Most income streams out there require a lot of time and effort. You must work for someone else or invest a lot of money to generate income. However, there is one type of income stream that has been gaining popularity and seems almost too good to be true – automated income streams.
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What are Automated Income Streams?
Automated income streams are sources of passive income that require little to no effort on your part once they are set up. They are money-making systems that continue to generate income for you without much involvement from your side.
They are thrown around the Internet frequently. However, most people talk about it in order to promote Make.com, Zapier, and Invideo.ai, and make affiliate commissions off of videos. So, is this just another marketing gimmick, or do automated income streams actually exist? Below we will go over a few examples of automated income streams and discuss their feasibility.
YouTube Video Automation
As I stated above, YouTube video automation is a popular topic among those who want to promote their video creation software and earn affiliate commissions. But is it really a way to make passive income?
Well, after giving the software a try, I struggle to find how it can really help your YouTube channel grow effectively. Automation may not be the best option, especially if you want to create quality content and engage with your audience.
Don’t get me wrong, AI videos are cool and can save time, but it’s important to remember that YouTube’s success relies heavily on creating unique, engaging content that resonates with your target audience. And for that, human creativity and effort are still necessary.
On the other hand, you could outsource all content creation to video editors, voice-over artists, and script artists. However, that’s a lot of money to shell out, and it still requires some level of effort on your part to manage and review the content. At the same time, you’re not guaranteed success so you could be shelling out money for no reason.
Income potential: High, but that’s if you crack the code.
Feasibility Rating: 5/10
Automated Investments
Automated investments are simple. Get paid from your side hustle or full-time job and automatically allocate money to your investments.
You could automate 10% of your income to go into a HYSA or a stock app that allows you to buy fractional shares.
This is as set-it-and-forget-it as it gets when it comes to investing. However, the feasibility of this method depends on your financial situation and saving habits. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, it may be difficult to commit a portion of your income towards investments. But if you have a stable income and are able to save consistently, this method could potentially generate passive income in the long run.
Feasibility Rating: 8/10
Income Potential: It can take a while, but after some time, the snowball effect could take place, and you could make decent money.
Automated Blog
As you can see in this YouTube video, “The Lazy Agent” uses AI to generate blog posts for his real estate business. He set up automation (through Zapier) where he sends an email to himself with the title of the blog post as the subject and a picture within the email for the feature image.
After he sends the email Zapier and Chat GPT work together through a custom prompt and create a full blog post for him and uploads it to his blog with him only having to send a picture and a title.
This is pretty amazing stuff. You can also do this semi-automated by using tools like SEOWRITING.AI or Koala.sh. All you have to do is enter in a bulk list of keywords and you could create 100’s of blog posts in minute and auto publish them.
This is one of my favorite automation methods. However, you have to worry about Google cracking down on sites that use AI content.
If you have an alternative traffic method like a Facebook page, Pinterest, or something similar, this actually might be a great way to create cheap blog content while also getting leads for your business.
The time you may have to spend with this model is looking over the content and making sure that you make it sound more human as well as fact check.
Income Potential: Pretty high. Some creators are making thousands per month with AI blogs.. But, keep in mind that it’s risky.
Rating: 4/10
Automated X Posts
As i’m sure you’ve heard, Elon Musk made it possible for people to monetize their X accounts by posting. It’s part of the creator Ad share program.
However, sitting and tweeting all day isn’t too fun.
Much like blogging, automating X posts is possible. This is also a really cool method.
You can set up automation on Zapier or Make.com and have a bot scan a news site for new posts. When a new post is uploaded, you could then have the bot write and post a tweet about it.
You can then make money on the engagement of the tweets you schedule.
You just have to be sure you set up the prompt to make the information different, as you don’t want to plagiarize the news site.
I’m not sure that the X creator program pays that much, and you do have to pay for open AI credits to do this. So, if your X account is new, it may take a little while to get going in terms of monetization since there are requirements to get monetized.
Income Potential: Not That High
Feasibility: 6/10
Ebooks and Digital Products
The best part about digital products is once they’re created, you could make passive income on them for years to come. Another good aspect of Ebooks and other digital products is you can outsource their creation as well.
The important part about selling books and digital products is that you need an audience. Otherwise, no one will buy your work.
That’s where posting them on the right platforms comes in handy. There are three platforms I think are the best places to post your Ebooks and digital products
- Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (best option for passive Income).
- Gumroad
- Etsy – especially Checklists, etc.
I personally use Gumroad. But if you want it to be the most passive, Amazon is definitely the best way to go.
