How to Start a Toy Review Business

Many people dream of starting their own business to explore their passion and do what they like. The good news is that, with today’s online audience and available technologies, it’s quite easy to start your own thing.

The bad news is that an online business is still a business – this means you’ll need to get down to Earth and start planning.

Today I will share my own experience as an online entrepreneur who is passionate about RC toys. My idea was to create a powerful online community where both adults and children would feel safe to share their passion about toys. To do so, I started posting reviews on my personal site and, in time, my audience and revenues grew. Today I can say that I am a successful RC toys reviewer and I like what I do every day. Still, it wasn’t easy!

Below I put together the basic steps I followed so you can understand the exact struggles you’ll need to overcome.

Choose your niche

Reviews are a fantastic way of attracting people’s attention in the online environment! Still, I recommend choosing a specific niche to develop your business. This is important because for two reasons:

• You know exactly who your competition is
• You know exactly who will be your clients and what they want

In the US, there are over 5.5 million small businesses and if you don’t choose a specific area, you might get lost in diversity. Even more, a site with content that goes all over the place is more difficult to optimize for search engines (but about this, a bit later).

So, my niche is RC toys and it worked out great for me. Still, you can be even more specific than this and choose RC helicopters, or cars, or boats.

It’s also important to know your niche so you can offer real advice when people will come asking.

Find your experts

Regardless of how well-versed you are in your domain, it’s always best to find a few expert collaborators. Not only will this look great in the eyes of your audience, but you’ll have someone to share information and bounce ideas.

I myself work with John from rcrank.com and it’s been a fruitful collaboration since the start.

Written or video

In the reviews industry, there are two ways you can express your thoughts towards a product or service: you either write articles or post videos. Of course, you can combine the two, but consistency is an important factor in both business and the online world. That’s why I recommend choosing just one way of expressing yourself.

I decided to go with written content and yes, the start may be slower than with video content, but it is a wonderful experience and you learn a lot.

Use YouTube

YouTube is a fantastic platform and it’s a great way to start your business. After all, we’ve all seen the craze around YouTube celebrities. But did you know that there are people who make money by unboxing and reviewing toys?

If you are talented and know how to make a video that attracts viewers, you could be the next big star on YouTube!

Still, every entrepreneur knows that there is a lot of work behind these videos and you need the power to be consistent in your publishing tasks.

SEO is important

Just like any online business, you will also need search engine optimization. As you develop and start earning money, you will have the possibility of employing the services of a professional, but from the start, you may want to learn a bit about SEO and how it works.

After all, a business owner must know all the parts of their business – not just the one they are passionate about.

Try to find supporters

Even if it’s just you at the beginning, you will still need to make investments to get things going. Of course, your savings will be the first to go, but next on the list are investors or supporters. The cool thing with online businesses (especially ones that cover reviews) is that, once you gather an audience, you can call out to big companies. They are usually interested in promoting products via your videos or articles in order to reach more customers.

James Runio is a huge toy collector and a drone fan. He also loves technology and during the weekend he meets up with business owners and tries to educate them on upcoming new products.

Creating a business? Start off on the right foot by forming a blog LLC to protect your business and personal assets. ZenBusiness (the top alternative to services like MyCorporation and BizFilings) is fast and easy.

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