Making $100,000 a year in revenue seems impossible when you’re still learning how to make your first sale. You might say that only the rich or highly educated can make that amount of money, but don’t let negative thinking hold you back– in business, anything is possible. Making $100,000 a year and working your way up at a 9 to 5 job is a lot harder than making it through an online store. You need to focus on going big with your marketing. Whether you choose to only run Facebook ad campaigns or do a mix of advertising, public relations and search engine optimization (SEO), marketing is what separates the small guys from the big guys. In this article, you’ll learn everything that you need to know to make six figures in revenue.
Experiment With Your Business
Your first month of store ownership should be focused on experimentation. If you want to make $100,000 a year, you’ll need to test everything for yourself. Run several $5 ads on Facebook. Target different audiences, countries, age groups, keywords. If one ad doesn’t work out, you only lost $5.
Your first month is where you’ll make the most mistakes. However, it’ll also be the month where you learn the most if you become obsessed with experimentation. No idea is too dumb to test out. Try everything but on a really tight budget so you don’t regret making mistakes.
Test out different apps for different marketing tactics. Do countdown timers really help boost sales? Should you add a free shipping banner on the top of your website? Are you offering an attractive discount on your store’s products? By focussing your first month on experimentation, you’ll put yourself in the right mindset for creating a successful store.
Scale Quickly & Reinvest Profits
If you want to make $100,000 in revenue, you’ll need to know when it’s time to scale. Some store owners are afraid of scaling. They’re scared that it’s not the right time, or what the consequences of success might be. But the truth is, if you never scale your business, you’re never going to make $100,000.
If one of the ads you’ve created during your experiments has performed really well, put more money into it. If you spend $30 on several ads, stop spending money on the ads that aren’t performing. Put the $30 into the ad that is working. However, $30 a day in ads isn’t going to speed you up to six figures anytime soon.
You’ll need to keep reinvesting your profits back into ads. If you want your business to succeed, your business profits need to stay in your business. If you have a 9 to 5 job, you’ll want to use that money to pay your bills. Business money should be used for business only– at least for the first few months. You’ll quickly find that by reinvesting your profits back into your ads that your business grows at a much faster rate. Why? Money makes money.
After your business starts gaining some traction, you can start paying yourself a salary. Many entrepreneurs choose not to pay themselves for the first year or two to help ensure their business’ survival.
Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads can drastically boost your sales. If you produce a lot of content for your store’s blog, you can retarget your blog traffic. Retargeting blog traffic is one of the cheapest ads you can run. Your retargeted ad won’t promote more content, it will promote your products. If a person organically found your fitness blog post, it’s pretty safe to say that they’re interested in fitness. If you sell fitness products on your store and you retarget that blog post reader, they’ll be a great match. First, they may recognize your brand because they were previously on your website. Second, they match your target audience, making them a qualified lead. If one of your blog posts goes viral or gets heavily shared, you’ll be so grateful to have that blog retargeting ad running.
Another great retargeting ad is retargeting ‘add to carts’. Some marketers find that they struggle to get any conversions from an abandoned cart email. There are two problems with abandoned cart emails. First, you have to know how to write one really well. Second, you need to have the customer’s email. Sometimes people add items to their cart without filling out their email. Enter add to cart retargeting campaigns. With these types of ads, you can remarket to customers who added an item to their cart without going through the purchase process. You might find that add to cart ads convert better than your best abandoned cart email.
Increase Average Order Value
Having a strong strategy to increase your average order value can help you achieve your goal of reaching six figures in revenue even faster. It’s easier to sell more products to someone whose credit card is already in your system, than to sell to someone new.
The secret to increasing your average order value is to sell more of the same product. If someone buys a phone case on your store, you can upsell them another phone case of the same model. People are likely to buy more of what they love. This also works really well with fashion. If you have multiple color variations of a tank top, you can upsell the tank top in different colors.
