Looking for automated business ideas? There’s many ways to build an automated business which runs without much input. New technology and software has made it even easier to create an autopilot business online. Here’s a few business models which can work on autopilot:
- Affiliate marketing – selling other people’s products
- Drop shipping – similar to affiliate marketing
- Print on demand – Use existing services and simply send customers
- Blogging – allows you to earn from affiliate sales or advertising
- YouTube channel – build a following and monetise with ads, drop shipping or affiliate marketing
- Create an app – Apps are great business models and they can be sold over and over once you have created one
- eBook sales – you can create your own eBook or sell someone else’s (affiliate marketing).
- Sell information products – like the eBook idea but much more valuable items can be sold (affiliate marketing)
- Build an email list – email marketing – get paid for sending emails!
Automated Business Ideas – Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the simplest business models you can use to generate an income online. By selling other people’s products and services, anyone can earn commissions based on the sales you generate.
Affiliates can choose from thousands of products and services available online to promote too. They can also choose their marketing strategy. So whether you like blogging, creating videos or want to run paid advertising, there’s an option which will suit your working style and budget.
Affiliates sell anything online. So long as a product has an affiliate program, you can join that program and sell through an affiliate link. The processes involved in affiliate marketing can be completely automated and there’s no need to deal with customers or handle products.
Automated Business Ideas – Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is similar to affiliate marketing in that you refer customers to other people’s products. With drop shipping, you take orders and place them with another company who delivers the product directly to the customer. This can of course be automated too though using a plugin or app which communicates directly with the drop shipping company from a website.
Like affiliate marketing your main job with drop shipping is to refer customers to the products you sell. Online marketing is therefore the main skill you need to learn for both affiliate marketing and drop shipping. See also affiliate marketing vs drop shipping.
Print On Demand
With print on demand, you’re again a referrer of sales, although with a print on demand business you can design your own clothing range and outsource the manufacturing. Print on demand companies will only take orders and ship when a customer makes a purchase (through your website).
If you’re into design and creative, a print on demand business might be what you’re looking for. You get to add your own creative input to t-shirt or hoodies and sell them globally using an outside companies.
Here’s 5 print on demand companies who fulfil orders:
- Printful
- SPOD
- Printify
- Apliiq Dropship
- Teelaunch
Automated Business Ideas – Blogging
I’m a big fan of blogging and you can create a blog in any area which makes it a versatile automated business idea. Blogging is something which takes some time but ultimately you can generate completely free website traffic with a blog. Monetise by selling affiliate products, or even one of the other ideas here such as drop shipping or print on demand.
Bloggers also place advertising on their posts to generate revenue, although you’ll need a lot of traffic to make a small amount from running ads. That’s why many bloggers use the affiliate marketing model from a blog and sell products which are suitable for their visitors.
Create A YouTube Channel
YouTuber’s can build a free, organic following by regularly posting videos on YouTube. You can monetise a YouTube channel with the YouTube partner program, although you’ll need to meet the criteria for eligibility:
- Get 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months, or
- Get 1,000 subscribers with 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days.
See this article for eligibility to the YouTube partner program.
Alternatively you can monetise with affiliate products which many YouTuber’s do. You can also use YouTube for paid advertising campaigns. But you’ll need a high valued product to sell to afford it. You can use the affiliate products. The most profitable digital products, which are products with high ticket commissions and recurring commissions.
Create An App
If you can create an app and sell it, you can live off the royalties for years! There’s thousands of apps available and many of them are completely free. BUt you can also generating income from advertising on an app, so you don’t necessarily need to sell it to be profitable.
There’s also lots of software out there which can help you create an app with less hassle than you think! Here’s an app builder which can help you!
Create Your Own eBook
An eBook is one of the easiest things to create. All you need is a pdf creator software and there’s plenty of free pdf creators online if you haven’t got on. You can write an ebook yourself or pay someone to write one for you. Plus there’s thousands of existing eBooks which affiliates can sell for a share of the profit. Just look on Clickbank.com for ebooks in the marketplace and you’ll find loads!
Many affiliates also use ebooks as “lead magnets” to help them build their email marketing lists. I’ve created many eBooks to give away to subscribers of my list. Here’s one of them, explaining the basics of affiliate marketing for beginners.
eBooks aren’t the best sellers though because they are of such low value and many marketers will give them away for free to build their email list.
Sell Information Products
eBooks are the tip of the iceberg and there’s many more valuable products you can sell – even if you don’t personally own them yourself. With the affiliate marketing business model, you can choose to sell digital information products. These are a good choice because they pay much more than the typical physical affiliate product from the likes of Amazon, for example.
Some digital information products offer high ticket commissions and recurring commissions too. So a single sale can bring in a recurring income from repeat custom.
Learn how to sell information products here.
Build An Email List
Building an email list is one of the best tactics you can use to build an online income which can be completely automated. With an email list, you collect subscribers from a website and send out automated messages promoting affiliate products and services. The system of selling online through email is a popular one and it can be globally scaled with certain products which area available internationally.