Some small businesses are overly dependant on local customer sales in order to remain open. Often times, a loss of a high-volume client can cause one of these establishments to close down. This happens a lot in rural areas where the foot traffic of local consumerism is very low. However, there are ways that technology can be used to help create a residual income to keep the doors of a brick-and-mortar business open to the public. The best part about these methods is that most do not require a huge investment in order to begin.
Website Ad Revenues
Building a website is easy. It's the maintenance and constant vigilance to create a successful site that can be stressful. However, ad revenue through your website could bring in a bit of money depending on how popular your site and business niche is. People such as Bob Parsons of Godaddy have made a great deal of money by developing a site that sells domain names and hosting. With proper marketing, your site could be a success as well.
eCommerce Income
Operating an eCommerce site may be something your business could get into depending on its structure. If you own an ice cream shop, you may not be able to sell scoops of ice cream on a waffle cone online. However, you could sell ice cream accessories and home kits. Nearly any business can break into eCommerce giving you access to a much wider market than what is available locally.
App Development
Many developers create apps to use on smart devices and have made large amounts of money. This will depend on your skills as a developer and what kinds of apps you want to create. Of course you can hire a developer to create the apps for your business. Just keep in mind that it will take a decent amount of marketing and advertising in order to get people to download and install the software.
Reseller Accounts
Many services online host reseller accounts allowing you to make a bit of money by leasing those services out. An example of this is when web hosting companies offer you space and bandwidth to resell to local or online customers for any price you wish. For computer-based businesses, this could be a sensible idea as you could help people set up websites using WordPress or Joomla for instant activity for low monthly payments.
Browser Apps
Much like mobile apps, those that operate on browsers can help create a residual income through subscription fees. This may take extensive website programming knowledge, but it could be lucrative depending on the idea. Again, hiring a developer to assist can help get the application operational. Examples of these kinds of ideas are apps such as Quickbooks Online and many others.
Informational Videos
Video content is growing online at an incredible rate. By creating informational videos on sites such as YouTube, you could make money through ad displays. However, entertaining and engaging videos may be more difficult to produce than your realize. The flip side of this is that a video could go viral turning your company into a quick success if the video is produced correctly.
While some of these may require a bit more work and increasing knowledge of technological advancements, they can be used to help stabilize income when sales are low or a major client moves away. By keeping costs as low as possible through efficiency and expanding the capabilities of the business to include some of these methods, it may be possible for the small business to continue thriving.
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