Welcome to part 1 of our 2 part series, “5 Potential Ways to Digitise Your Business During COVID-19”, which aims to provide ideas and inspiration for your business during this challenging time.
So far, 2020 has been a bewildering year for most of us, to say the least. For a lot of folks, it has also resulted in a loss of employment and/or financial security, along with the continued worries of the health effects of CONVID-19.
While we don’t wish to bombard you with anymore unnecessary CONVID-19 headlines, we did want to provide you with a few ideas that you might find useful if you’re looking for new ways to digitise your business, or create new online income streams, whether to help you get by during the pandemic – or beyond!
Not all of these ideas will work for every business, but maybe one or two will provide some relevant inspiration. It all depends on the type of service or product your business specialises in. Without further ado, we’ve lined up our four ideas for businesses to consider to either create or improve their online income streams.
Do you have a website already?
First of all, you’ll want to ensure you have a website in place where you can advertise and organise your online services – and potentially also set up the facilities to take payments for your online income sources.
We’ve recently released a handy guide for installing your very own WordPress website in less than an hour. So if you’re in need of a website first, be sure to check that out and then come back here afterwards.
Idea #1: Create and Sell Online Learning Materials/Courses/Pre-recorded Videos
Our first idea for digitising your business and creating new online income streams involves creating and selling online learning materials.
The great part about this idea is that once you have created your materials, you can sell them indefinitely and with little further work on your part.
Some examples of online learning materials/courses/pre-recorded video offerings could include:
- Gardeners/Horticulturist/Landscapers: Write a book on how to start and maintain a vegetable garden or micro fruit orchard (for those living in suburban areas with limited space).
- Social Media Consultants/Marketers: Write a course on how to create social media profiles for your business, and then how to grow their audiences. This can be broken up into multiple learning modules that people can progress through.
- Advertising/SEO/SEM Specialists: Write a course to teach people how to use popular online advertising platforms, such as Facebook Ads. Or perhaps, a course in conducting SEO basics for business websites.
- Cleaners/Homemakers/Professional Organisers: Write a guide on how to efficiently streamline a wardrobe or kitchen, using your secret space-saving or organisational techniques.
- Beauty Therapists: Write a guide to help people discover what their skin type is and know how to choose the correct skin care techniques for themselves.
- Coaches/Business Development/Sales Specialists: Write a guide on your best sales techniques or strategies, or how people can continue to develop their businesses even during economic downturns.
- Photographers/Videographers: Create learning modules for photo/video taking and post-production editing.
- Musicians/Music Producers: Offer lessons in digital music creation, or create courses for learning to play particular instruments.
Many of these learning materials can be a step in the door for people to hire you for further assistance, such as one-on-one consulting.
To deliver successful online learning materials, you’ll first need an LMS, or Learning Management System. This type of software is specifically designed for offering online courses, and usually includes a range of handy features to make your courses/modules more organised, structured and easy for students to navigate.
Software options for delivering online learning materials/courses/pre-recorded videos:
Idea #2: Create a Subscription Service
Our next idea for creating an online income stream is to release a subscription service. The great part about this option is that it can help to provide a predictable, stable income on an ongoing basis, rather than just once-off sales.
Some examples of online subscription service offerings could include:
- Web Designers/Web Developers: Offer a website maintenance service, which you can provide on an ongoing basis, conducting such things as installing updates, taking regular backups, monitoring uptime and so on.
- IT Professionals: Offer IT support services on a retainer basis, or resell popular online services such as email hosting or web hosting. You could also offer assistance packages to help businesses who need to convert to online models.
- Chefs/Nutritionists: Offer ongoing meal planning services to help people to optimise their nutrition and cook new and interesting foods.
- Accountants/Finance Professionals: Offer ongoing bookkeeping services, payroll or tax filing assistance.
Software options for selling subscriptions services:
Be sure to check out part 2, where we explore 2 more ideas for digitising your business in 2020 and beyond.
As always, if you have any questions about this post or our shared hosting, VPS, reseller or dedicated server plans, simply call us on 1300 MY HOST (694 678) during business hours, or submit a ticket through our Support Portal and one of the crew will be in touch!
