5 Ways To Make An Extra Income With Your Vinyl Business
So you’ve established your business, but you want to make a little bit of extra money when you’re not making decals. Well this is just a super quick overview of 5 ways you could do that. I’ve tried a few of them myself, they’re not going to make you $100,000 in a month extra, I’m not really about that ‘get rich quick’ vibe on this page, but they’re great for a little income boost when you need it.
Watch the video here…
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Use Affiliate Links
If you sell decals for, let’s just say, gift boxes, and you have a recommended supplier that you always give the name of when your customer asks - then if that supplier has an affiliate program, you could make a little bit of money from that referral every time your customer buys from them.
Not everywhere has an affiliate program and you obviously only want to recommend products that you are 100% confident in, but if you’re already sending your customers to them anyway, then you may as well make a little bit of extra cash from it because they don’t have to pay anything extra. You must make it obvious that it is an affiliate link, and you don’t always get that much, sometimes it’s just pennies, but it can add up if you’re sending lots of people to the same place.
To get you started have a look at the following places…
2. Sell Your Designs As SVGs or Printables
If you create all of your own designs, and you don’t mind other people using them for their own creations, then there is a huge market for selling them. You can use sites like Etsy or Design Bundles or just sell them on your own site, just obviously make sure you’re giving clear instructions that it’s an SVG or Printable and not a finished product.
If you want to set up an Etsy shop and get 40 free listings, click the picture below…
And for Design Bundles, which is also free to set up…
Selling SVGS and Printables of my vinyl designs is actually something I started doing just on a whim as some people were asking for printable versions of my designs as well, and now it’s doing really well as an Etsy shop in its own right, and I just add designs to it as and when I have time. And now it makes me a bit of extra money each month, mostly on autopilot.
An even easier way to do this on auto is to add your designs to Print on Demand sites like Redbubble or Teepublic… you will most likely get a smaller cut but they deal with all of the marketing, making and customer service side of things and your designs can be added to tshirts, stickers, cushions and a whole list of other products.
3. Offer classes
Whether that is running local workshops, doing one on one tutoring or creating an online course, figure out the bit of your business that you feel really confident with and you think you’re doing a good job at and consider teaching others how to do it.
Even if it’s just every now and again helping some local people get to know their Cricut machine for example - I know some people might do that for free, especially if it’s people you know, but if it’s cutting into your business hours at all and you’re using your machine and materials then you should really be getting paid something.
And I get that it’s like a whole other kind of business model to think about, and how you go about charging for it and stuff might be complicated or you might not have the time, but I actually couldn’t recommend doing this sort of thing enough if you enjoy teaching people. The satisfaction I get from people saying my videos or courses have helped them is huge, and I guess it’s a good time to say thank you so much for watching and reading what I have to teach, any kind of support for what I’m trying to do really means a lot to me and I’m so grateful that people keep showing up for what I’m doing.
If you’re interested in online courses then do check out Skillshare…
they make it super easy to create courses on there and you get a referral for anyone who signs up via your link plus a commission from the amount of minutes your courses are watched.
4. Offer application
Maybe this is something you do already, and it might be an obvious one, but if you don’t and you sell a lot locally, especially to businesses, then you could consider offering it as an extra service for an added charge. Just make sure you’re charging a fair amount for your time and factoring in travel and extra time for any issues or mistakes.
Obviously only do this if you are good at applying though, and maybe give a certain radius for where you are willing to go so you’re not spending more time doing this than you are making vinyl decals to post.
Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels
5. Brand Partnerships & Sponsorship
For this you probably do need a bit of a following on Instagram or Tiktok or a Blog or Youtube already, and if you already have that then you might know this anyway as you will have probably had enquiries, but for future reference in case you haven’t, then you can still do brand partnerships as a business.
Just obviously make sure they’re relevant to your customers and your brand, even better if it’s a product that your decals could go on, and again that it is products that you are happy to promote.
And you might not even necessarily need a HUGE amount of followers, it is often a lot more about engagement and I think the term ‘micro influencer’ gets used for people who have a smaller but kind of more loyal fanbase. I think it may only really work if you often show the face behind the brand and not just your products all of the time. And in that way too it is different from affiliate marketing as it usually involves contracts etc, and it should be more money as long as the brand is paying you properly.
There are sites out there that you can join and they will match you up with brands as well, however I don’t have any to recommend yet!
So those are just a few to think about and research further if you’re interested, and I’m sure there are tonnes more ways you can leverage the business and skills you already have to make extra income, especially if you get a bit creative.
And let me know in the comments if you are going to try any of them, or have any other ideas you want to share!
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