Directly impacting others
• Preparations for creating an eBook
• Preparations for creating an online course
• Invest in ads as an online tutor
• Other digital products
  

How to make money selling digital services online

As an online coach:

There are various ways one can make money from coaching people online, and they include:

• Life coaching: guiding people through the hills of life based on your personal experience.
• Business coaching: helping entrepreneurs, marketers, and employees get around their business lives.
• Personal coaching: teaching people how to go about some basic things. For example, a personal fitness coach teaching people basic exercise routines. Other popular personal coaching businesses include nutrition coaching, spiritual coaching, online health coaching, relationship coach, etc.

Why you gotta spend to make money from online coaching

• You need a platform: You can become an online coach for free by simply building a social media community and reaching out to people there.
  
  But I tell you people will not take you too seriously this way.
  
• You need a site, a blog, or a Vlog (something like a YouTube channel) – something that makes you look professional.
  
  From your blog (where you provide solutions to their pain points), you can build an email list, offer informative eBooks, guides, articles, and industry-relevant tips.
  
  This way, people will see the reasons why they need to spend their hard-earned money on your service.
  
• You need more knowledge: Even though you already have the skill, you need to acquire more experience to get better than your competitors. To receive more knowledge, you'll need to take online coaching courses, and this costs money.
• You need certification: Don't even think you'll get anywhere in the online coaching world without proper certification because nobody will believe that you're genuinely capable of doing the things you claim.
• You need adverts: Competitive market scenario makes everything challenging to survive. To get people's attention to your program, you need to invest heavily in ads and other digital marketing commitments.
• As an online teacher/tutor:You can make money by selling your teaching skills online, like, teaching people the simple basic things of life, such as "how to become a pro guitarist," "how to become a freelancer," "how to make money online." etc.
  
  Once you identify what you want to teach people, there are a few ways you can monetize your ideas.
  
  They include:
  
  ★ Writing an eBook and selling on platforms like Payhip, Lulu, Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, BookBay, Clickbank, etc.
  
  ★ Creating a course and selling on platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, Odijoo, Litmos, or WiZiQ.
  
  ★ Becoming an online tutor. Tutors are guys who teach academic subjects. With sites like Chegg Tutors, Tutor.com, VerbalPlanet, and TutorVista.com, you can find clients to work with.
  

Why you gotta spend to make money from teaching online

• If you're writing an eBook: you need to spend money on editing and formatting the book before publishing it.
  
  Even if you're a great author, you could most certainly use a professional editor's help. So, investing in a paid editing service can make a world of difference in how much you earn eventually.
  
  You'll also need to spend money on your book's cover design because DIY cover designs won't cut it in this competitive online environment.
  
  
• If you're creating a course: You need certifications (for people to trust you), equipment (to create good content that sells), and professional editing touches (to beat the competition) before publishing your courses.
  
• Adverts: Not to forget you'll need to spend money to get the word out about your book, course, or tutorial. The more money you spend on an ad, the higher your chances of getting clients.

Other digital products to sell

If you're a service provider, you can also sell your skills digitally using tools like:

• BBforME: an app that links beauty and fitness experts with potential clients.
  
• Booksy: an app for independent hairdressers. This app caters to barbers, salons, as well as other beauty businesses.
  

What about those with photography skills?

If you have a ton of photos sitting on your PC that are of decent quality, consider selling them on sites like iStockPhoto and Shutterstock.

5. Online Trading Business

So far, all we've been talking about marketing ideas is how to sell this to make money and sell that to make money.

But let's be candid; not everyone likes to be salesy.

Some people just want to sit in their homes and make money without worrying about what they need to say to appeal to somebody's ego somewhere.

If you're one such person, then trading is your best bet for making money online.

Think this is something you can do?

Take the quiz below to learn how sales-y you really are.

What you'll find in this section:

• Types of online trading business
  
• Introduction to FOREX
  
• Requirement for a forex broker
  
• What do you trade in forex trading?
  
• Brief guide on how to start forex trading
  
• Comparison between free vs. investment in forex trading: which is right for you?
  

What is an online trading business?

An online trading business is a type of business in which a trader buys and sells assets using an online trading platform. Ideally, these assets may include bonds, stocks (shares), futures, international currencies, and other financial instruments.

For this post's purpose, we'll only be exploring the "international currency" option, which is otherwise known as Forex trading.

I'm sure you've heard your friends talking about it in the past. 

What's Forex trading?

Forex trading is just like any other trading business, wherein people buy and sell. And in the case of Forex, what you're trading are currencies. The GB Pounds, US Dollars, Japanese Yen, European Euro, and lots more.

Who is a forex broker?

To begin a Forex trading business, you need a mediator to bring you in contact with the market. These mediators are called brokers.

What is a currency pair?

The currencies traded in pairs in Forex. That is, you pick two currencies and predict how one will behave concerning the other.

