I found a promising offline niche, bought a Domain name, and installed WP!

Good for you! I look forward to hearing about your results from this!

Hostgator pays up to $125 once you hit 21... That is definitely doable if you
average about 5 a week.

Once you know your numbers, you can definitely scale it up in order to increase
your profits!

And also, if you were to host the sites for them and charge let's say $24.95...
you can expect to earn $299.40 per church YEARLY (not including on-going maintenance
fees if they require it) vs. the $125 referral fee from hostgator! -- Just an observation
that I thought I'd share with ya!

And I also had a friend in Atlanta that sold websites to churches and earned $1000
per church to set it up for them!

To your success,

~Jean~

Yeh your right it is 125. lol I have thought about getting a reseller package from HG and doing that, but I need to take one step at a time.

That's great because you are coming up with a plan of action
and then taking action on that plan!

~Jean~

Way to go Zachary for taking ACTION! That's the biggest step in getting started and making some money. Keep on keepin' on!

Online it says there are roughly 330,000 religious congregations in the U.S., so that should keep me busy for a while. lol

I have a similar idea, but not churches. Although, churches does sound like a good niche. Thought I'd let you know that you could sign up for hostrocket and get get paid $150 per sign up. Well done on taking action and good luck!

Hi Zachary,
Just a thought....similar to something I'm thinking for my sons Boy Scout Troop.

Many small churches won't have money for a website because they're just barely getting by.

That being said.....do one church for free.
Include a link to a page chock full of affiliate links to all the major reatailers.

Have the chuch ask their congregation for support by shopping via the links.

You could offer monthly mananement services.....adding links nd such.
Might be worth it to offer simple websites for free to other churches to get that recurring income..

All you have to do is get them to generate some decent affiliate checks and other churches will be seeking you out......especially if you arrange an article in the local newspaper.

Good luck,
Jerry

I believe the churches that sees value in what you have to offer will have no problem making the investment it takes to get set up. Especially the churches that KNOWS that they need a website, they will be an easier 'sale' to make - but the key is showing them the value of having a website and what they are missing out on by not having one (and that you are available and prepared to assist them with setting one up).

If you can walk in and show them how it will benefit THEM (take yourself out of the equation, and position yourself as an expert that's here to help THEM) and show them how it can help solve THEIR needs. Find out what their need is and then show them how you can help fill that need with your product/service!

One great advice that I heard someone mention that is crucial and is worth taking time to research & finding out is ... "What keeps your clients up at night?" - Find out what that 'need' is and show them how you can help them fulfill it with what you have to offer. Maybe they want to learn how to grow their congregation... show them how their lack of presence on the internet is causing their potential members to find other churches during their search for a new church home?

Show them how can not only set up the site for them but also set up their facebook, youtube (show them how they can add videos of the sermons or small teasers on youtube .. or create them a short commercial for their church to post on youtube as well) and twitter pages and how this will also be additional exposure to get more people walking through their double doors.

Another sweet spot for them could be if you can set up an autoresponder on their site to capture not only their members email addresses but of the visitors that walks through their doors and/or comes to the site and how they can publish a weekly newsletter in order to keep up with everyone and broadcast the church events, etc. And once a month he can do a short personal video message to everyone and send it with the newsletter!

Treat them good and provide great customer service and keep in touch with them and let them know of other ways you can help service them. They have other friends and you can strategically position yourself to be a local Internet Marketer for Churches (or small businesses, because they too will have business owners in their congregation as well be associated with other local business owners) in your area...

There are some threads on here that goes into finding clients on Linked In, see if you can find any of those churches on there, and maybe digging through the groups on Linked In and finding some church organization groups that you can join. It's all about networking and putting yourself out there!

There's another guy on here that does sms marketing in his area and he says that one of his most successful niches is the church niche itself ... and that's only with text messaging - He charges them a one time set up fee with a monthly investment.

Anyways, was just throwing some ideas out there. I love niches because you can then just specialize in that one key area and then excel at it! It's all about having a great strategy in place and learning how to listen to the needs of your clients and then handing over the solution and they in turn will hand you over their money! People will gladly hand you money if you can help them solve that one pesty thing that keeps them up at night! Being able to go to sleep at night and enjoy your family without that monkey on your back is PRICELESS!

~Jean~