First week on Fiverr ($500 earned)
Fiverr is an independent platform designed in Israel to give users the ability to purchase “gigs” for as little as $5.
Launched in 2010, the service has grown exponentially thanks in part to its availability to digital marketers: everyone from SEOs to Amazon FBA powerhouse sellers who outsource minor tasks to the experts who offer their services through the platform.
By 2015, stories of service providers making substantial revenue/profit from the system began to emerge, with one, SPXMAC, reporting revenue of over $40,000 per month (a remarkable achievement).
With this in mind, people with genuine skills, experience and expertise to offer have been drawn to provide their services through the system, including me.
To this end, it seemed appropriate to share some of the progress I’ve made with the platform. It’s not a huge amount, but it might give some people an idea of what works and what doesn’t.
Fiverr Online System (How It Works)
The most important thing to appreciate with Fiverr is that the provider has to create the offer for the customer.
While there are many other “independent” websites, they rely on the client offering jobs/gigs and vendors facilitating the posting of proposals. The client will then examine the proposals and make a choice.
Due to the opposite nature of the Fiverr system, it opens up a new way in which the “freelancing” system works.
Instead of looking for work, the service provider is essentially able to provide a series of “products”/”services” through which it can offer buyers a more structured and systematic set of work.
For example, if you’re a logo vendor, you’ll sell your “logo design” service for $150, which buyers can come in, ask questions, and buy.
The point is that this new model is different, and in many cases better, than the previous one. It puts all the focus on the product/service being offered and encourages the supplier to systematize the delivery process as much as possible, which allows for even higher quality, cheaper prices and more effective service delivery.
If you’re looking to create effective (profitable) products/services to feature on your site, the key is to understand what buyers are really looking for and to be able to facilitate it in the most efficient way. This is where I started with my service offering.
Products / Services to Sell
Obviously, each market/platform has its winners and losers.
The most important thing I’ve found on the platform is that there are really “two” ways to list products/services:
- List products/services based on your expertise: If you’re a graphic designer, create eBook covers, logo designs, or website templates for low-quality fees.
- List Products/Services Based on Market Demand: As mentioned, many “digital marketers” use Fiverr as a source of inexpensive yet high-quality services for their growing online businesses.
It is likely that the former will take longer to bear much fruit; the latter will be much faster, but will allow for less creativity in the offer.
I tend to try to combine the two: identify what’s popular and give you my own point of view.
Some of the most popular listings I’ve come across are “Amazon Product Listing Descriptions” writing services. The most successful of these is “SPXMAC” who earns over $30k/$40k per month.
There are currently 3 providers of this service, who normally receive between 15 and 30 orders per day for their jobs. SPXMAC is definitely the leader.
My experience
To explain, I didn’t do this under my own name; I helped a friend get set up and we shared the profits.
To do this, I started by listing a number of general services on the Fiverr system based on my friend’s real-world experience (I was involved in finance).
We started with writing articles, imagining that several high-end “finance” blogs (who relied on quality, accurate, and up-to-date content) would be willing to hire an expert who had been involved in a large number of transactions, trades with a private consortium in London and is also very tech-savvy.
I wrote a profile list explaining his work in the industry, his experiences, and (most importantly) why he was listing his services on Fiverr.
For the last part, I explained that I was looking to expand his personal brand, and he felt that writing articles for money would be the most appropriate way to do it. Instead of sending out guest posts, she would give an instant preview to whoever was making the purchase.
This seemed to work relatively well (with various blog operators buying their articles and using their name/face as “author” on their sites).
As for the products we offered, the first thing we tried was a “Forex” article writing service. This was not very popular as it is a very crowded market and it usually works in cycles (ie when the USD/GBP currency pair falls etc.).
What did really well were the “crypto” articles, which we wrote for $25 for 10. This was very low, but allowed us to make progress in terms of reviews/comments on the system.
Most of the people who bought the packages simply let us determine which articles to write (we mainly write about current trends in the market, the importance of blockchain, etc.) and began to focus on expanding as much as possible.
The “crypto” items worked well (we made $500 each in the first week), but it was unsustainable at such a low price. We both got burned and as such decided to raise the price a bit which lowered the interest/yield amount significantly.
However, the feedback obtained and the quality of the buyers improved significantly, although the frequency of purchases decreased.
recommendations
The biggest thing I’ve found with my time online has been using your own face.
I have done various things in the past under pseudonyms. Some of these were legitimate (they ran the second largest Webkinz site), but most were simply because he didn’t want people to know what he was doing.
While this was a legitimate reason to hide my identity, the simple truth is that it prevented me from growing up very quickly. To this end, one of the key things I started doing for my friend was to emphasize the importance of owning his name, making sure to present his unique experiences, insights, and insights as the core essence of why anyone should consider him.
If you decide to get involved with Fiverr, I suggest that it’s one of the few ways you can truly “own” your name online by providing real content. Think of it as an extension of LinkedIn or Twitter: a “social” touch point through which the “online” community can interact with you.