How to make money on Forex?

People would purchase a currency pair at a lower price and sell it at a higher price, and their income is the difference between the Buy and the Sell price. A broker gets a tiny commission from your trades called Spread.

For example:

‍Let's assume you open a forex trading app to trade the EUR/USD pair with $100 when the exchange rate is 1.25. Later, you forecast that the Euro will rise against the US Dollar.

Next, you buy 80 euros for your $100 and wait for the exchange rate to change.

Let's imagine it rose from 1.25 to 1.35 – it is a good situation for you to close the trade at this point. You can now exchange your 80 euros back to 108 dollars and get your profit of $8.

This pop quiz will help you understand how much you should risk per trade in Forex.

Can you start Forex trading with zero capital?

Due to the enormous risks involved in Forex trading, many newbie traders often wonder whether they can start the business without putting their money on the line.

Theoretically, this is possible.

You can start Forex trading with no money at all.

But if you want to avoid heartbreaks, wasted time, and futile efforts, my advice is that you should start with a certain amount of money.

Why should you spend money to make money on Forex?

There are lots of reasons why it makes sense to start the Forex business with your own money. And some of them are:

Free no deposit bonuses are usually not good:

In truth, some top Forex brokers offer newbie traders "free no deposit bonuses" to launch their trading careers.

Many of the Terms & Conditions that come with these offers are usually too hot to handle on the downside.

For instance, a broker might offer you a "Free no deposit" bonus to begin trading. But once you start making profits, they'll prevent you from withdrawing your money, telling you things like, "you must trade your earnings multiple times before withdrawal." This can often mean trading your $100 profit for every $1 of bonus they give you. In the end, you might lose all the money you've made.

To be on the safer side, just start with your own money. That way, nobody can tell you when to withdraw and when not to.

Finally, some "fraudulent" brokers also use the "free no deposit bonus" to lure people into their forex trading scams. #Beware.

You need signals to make a profit

A handy tool people use to make money quickly on Forex is the Forex signal.

A trade signal is a sign that tells you what action to take, to buy or sell a currency.

When you buy signals, it saves you a lot of stress, guesswork, and uncertainty. If you find a reputable signal provider to work with, you can rest assured that you'll always make profits each time you enter the market.

For people who want to start their trading business with zero capital, it can be hard finding a free signal platform because almost all signal providers charge a fee, which means they're only available to people willing to spend amount.

Here are some of the best signal providers on the internet:

• TradersAcademy Club
• JKonFX Market Analysis
  
• 1000pip Builder
  
• ForexSignals.com
  
• Digital Derivatives Markets
  

You need trading skills

Another reason you gotta spend money on your Forex business is to hone the relevant skills you need.

Nobody becomes a Pro trader overnight. It takes a lot of smart work, learning, and practice. However, you can speed up the process by enrolling in an online trade school or taking Forex courses online. These courses will provide you with practical tips to kickstart your trading journey.

For starters, here are some of the best Forex trading courses to launch your trading business:

6. Starting an Influencer Business

Note: For this post's scope, we'll only focus on how to make money as an Instagram influencer.

One of the solid ways to generate money on the internet is to become an influencer.

That's what the KylieJenner's and the SelenaGomez's of this world are doing for a living.

So why not you?

Let's identify about your readiness to start Instagram as a Influencer Platform with a Quiz:

What you'll find in this section:

• Who is an influencer?
• Things you need to become an influencer
• Choosing a niche for influencing
• Choosing a platform for influencing
• Find an audience to influence
• Hold contests
• Do giveaways
• Invest in IG paid ads
• Step-by-step guide on how to engage an audience you want to influence
• Estimated ROI for an influencer business

Influencers are people who get paid for promoting brands to a group of audience within a select niche. After years of building relationships with an audience, they're people who have a hold or influence over this audience's purchasing decisions.

Think this is something you can do?

Take the quiz below to learn how sales-y you really are.

How does one become an influencer?

From the definition given above, you could quickly tell a couple of things one needs to become an influencer.

i.) You need a niche

(this could be fashion, sport, entertainment, business, tech, etc.). And a highly profitable one, to be precise! Traditionally, the most profitable influencer niches are:

• Travel: almost 40% of all internet-savvy persons check their potential destination's "Instagrammability" before making holiday decisions. And influencers' accounts are where they look.
• Beauty: 65% of teens and millennials discover and buy beauty products through social media and influencers.
• Fashion
• Health & Fitness
• Lifestyle
• Parenting
• Business
• Music

ii.) You need a platform

You can be an influencer on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or other social media channels.

As we’ve earlier pointed out, we’re assuming you want to be an Instagram influencer.

iii.) You need an audience (the people you want to influence).

