Many businesses have been born from hobbies, and it’s the path to a fulfilling career for many entrepreneurs. While starting your own business can be intimidating, the efforts are often rewarding. Yet, there’s nothing small about being a small business owner. By shouldering the immense task of becoming a business owner, not only are you responsible for customer service and product and service development, but you’re also the primary decision-maker when it comes to marketing. Fortunately, we have some marketing hacks to help convert your side hustle into your main hustle.
What Do You Want to Accomplish with Marketing?
You don’t have to be a marketer to do your own marketing – the best way to begin your journey is by determining what you want to accomplish. Marketing relies upon setting goals. The best way to execute your strategy is by figuring out the following objectives:
- Specific Market: While it’s an entrepreneur’s dream to sell to everyone, not everyone is interested in your product or service. Establish your ideal customer profile to determine who you want to sell to and who’ll be most receptive to your marketing.
- Definition of Success: You can define your success in terms of revenue, profit, or signups, but establish reoccurring short- and long-term goals that you want your business to accomplish. You should ensure your new hustle is experiencing measurable growth.
- Core Metrics: It’s important not to become obsessed over a single metric, but you should analyze a few key metrics to accurately measure your success. For instance, tracking your return on investment can help you determine whether your marketing sticks.
Once you’ve laid the foundation, you should also set a marketing budget – measured in money or time. Setting a budget early in your transition from a side gig to a main hustle will help you accept your limitations and learn to efficiently allocate your resources.
Incorporate Marketing Growth Hacks into Your Strategy
As a new company, your budget and workforce are limited, so it’s up to you to focus on your growth. However, there are a few marketing hacks to spur business growth and attract leads. Here are some ways marketing can jumpstart your side-gig-turned-main hustle:
- E-Commerce: A side hustle is usually limited to selling via a third-party platform – such as Etsy or eBay. By selling from your website, you’ll avoid transaction fees and be able to integrate upselling and cross-selling during or after checkout.
- Email Marketing: By promoting special offers and free resources – or “lead magnets” – such as webinars, grow your email list. Use automated funnels to send subscribers personalized emails relevant to their experiences and personally follow up for user reviews and feedback.
- Social Media: Rather than trying to be on all platforms at once, determine where your desired demographic resides and spend time optimizing your presence there and engaging with your audience. Also, your posts should lead the user back to your website.
- Business Reviews: On review sites like Yelp, you must create an account and claim business ownership. Most customers turn to testimonials or reviews before making a purchase. While you can’t control what reviews are left on your business page, you can respond to them.
Bear in mind, incorporating calls to action – instructions compelling users to act – into your marketing efforts can promote an immediate response from your audience.
Using these marketing hacks to convert your side hustle into your main hustle will ensure your new business hits the ground running. These tips are proven methods to demonstrating your brand’s value and building a loyal consumer base. However, as your business grows, the time, energy, and resources necessary to execute a marketing strategy can grow along with it. At Vision, we can run your social media marketing, brand management, and more using a budget that fits your needs. Contact us today if you need help.
