How To Market Your Side Business So It Can Become Your Full Time Gig

By Ben Allen, Guest Contributor

​Likely, you started your side business as a way to make some extra cash. Tons of people are doing it, transforming their hobbies and free time to earn enough pocket money to spend on their social life, or make a bigger dent in their student debt. Maybe you’re selling homemade honey, handmade wooden signs, or offering up your balloon animal-making skills to children’s birthday parties.

To ensure your website promotes trust with potential visitors use an SSL certificate. Furthermore, redirect the http to https version of your site. This will ensure your site is search engine friendly. It will also reinforce any marketing efforts you undertake. 

You might find, as you run your own side business, that you love working for yourself. That you could make really good money doing it full time, instead of wasting your time at your current day job. Transitioning from five or 10 hours a week to a full time business isn’t easy, but with a good marketing strategy, it’s possible.

Better Understand Your Business and Audience
Before you hand in your two weeks notice and jump head first into owning your own business, you need to do research. That means analyzing your current business model, the industry your business is in as a whole, and identifying your target audience.

The biggest question you have to ask is: Can my business provide the income I need if I work on it full time? You might be able to scrape a few hundred of dollars a month off of a niche demand, but can that same demand or audience provide you with a larger income?

Look at how your direct competitors are doing to get a good idea about where the industry is heading. You wouldn’t want to open up an ice cream shop in your town if all the other ice cream shops are going out of business. Look for similar danger signs, or potential gaps you can capitalize on, for your business.

Build Your Own Website
If you don’t already have one, building your own website for your business is a really good idea. Even if you do a majority of your business through things like Amazon, Etsy, or a similar third party, your own website is a great way to showcase your products or services.

With a website, you have a lot more control over how your market to your audience, can display your products or services how you want to, and you don’t have to share your profits with a third-party website.

A website also gives your business a place to implement other marketing strategies and not just relying on people stumbling across your product on Amazon or a similar site. You can create a content marketing strategy to attract potential customers at different parts of the buyer’s journey, pay for ads to point directly to your website, and establish a following for your business.

Doing Social Media the Right Way
If you want to build a following, gain returning customers, attract a larger audience, and encourage customers to promote your products, you need to make social media a major focus. You can’t just have a Facebook page and post sporadically — you have to put serious thought into it.

Being successful at social media marketing, especially for a small business, is tricky. The best place to start is to figure out what platform your target audience uses the most, and focus on that one. Learn the platform in and out, the rules and best practices for it, how to grow a following, and bring in new visitors.

The wrong way to do social media is spreading yourself too thin across the many platforms that exist. Start with a single platform, master it, then try another that makes sense.

Cross Promotions, Influencers, and Networking
Your business doesn’t exist in an empty space where the only things that are there is you and your customer. Everybody has their own lives, jobs, struggles, and more. It’s important to understand how your target market interacts with the rest of the world, and try to become a natural part of it.

A good way to accomplish this is to partner up with other businesses or social media influencers to promote your product. The more people talking about your business, the larger your reach, meaning more customers. It’s a great way to break into a new market or reinforce your hold on your current market.

Being able to create promotional opportunities isn’t easy, though. You need to network with other businesses to make connections that could blossom into cross-promotional events. The same is true with social media influencers. You need to find a way to connect with them and not just blindly pitch your product in hopes they will want to work with you.

Going full time with your business is not easy, but with smart marketing and hard work, it’s definitely possible. Just be sure to do your research and have plans to attract and convert more customers before jumping into your business full time.  
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