So how is this automated? Well, you could either figure out a process to write the E-books using AI (gathering information from a legitimate source), or you could hire a writer to do all the research and write the books for you.
Income Potential: Pretty High
Feasibility: 8/10
You may be wondering how you could find good E-book topics. Well, there are two ways. The first way is if you don’t have an audience of your own. If you have no audience (newsletter, blog, YouTube channel, etc.), you could use an Amazon KDP keyword tool to find low-competition topics to write e-books about.
If you do have an audience, I recommend using Gummysearch. Gummysearch allows you to scan Reddit communities in your niche and see the pain points across those communities.
For example, I’ve looked up meal prep subreddits, and one of the problems across the board was how hard it is to put together cheaper meals. If you had an audience in this niche, you could create an E-book on how to meal prep cheaply and easily.
Automated Newsletters
Newsletters are high in popularity now, thanks to ones like Morning Brew, Milkroad, and more.
Much like blogs and X posts, you could automate your newsletter by using automation tools like Zapier and Make.com to curate content and send it out to your subscribers.
However, the real problem is being able to get a lot of subscribers.
I personally have my own newsletter (where you probably are seeing this content), and it takes a lot of work to build a list of subscribers. You have to post content, work on effective paid ads, and also create quality content for your newsletters.
Income Potential: Decent (higher with a non-automated newsletter)
Feasibility: 5/10
Personally, I believe a more personalized approach is better for building a newsletter.
Automated Print On Demand
Using a tool like flyingupload.com you could automate the process of uploading designs to various Print on Demand (POD) platforms, such as Merch by Amazon, Redbubble, and Spreadshirt. It aims to save time for users by allowing them to upload more designs automatically.
While it does have features that partially automate the process, its not actually fully automated. This is because you have to do things like create your own designs, select the appropriate keywords for your products, and make final adjustments to ensure that your uploads meet the specific requirements of each POD platform. Additionally, users are responsible for managing their own accounts on these platforms, including setting up and monitoring any marketing or advertising campaigns related to their products.
However, if you want to fully automate this process, you could invest some money and teach virtual assistants to do the very little work you have to do to upload your designs and ensure they meet the requirements of each platform. I recommend doing this once you get income going so you could learn the ins and outs of what makes money.
Feasibility Rating: 7/10
Income Potential: Highly dependent on the success of your designs and marketing efforts. Some users have reported making thousands of dollars per month, while others may only make a few hundred. It ultimately depends on the quality and appeal of your designs, as well as how well you promote them.
Why It’s Important To Be Involved In Your Business Off The Jump
After reviewing all the people who are successful with automation, either through a VA or automation tool, I’ve realized one thing. They all were involved in their business from the jump.
Automation and AI is going to have a lot of people thinking they could cheat the game, but the reality is far from that. The foundation of a successful automated system lies in a deep understanding of the business it’s meant to serve. Early involvement in your business allows you to grasp its nuances, understand your customers’ needs, and identify the processes that are ripe for automation.
This initial hands-on approach is crucial for several reasons. First, it helps in setting up more effective and efficient automated systems. When you know the ins and outs of your operations, you can tailor automation tools to work in synergy with your business goals, ensuring that they add value rather than complicate processes.
Being involved helps you:
- Build skills
- Train your VA’s properly or put the write automation process in place
- Allows you to adjust and see things more clearly if things aren’t working out at first
The Right Way To Implement Automation Into Your Side Hustle
All these methods are great, but I would recommend automating aspects of your business, not the whole thing. Automating everything takes a personal touch out of it and often leads to mistakes. Instead, focus on automating repetitive or time-consuming tasks that can free up more of your time to focus on other aspects of your side hustle. This could include things like setting up automatic email responses, creating templates for commonly used messages, or using software to manage your social media posts.
The way Chat GPT talks is well known to people and they know when they are reading output from it. Here’s how you can see which tasks to automate.
- Monitor repetitive tasks. Identify tasks that you do regularly and are time-consuming. These tasks can be automated to save time and effort, allowing you to focus on more important aspects of your business.
- Research automation tools. There are many different automation tools available for various tasks, such as social media scheduling, email marketing, and data entry. Do some research to find the best tools for your workflow.
- Get help if needed. There are automation people on Fiverr that you could hire to plan out your automation processes and set them up for you. This can save you time and ensure that everything is done correctly.
- Start small and test. Don’t go crazy trying to automate everything at once. Start small and build on it.
- Consider hiring a VA if automation tools don’t cut it for the task you want to automate. Virtual Assistants can help with tasks like data entry, email management, social media scheduling, and more. This way, you can still have a personal touch in your business while also saving time.