This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Are you getting ready for all those big Black Friday sales? Wait a second, isn't this March? That's right, it is March. Well, our caller today is thinking of promoting Black Friday sales and other big sales all year long. It's not just for November and December anymore.
You know, Black Friday used to be this like two-day period. Well, I guess technically it was a one-day period, but it kind of got extended a little bit on either side. And now of course, you know, it's weeks and sometimes even a month or more in the making because it makes money for big companies. And that's where so much e-commerce and shopping has done around that time. But what would this business model look like?
A website that promotes Black Friday sales and other big sales all year long. If you had this idea, perhaps, if you were thinking about it, how could you make money with it? And how could you make that happen, right? What's the business model? How do you implement it?
How do you execute it and bring it to life? That's what our caller is wondering about. I've got some quick advice for him that I think he might be able to apply as well. So website that offers Black Friday deals year round. The question, am I answer coming up in just 30 seconds?
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Hi Chris, this is Terrence and I've been listening to the show for about a year or so. And we all know Black Friday sales. For some businesses, they bring in 30% or more of total income. And I'd like to create a deal site that highlights these sort of sales, but all year long. I'd earn affiliate income from purchases.
And if it took off, maybe companies would pay for advertising too. What's the first step? How would I line up those affiliate relationships and build traffic? Looking forward to see what you have to say about this. Thanks.
- Thanks so much, Terrence. Really appreciate the call. So the thing is there are a lot of sites like this, which is good. Like it's an existing business model. I don't think that they all use this theme of Black Friday all year long.
So that could be interesting in terms of positioning or branding. But if you just think about, even the ones that are specifically focused on Black Friday, that calendar event, every November/December/October at this point that takes place. Obviously the website has to exist all year long, right? Even if it's focused around that season. So they're doing work to lead up to it and such.
But in terms of a business model that's constantly promoting deals, there are plenty of sites that offer coupon codes and referral links and the site owner gets paid through affiliate commissions. So relatively common business model. And what this means is that traffic is everything. Like you're gonna live or die by Google results, right? Because if you're not getting traffic in, you're not gonna make money.
And if you do create the right pages and you're favored by the gods of Google, and all of a sudden you start getting hundreds or thousands of visitors a day, then you're gonna make a lot of money. So that's good, I think that's the goal. Therefore, your first step is to study SEO, right? Really study search engine optimization. Anybody who has a site that ranks well in this industry, they have put some time into that.
In terms of the affiliate relationships, I think Terrence asked about lining up those relationships or building relationships. That part is pretty simple actually, because in the beginning, most of them just have programs. Most merchants, they just have programs that you sign up for. There's not a lot of relationship building happening at the entry level. The relationship building tends to happen as you establish yourself, if you start referring a lot of sales, then you might be able to strengthen that relationship, get some exclusive deals perhaps, or a higher commission rate.
But first, learn about SEO, sign up for some existing programs, and start building pages. It is a lot of work, and you will be dependent on search rankings for your success. So there's a dependency there that obviously has a potential negative, but when it takes off, it can be very profitable. So that's how you get started with it. Let us know how it goes, Terrence.
Anybody else out there as well? There are a lot of these sites, as I said, but there's also room to focus. There's room to focus, choose your niche, choose what kind of deals, what kind of products, what kind of businesses that you're referring to, and hopefully you can find that right formula that works for you. All right, if you've got a question, an update for us, anything that you're trying to figure out, sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll continue to feature them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners like Terrence and others, perhaps you, as they launch and grow their projects.
That's all for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