Ideally, if you have over 1 million followers, you'd be called a Mega influencer if you have between 100k and a 1 million Macro influencer. For people with 10k to 100k, they're called Micro-influencers. And folks with less than 10k get the title, Nano influencers.

In this game, the theory is that the more followers you have, the more money you get to make. If you're looking to earn millions, I'm sure you know what number you need to start aiming for.

Finding an audience:

This is where the difference between someone who's planning to run a zero-investment influencer business and someone who intends to spend money to grow their influencer business begins to set in.

Although there are lots of free strategies people use to find new followers when building their influencer business model, many of these strategies take years to produce results. Some are not even guaranteed to bring any impact at all.

With money, however, you can boost your hunt for followers.

And here's how to do that:

• Hold Contests:
  
  Contests announce your profile's arrival to your target niche's audience in a rapid time frame.
  
  With a substantial amount of money, you can organize contests regularly. The more competitions you manage, the greater the audience you get exposed to.
  
• Do Giveaway:
  
  ‍People love free things, mostly free money. If you're always giving out a couple of freebies and free cash on your profile, it's only a matter of time before the audience begin flocking into your profile to follow you.
  
• IG paid ads:
  
  ‍Instagram has a promotion feature that operates on the Cost-Per-1000 Impressions (CPM) basis. This means you pay the specified bid amount on your post for every 1,000 people who see it. You can get an IG ad for as low as $5 or less.
  
  This feature can directly get your posts on the faces of those who don't know about you yet.
  
  And if they like your posts, well, that might trigger them to hit the "follow" button.
  

iv.) Engaging your audience:

To make money from influencing, you need to engage excellently with your audience.

After you've engaged with them, you can build a relationship with them.

An excellent way to engage with your audience is first to understand the type of content that resonates with them.

For example, if you want to be a social media influencer in a sports niche, you may find that your audience prefers memes to photos or GIFs to videos.

Once you understand the type of content they like, it will be easier for you to create something they can easily relate with.

Bear in mind that you may also need to find out when your audience likes to come online. This will help time your posts to go live at around the same time they'll be online.

Remember, you can only engage with someone when they're online! For someone on a zero investment plan, it can be hard maintaining this sort of engagement level because:

• Maybe you can't afford the type of equipment you need to create the kind of content your audience likes.
• When you're head-blank (no motivation to create content), you won't be able to buy content or hire someone to create for you.
• There are going to be times when you're not available to post or respond to comments. Since you don't have money to install chatbots or use scheduling apps, you'll miss out on opportunities to engage with your audience anytime you're unavailable.

For someone with a few bucks to go on, you can buy the best phones or cameras to produce great content.

When you're out of ideas, you can buy photos/videos.You can install a chatbot system in place, ready to attend to your followers' queries and comments.

And most importantly, you can invest in a paid third-party app like Buffer or Later to schedule when your posts go live.

All these will ensure that you produce the best of content, engage in the best ways, and gain as many followers as possible.

Remember to make money as an influencer. You need lots of active followers. And the best ways to get them are via the points I've highlighted above.

Here is a reference image from Oberlo about when you can post on Instagram in order to expect the best results.

Source

Return on investment

Brands are paying influencers handsomely. Nano influencers – people with less than 5,000 followers – get $10–$100 per post.

Micro-influencers – those with more than 10,000 but less than 100,000 followers – get somewhere between $100 and $500 per post.

The Macro guys pocket anywhere between 5,000–$10,000 per post, while the Mega guys earn as high as $10,000+ per post.

7. Starting a Freelancing Business

Last but not least, on our list is the freelancing business model.

Freelancing is, by far, the most straightforward business anyone can do to make money online. And that's because all you need to get started is essential you've got or can hone.

Think this is something you can do?

Take the quiz below to learn how sales-y you really are.

What you'll find in this section:

• Introduction to freelancing
• Basic freelancing tools
• Choose a profitable freelancing niche
• A brief guide on how to get freelancing clients
• Estimated ROI for a freelancing business

Who is a freelancer?

A freelancer offers its services for a fee and usually with no expectation of a single permanent client.

What kinds of jobs do freelancers do?

Do you talk pretty well, on-phone? You could get a gig started on "voice over." Love to code like there's no tomorrow? Coders and freelance programmers make some cool cash online. Or maybe you've been a writer all your life? There are lots of remote writing jobs on the internet today.

Does every freelancer make money?

No!!!

Not everyone who dives into the ocean of freelancing comes out wet.

You know why?

Some people believe they can start a freelance business with zero capital.

Unfortunately, "free" has never helped anyone. You gotta spend money to make money from a freelance business.

What do you need to start a freelancing business?

Ideally, all you need to launch a freelancing business would be

• A mobile device
• PC
• A Skill
• Equipment is relevant to that skill
• Strong internet connection
• And a host of clients (people to work for)

The skill you want to sell.

‍Everyone says you can start freelancing with any skill you've got.

