Why Passive Income Isn’t “Passive”

Most people think that once you initially create a passive income product, you can upload it to your sales page and watch the sales roll in. Although that’s true to some extent, successful passive income creators don’t sit back and watch from the sidelines. They actively make changes to their products to better reflect their brand, purpose, and knowledge. There are two main reasons why passive income isn’t as “passive” as you think: you have to update your content and continually promote it.

When Passive Income isn't Passive - http://vividandbrave.com

Updating Your Content

Updating your content may not be on your radar right now – what? more work?!?! – but hear me out. Having to update your content is actually a good thing! It’s tied to growth. As your customer base grows, they’ll have questions about your work. Customer questions give you a new lens to view your work through. Your customers and clients may give you fresh ideas to work with as you update your passive income product, or make you think about covering a topic that you hadn’t thought about before.

Upgrading Your Knowledge

Let’s go back to that growth thing again. As you become more and more of an expert in your field, your knowledge about the topic of your passive income product will expand. Let’s say that you created an ecourse about branding. After going through a rebranding process yourself, you now have new knowledge about your topic. You could include a module in your ecourse about how to go through the rebranding process with ease, and release it as a bonus to your new and existing ecourse students. Think about the value you could offer to your students and potential ROI instead of groaning about having to create more content.

Brand Positioning

That made-up rebranding course module flows right into the next update you may make: upgrading your brand positioning. Throughout the life of your business, you’ll most likely go through at least one rebrand, services change, or brand identity update. When you’re making these changes, it’s the perfect time to update your passive income product’s design, price, and other materials.

Design is going to be your go-to change when updating your product. Unless you have a completely separate brand for your product (if you do, you’ve on the next level and I tip my hat to you), you’ll want to update your materials after a brand identity update. This means either doing it yourself or asking your current designer help you get things in order. Either way, your customers will appreciate your cohesive brand and want to gobble up your fresh new look (and updated content, ahem).

Pricing isn’t the only indicator of excellent content, but it sure helps. Why do you think everybody’s obsessed with Apple products? Their branding is solid, they deliver a great user experience, and their pricing makes sense with their position in the electronics marketplace. Which is, to say, the top. Examine your product and ask yourself: is my product worth more? Does my new knowledge and content updates make my product more premium? Will my potential customers want to pay what I deserve for this product?

If your answers to these questions are “yes”, you’re ready to rock and roll. Before upping your price, consider letting your existing audience know so they can snap up your product at the former rate before it goes away. It works to drum up sales from people who were previously on the fence about your product!

Promotion

Promotion isn’t a dirty word, it’s an ongoing method of getting yourself out there. Luckily, you can automate the bulk of your promotion by using tools such as Buffer and CoSchedule, but you still have to create and implement promotional content in order to sell your product on a consistent basis.

Social Media

A good rule of thumb is to have about 20 promotional Tweets/Facebook/Google+ posts stockpiled for promotion. This makes is easy to share your product as time goes on, especially if you queue in advance. However, that stockpile will run out eventually, and you’ll have to create new social media content for your product to promote as time goes on. Thinking about your passive income product in new ways and angles helps your overall marketing game, even if it requires a bit more legwork.

Email Newsletter

More important than social media, though, is your email newsletter. This is an easy way to promote your product as time goes on. Depending on how often you send your email newsletter, you can dedicate about one email a quarter solely to promoting your passive income products. You can also think about creating promotional blog posts, or perhaps a free challenge to bring in a new audience for your product.

Sierra Elmore

Sierra Elmore is a high school senior and the owner of 13 Elm Streets. Part graphic design studio and part creative resource, 13 Elm Streets helps whip-smart women create playful and profitable businesses. She created three successful businesses by the age of seventeen and is in the process of starting a nonprofit. When she's not obsessively designing, Sierra enjoys reading and writing young adult fiction, studying psychology, and playing with Bronx, her cat.

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