The trick with upselling is to sweeten the deal a little bit. Offer a free gift with multiple purchases. For example, if a person buys 2 tank tops, they get a free bracelet. People love free stuff. AliExpress has several items under $1 that you can use when upselling.
Use The Top Tools
There are so many tools to test out and play around with. Whether you choose to look for Shopify dropshipping apps, or tools for your marketing tactics, you’re sure to find a tool to solve one of your biggest challenges.
Buzzsumo is a great tool for coming up with popular content ideas. You can browse through your competitor’s best content pieces so you know where to start for your own blog. Lucky Orange is great for watching your customers browse through your website. You’ll quickly realize how they browse your store which will help you understand where you can improve the customer experience.
When building your store you’ll want to get a third-party’s opinion on your website and receive feedback on areas where you can improve. UserTesting is a great tool where you can have someone navigate your online store and give honest feedback.
WooRank is a great tool for finding issues with your website. You can also use the tool to find insight into other Shopify stores.
5 Tips For Making Six Figures in Revenue
- Incorporate your business: As you start approaching six figures in revenue, you’ll want to incorporate your business. Incorporating your business keeps your personal income separate from your business income. If your business is ever sued, your personal assets will be protected if you’re incorporated. However, if the business isn’t incorporated, you could lose your house, personal savings and more. Contact your city’s business center to better understand when you should incorporate your business.
- Know when to outsource: When you first start your online store, you need to be as frugal as possible and do as much of the work yourself as possible. However, as you start to grow, it’s no longer possible to manage all your responsibilities independently. When you start realizing that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do your work you can outsource some of your work. You can outsource customer support and social media posts effectively. They’ll be able to respond to customers quickly allowing you more time to focus on generating sales.
- Build out your content strategy: Have you ever noticed that media companies are taking over the world? It seems like someone is always sharing a cool article on Twitter or Facebook. Most online stores don’t have the time to devote to a content strategy. However, content can prove to be profitable for your online store. It can boost your organic traffic. You can even retarget your blog traffic, which is one of the cheapest ads you can run. Over time, you’ll find that your content helps you more than it hurts you if you produce relevant content that provides value to your customers.
- Get a cofounder: While you can successfully start a business on your own, some choose to start their online store with a cofounder to scale quickly. By having a 50-50 partner who’s just as hardworking as you are, you give your business a better chance to scale to six figures in a shorter period of time. Find someone with a complementary skillset. Maybe you need someone with strong writing skills to write epic product descriptions and blog posts. Or maybe you need someone who’s brilliant at Instagram marketing while you’re a Facebook Ads genius. Finding a strategic partner can help your business scale to six figures.
- Don’t hold yourself back: Skepticism will destroy any chance of your business succeeding. If you spend more time doubting successful people than asking them questions, you’re delaying your success. The truth is people without high school diplomas can out-earn an MBA with hard work. It is possible for a person who grew up poor to build a multi-million dollar business. These aren’t one in a million success stories. You live in a time where you have all the tools and information you need at your fingertips. It’s 2017 – anything is possible. You can become a huge success. But you have to stop acting like making six, seven or even eight figures is impossible. Don’t hold yourself back with your own skepticism. Instead of asking yourself, ‘how do I prove that this platform/method doesn’t work’ ask yourself ‘what are successful people really doing differently that I’ve casually brushed off?’ Mindset correction can be a game-changer. So dream big and prove every doubter wrong, even if that doubter is you.
Making six figures is no easy task but you’ve got what it takes to succeed. If you have any questions about how to take your store to the next level, leave a comment below.
Want to Learn More?
- How to Make Money Online: 26 Real Ways to Earn Money Online
- How to Earn Money From Home: The Dropshipping Way
- How Much Money Can You Make With an Ecommerce Store?
- 20 Amazing Startup Business Ideas That’ll Make You Money
Is there anything else you’d like to know more about and wish was included in this article?