Building a Recurring Income Info Product Site
Hey guys, I'm trying to put together an info product business in the business opportunity and startup/small business marketing niche.
Main goals are to build a high quality email list that I consistently monetize at $1 dollar per month per subscriber or higher. ( I believe this is a very attainable number if the list has affinity).
I am not in a rush to get there, although it would be quite nice to get to $500 a month profit fairly soon.
Planned front end funnel: A free info offer on an opt-in page, email only. Once they enter the email, they're immediately redirected to an Advertorial style page that teaches them and warms them for a sale.
I'm not sure if I can get away with capturing leads and also making enough sales to at least break even on my ad spend, but I hope I can.
Products I intend to develop
Start an Online Lead Generation Business: I have a good background in local lead generation for small businesses, so my first program will teach people how to set up local lead generation sites and monetize them by finding clients in their local area.
Templated Marketing System for Small Businesses and Startup Founders: Currently I do freelance copywriting on Elance. I also have limited experience putting together sales funnels and promotional sequences. So my next product will involve marketing and copywriting in some form. I'm thinking of putting together a heavily templated system that small businesses can use to increase their marketing ROI. I may also target aspiring startup company founders to take their ideas to market and test them intelligently.
Questions:
1)) Small budget: spend fast, or slow? Right now my budget is kind of weak. I can only burn about $300 a month, or more than that in a shorter time frame if there is a higher chance of getting to a profit sooner. Should I commit to a higher budget the first months to get more information, or is it better to just pace my campaigns?
2)) Priority 1: Facebook demographic campaign, or something else? I'm reading the forums as fast as I humanly can. It seems like the first priority should be narrowing in on my demographics. I've already found a click bank product with a great underlying offer, but terrible sales page. I plan on bypassing their sales page by linking directly to the checkout from my own page ( I believe this will lose some sales because the cookie doesn't drop properly, but I'm okay with that for the short term). Should I go right to Facebook to figure out what my demographics are? Or is there a better/cheaper way? I kind of have an idea already: males 25-39, but this is my assumption and I'm not sure if I should test further at this stage.
3)) Moneymaking campaigns: Ad networks, or individual sites in my niche? Right now I'm swaying back and forth between paying for traffic on a well-known Ad network like Adwords, Facebook, and other places, versus gathering a list of websites in my niche, and doing an unsolicited mailing sequence to try and convert them into media buy partners. Of course the downside with that path is the unsolicited nature, and also the complexity of running media buys as a total beginner to them (I have some experience with PPC--no profitable campaigns yet--but none with media buys). Still, you think the idea has potential, or should I not bother?
Thank you for your advice,
Sean