Fiverr is a freelancing platform designed in Israel to provide users with 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 SEO’s to Amazon FBA power sellers outsourcing menial tasks to the experts offering their services through the platform.
By 2015, stories began to emerge of service providers making substantive revenue/profit from the system, with one – SPXMAC – reporting $40,000+ revenue per month (a remarkable achievement).
With this in mind, people with genuine skills, experience and expertise to offer have been drawn to providing their services through the system, me included.
To this end, I felt it appropriate to share some of the progress I made with the platform. It’s not a huge amount but might give some people insight into what works and what doesn’t.
Fiverr’s Online System (How It Works)
The most important thing to appreciate with Fiverr is that the provider has to create the offer for the client.
Whilst there are many other “freelancing” websites, they rely on the client putting up jobs/gigs and having providers facilitate by posting proposals. The client will then sift through the proposals and make a choice.
Due to the opposite nature of the Fiverr system, it’s opened a new way in which the “freelancing” system works.
Rather than pitching for work, the service provider is essentially able to provide a number of “products” / “services” through which they’re able to give buyers a more structured, systematic set of work.
For example, if you’re a logo provider – you’ll be selling your “logo design” service for $150 – to which buyers are able to come, ask questions and purchase.
The point is that this new model is different, and in many cases better, than the previous. It puts the entire focus onto the product/service being offered, and encourages the provider to systematize the delivery process as much as possible – allowing for even higher quality, cheaper prices and more effective service provision.
If you’re looking to create effective (profitable) products/services to list on the site, the key is understanding what buyers are actually looking for, and being able to facilitate that in the most streamlined way. This is where I began with my service offering.
Products / Services To Sell
Obviously, every marketplace / platform has its winners & losers.
The most important thing I have found on the platform is that there are really “two” ways to go about listing products/services:
- List products / services based on your experience – if you’re a graphic designer, create the likes of eBook covers, logo designs or website templates for menial fees
- List products / services based on market demand – as mentioned, many “digital marketers” use Fiverr as a source of inexpensive, but high quality, services for their growing online businesses
The first is likely going to take longer to bear much fruit; the latter will be much faster, but allow for less creativity in the offering.
I tend to try and blend the two – identify what’s popular and put my own slant on it.
Some of the most popular listings I’ve found are “Amazon Product Listing Descriptions” writing services. The most successful of these is “SPXMAC” who make upwards of $30k/$40k per month.
There are presently 3 providers of this service, typically receiving between 15 to 30 orders per day for their gigs. 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 experience in the real world (he was involved with finance).
We began with article writing – imagining that a number of high end “finance” blogs (who relied on quality, accurate and up-to-minute content) would be willing to hire an expert who had been involved with a large number of transactions, trades with a private consortium in London and is very well versed in technology as well.
I wrote out a profile listing which explained his work in the industry, his experiences and (importantly) why he was listing his services on Fiverr.
For the last part, I explained that he was looking to expand his personal brand, and felt that writing articles for money would be the most appropriate way to do it. Rather than sending in guest posts, it would give instant precedent to whoever was making the purchase.
This seemed to go down relatively well (with a number of blog operators buying his articles and using his name/face as an “author” on their sites).
In terms of the products we offered, the first thing we tried was a “Forex” article writing service. This wasn’t overly popular, as it’s a very crowded market and typically works in cycles (IE when the USD/GBP currency pair drops etc).
The thing that did extremely well was “crypto” articles – which we wrote for $25 for 10. This was very low, but allowed us to gain some progress in terms of the reviews / feedback on the system.
Most people who bought the packages would just let us determine which articles to write (we wrote mostly about the current trends in the market, the importance of blockchain, etc) – and began focusing on scaling up as much as possible.
The “crypto” articles were a good run (we made $500 each in the first week) but it was unsustainable at such a low price. We both got burned out, and as such we decided to increase the pricing somewhat – which significantly curtailed the amount of interest/throughput.
Nonetheless, the feedback earned and the quality of buyers improved significantly although the frequency of purchases did diminish.
Recommendations
The biggest thing I’ve found with my time online has been to use your own face.
I’ve done a number of things in the past under pseudonyms. Some of these were legit (running the second largest Webkinz site), but the majority were simply because I didn’t want people to find out what I was doing.
Whilst this was a legitimate reason to cover up my identity, the simple truth is that it prevented me growing very quickly at all. To this end, one of the key things I started to do for my friend was emphasize the importance of owning your name – ensuring that you put forward your unique experiences, ideas and expertise as the core essence of why someone should consider you.
If you do decide to get involved with Fiverr, I would suggest that it’s one of the few ways you can actually “own” your name online by providing actual content. Think of it as an extension to the likes of LinkedIn or Twitter – a “social” touch point through which the “online” community is able to engage with you.