How to make passive income

The pandemic's adverse effect continues to have a devastated outturn on the global economy. The management board of companies in large and small businesses have faced the inevitable conundrum on whether to let their employee go, cut off their hours, or proclaim them redundant.

If the future had somehow been seen briefly, employers would have contemplated the current circumstances and been cautious in drafting the employment contracts.

On October 19, 2020, a large number of employees were laid off by tech startups in the transportation sector, coming up to 14,656. In this section, Uber technologies, inclusively with the US ride-hailing company based in San Francisco, also laid off employees since the pandemic outbreak; 3,700 jobs were disengaged on May 6, 2020 alone.

However, more and more individuals have gone out of their comfort zone to look for ways to make passive money online. Some are diverting to side hustles to make a little extra cash, and innovators too are engaging in online business.

Let us take a closer look at making money online that can take up a little or a lot of your time. Think of these options as an additional source of income. Most of them can harness the power to be a whole lot more.

Affiliate Marketing is a low-cost and relatively straightforward procedure to make money online. It requires little investment, so you do not need to have a service or product to sell. Affiliate Marketing allows you the privilege to earn a commission from large companies. All you have to do is promote your clients' products or services on your websites/blogs or even on your social media account by providing accessible links to the company's subscription. So, you get paid by delivering a paying customer to the company's website through the affiliated links you enforced. The only challenge involved in affiliate marketing is getting people to visit your website/blog or probably social media account – Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram – and that subsequently requires diversified visitors of large followers.

An e-commerce website is also a proven practical example of an online business with passive income generated. However, unlike those mentioned above, it requires a bit more productivity on your part. Your job is to sell products from your website; it might be your product or commercially available ones. If you focus on the latter strategy, the best way to supply your customers' orders is drop shipping. The approach is to get customers and take their orders. However, a third party is needed, which will serve as the company warehouse and transport the product to the customer location.

If you decide to showcase your product, you will have to consider selling them on both official platforms, such as Etsy, and your site. When you have successfully built up a base of customers, you could disengage from the middleman. You can step up your game in the online world by monetizing your e-commerce website by hosting ads such as Facebook ads.

Another angle for generating passive online income is from graphic design, to be precise, whereby willingness to put in the creativity can make business extremely exciting. The fact about passive income, for designers, requires lots of determination and continuous practice and upfront work and monthly maintenance inclusively. If done correctly, it leads to huge dividends.

There have always been more remote ways to showcase your skills and ability. Do you have specific skill-oriented services that you can carry out triumphantly with a remote location, such as IT service, copyediting, or even better: ghostwriting? It would help if you considered online freelancing. If you can find and accept enough gigs, you could establish yourself as a full-time freelancer in your field. Alternatively, perhaps occasional assignments to supplement the cash flow from the main job.

You can always find gigs using a freelance established platform such as Upwork, Fiver, and Freelancer, and even big job sites like Indeed and LinkedIn are not to be undermined. More importantly, it would be best if you considered joining an organization specifically for freelancers related to your genre and specialty. Freelancing sites allow you to post information online about yourself and your specialty, what you can offer, why you are the best person for the job, and they might send out email alerts or have a sector that encompasses the contact information of those seeking freelance help.

However, Pakistan has proved to be a country with an innovative mindset; as of 2017, they have ranked the fourth most influenced country for freelancing. They have accumulated a significant sum of $0.5 billion entirely from freelancing; also, they have retained the fourth position on global record for software development and technology.

Have you considered Amazon FBA? Maybe or maybe not. Either way, Amazon has become one of the most significant sources of passive income for individuals who are looking to generate another channel of income for themselves? Its FBA program is somewhat similar to eBay, where you have the opportunity to sell your products, and all you need to do is to find buyers. The advantage of using FBA is that sellers do not have to worry about adequate security. Amazon has stored your inventory at their fully equipped warehouses and does all the picking, packing and shipping to the demand location.

Daraz trading is one of the leading online marketing platforms in South Asia, which serves the purpose of connecting thousands of sellers with millions of buyers and serious clients in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other neighboring countries. DarazMall is their premium trading channel that gives brand partners the privilege to get to massive customers and supply their demands. DarazMall is set to step up their game with respective competitors.

Having a YouTube channel is also a profitable way of making passive online income. When you join the YouTube associate program, the requirement for you is to be at least 18 years or older to have a legal custodian, though not necessary but if you care about how to handle your payment via AdSense then it is an option that cannot be disregarded. You need to create content that is in compliance with their advertiser-friendly content guidelines.

There is some scrutiny procedure your channel has to pass through with Google before it is accepted into the YouTube partner program; other channels are also reviewed continuously to ensure that they are meeting all their TOS and policies. A YouTube channel can be monetized even without millions of subscribers. Your income potential is not dependent on the number of subscribing users you have and the content you generate, if it engages your viewers in the niche you promote. Famous bloggers start their business through YouTube channels; then, after getting millions of viewers, they launch their merchandise.

Another trend of making money is to become a partner with various brands that want their products to be advertised. Brands are now investing their revenue budget on advertising through influencers who have a large audience and are loyal to their course. This allows having the upper hand in negotiating the best deals.

By adopting the above suggestions, you can start your passive income and become the entrepreneur of tomorrow. It is time to embrace the concept of self-employment and inculcate our youth with the requisite skills. It is important to shed light on different ways of earning passive income through these high-demand emerging skills, with the utilization of technology in an efficacious and constructive way.

The mainstream media can also play a pivotal role by dedicating one hour a day to educate our youth; this can have a significant impact on the overall economy of the country.

The writer is director of the Centre for Information and Communication Technology at IBA.

Email: imran.batada@gmail.com Twitter: @imranbatada