Its been hard for most people over the past couple of years, people have lost a lot and some even lost their jobs. With a recovering market, more people than ever are starting side hustles. Whether this is creating digital downloads, selling London souvenirs, creating a print-on-demand clothing business, dropshipping or providing a service, chances are you want to see your business grow and make you more money.
The problem with most of these side hustles is that many people believe they can simply create the side hustle and the customers will come to you, well this couldn’t be further from the truth, there is a lot more that you need to be doing to reach your potential customers. This will include some skills in marketing and sales, so in this article, we will go through how to market your side hustle to boost sales.
Create A Website
If you have started a side hustle and don’t have a website, this is one of the reasons you aren’t making any sales or getting any enquiries. A website is a powerful tool that can convert traffic to sales. Without a website, you are not going to look as strong as your competitors which will in turn ensure your potential customers will go to your competitors.
This may sound difficult, but it is not as hard as you may first think. There are some great content management systems out there where you can easily and quickly make a website such as Shopify or WordPress. Alternatively, you could hire someone to build it for you, but since this is a side hustle, chances are you won’t have the budget for this. eCommerce sites for your print-on-demand company need to have good branding and also a user-friendly site as this helps conversions.
Use Social Media To Your Benefit
Social media marketing is a huge benefit for side hustles as it can get you the most interaction and bang for your buck. It allows you to reach consumers around the world with a click of one button. Create a business profile and upload your service or products onto social media, then create some ads and let them get to their job and bring you sales or enquiries.
Video Content
Video content has become increasingly popular in recent years and it is no secret that it receives the most interaction. With the likes of TikTok and Youtube getting billions of views per month, it is definitely somewhere that you should be promoting your service or product. Although creating video content can be a long process, it is worth learning these skills as they will get you some of the best interactions with potential customers.
This is especially the case if your side hustle is affiliate marketing. The great thing about creating a profile on these platforms is that once you have enough followers, you can start making some money on the side of your existing side hustles.
PPC Campaigns
PPC is not new and it isn’t fancy, but it gets the job done. These are simply the ads that you see on top of google search pages. Pay-per-click advertising has been around for many years and there are plenty of platforms and resources out there where you can learn how to generate, create, and monitor ad campaigns.
PPC works really well at targeting people who are already intending to purchase a product that you sell. Due to PPC being around for a long time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete with your larger competitors due to their limitless budgets. This is certainly something to start once you start making a return on your business investment.
SEO Your Website
Search engine optimisation is a great alternative to any paid marketing, and what’s best about this is you could do a lot of this yourself. Using SEO for your side hustle can help you beat the competitors who have a larger budget. If you are on the first page of Google, then this is going to help you pop up for people after a similar product. The issue with SEO is even the best campaigns can take at least 3 months before you start seeing any results.
This happens when you optimise your site for relevant keywords. For example, if you were a clothing brand such as Gods Gift, you will want to at least have “Gods Gift Clothing” as a relevant keyword that you can have on your website. This will in turn tell google that you want to be found for this search term.
Add A PR Strategy
PR is something that isn’t often talked about, but it is something that is always there. The strategy can boost your side hustle exponentially, especially if you are just launching your side hustle. Getting mentioned on popular websites, magazines, podcasts and the radio can seriously contribute to your growth stage. If you are no expert in this field, it is wise to hire some helping hands for this as it can be a lot of back and forth with PR agents.
Influencers Are Great At Selling
Influencing is a new bread of advertising as it has only recently become popular with the rise of video content. They not only help you to reach audiences that you haven’t targeted yet, but they can also help you to convert potential customers who are not sure about your product to become loyal customers. Influencers with around 5-10K followers will be perfect for your side hustle until you want to grow further.
Getting influencers to market your product or service is not as easy as you may think. It is important to identify the right influencers as vetting them is just as important as you want to reach the right audiences otherwise you could be wasting money and time. To vet them properly, before you go searching for influencers, create some guidelines to abide by and give examples of who you do and don’t want to work with and why?
The other tricky part is trying to persuade them to influence your product as sometimes money is not all they are after. You need to remember that they have a loyal following and people believe what these influencers are saying. This in turn makes them very picky about what they want to show their followers.
There are so many different methods to market your side hustle to boost sales, some take a budget, and others can be invested once you start making some money. If there was one thing that you should do to be taken seriously is to create a branded website for your business and promote your USPs like Gods Gift which shows its organic materials. This is what is going to make your side hustle look like a fully-fledged business.