But, does every skill profitable? Does every expertise not so competitive?

NO!!!.

This is where most freelancers get it wrong.

‍The solution?

‍To make money from freelancing quickly, you need to go into a niche that's not so competitive. Like data entry, this kind of skill anyone can pursue and it does not pay well.

It is not bad that before you start your freelancing career, you should invest properly in mastering your skills. That doesn't mean to spend more and more. Here, investing mean to be guru of the skill you want to offer your customers. That can be also learned by online YouTube tutorials.

See, market is so competitive and in order to sustain you should be skilled perfectly in whatever niche you are passionate about. Because people are ready to spend higher prices. But, if and only you are expert of that.

I suggest to select a niche which are profitable plus you are passionate to do it.
‍
Here are a few niches which are profitable and less competitive:

• Animation and Video creation
• Programming and Software development
• Copywriting (sales copy, sales pitches, etc.)
• Blockchain
• Accountant
• Freelance Artist
• Website Design (Shopify store, Dropshipping, Mailchimp, Maxbounty, etc.)
• 3D modeling & Industrial designer (Autodesk Inventor, Matlab, Abaqus, etc.)

For someone on a zero capital freelancing investment plan, it can be challenging to hone these skills. Meaning they would have to settle for whatever skills they have in hand, regardless of its profitability and competitiveness.

However, with money, you can hone a new skill that offers you a far greater chance of making money.

How to get freelance clients to work for

‍You can get freelancing clients for free. But if you want a long-term steady in-flow of clients, you will need to spend money.

Here I mentioned a list of tips on how to find freelance clients.

➽ Network with other freelancers

‍A free way to get freelance clients is to ask your friends and co-freelancers for referrals.

Are you a writer? Why not link up with graphic designers? Are you a web developer? Chances are your friends in mobile app creation niches have clients who need website developers.

➽ Join freelancing websites

‍There are many freelancing websites available, from Fiverr to Upwork, Hired to Guru, Craigslist to PeoplePerHour, and so much more. Most of the sites do not charge for registration, but they take commission per successful order.

This is the best way to start your career without investing anything. But, the competition is huge so be prepared to outrank your competitors and grab the projects.

➽ Create your own website

This is the best way to get clients from your own website and work as per your terms and availability. If you have a strong portfolio site and you are using a good marketing method then chances are very high to find very good long-term customers which pay a good amount for your freelancing work.

But, if you are looking for a long-term basis work relationship, you must be responsive and offer excellent customer support. You can even offer a free revisions and free surprising gifts in order to win the heart of customers.
‍
➽ Networking events

‍You can find a freelance client or a connector (someone to connect you with a client) at a networking event. Bear in mind, though; you may need to pay membership fees, registration fees, and other related charges to attend these programs.

Make sure to check event boards like the following for networking events.

Meetup.com. It is the biggest site for friendly meet-ups along with networking events.

Eventbrite.com. This site aggregates various types of events happening near your location. It also has a "networking" events filter option in its search functionality.

➽ Industry-specific job boards

‍Here are a few good industry-specific sites you can check for freelance clients:

Run ads and promote your business

You can find freelance clients by running ads and promoting your business on social media.

Don't know how to get started?

Hire guys who run FB ads, LinkedIn optimization, and online forum ads. These guys will help you promote your business on various platforms, thereby placing you in front of those who need the type of service you offer.

But their services aren't free. You have to pay!

Hypothetical cases illustrating the importance of investment in a freelance business

Case 1. Freelancing is a highly competitive environment

Someone wanted to start a freelance business on zero investment. Since the skill he has is writing, he decided to hop on Fiverr to start bidding for article writing jobs.

Each time he bids for a Job, at least 50 other persons are bidding for the same job. Meaning chances of him getting such a position are 1/50.

If eventually, he gets the job, his pay might be around $10-$100. That's the average pay for article writers.

Case 2. Freelancing in a less competitive environment coupled with skill acquisition

Then another person (who's also a skilled writer, by the way) decided to hone a web development skill in e-commerce website creation.

The average cost of skills like these is $1000 (courses, certification, books, and other tools). Finally, he has the ability and decided to hop on Fiverr to bid for jobs from clients looking for Shopify store creators.

He submitted his proposal, highlighting his skills, certification, and expertise. Along with him, 15 other people (usually the average for this job on the platform) bid for the job.

You got the idea. Chances are more significant to get hired for that person having certificates. 

The average pay for e-commerce store creators is around $100-$500, depending on its complexity.

If the guy in our second hypothetical case study above gets just two Shopify projects worth $500 each, he would have recouped his original business investment.

Conclusion

You can execute all the seven business ideas we've highlighted in this post without spending money.

However, if you want to make a massive sum of money and do it relatively consistently, you cannot afford a zero-investment plan.

You must spend money to make money, irrespective of the business you're doing online!!!