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The Steps to a Successful Side Hustle
(This is a contributed post)
If you’ve always wanted to work from home, but have held yourself back until now because you’ve been confused by all the options or perhaps fearful to take the plunge, this article is here to offer some easy steps to make your side hustle a success.
STEP ONE: DECIDE WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO
There are so many different opportunities available for you to choose from, in terms of setting up a side hustle; from blogging to creating products, selling services, or even more quirky ideas such as match betting and market research opportunities.
The key within this step is to find absolute clarity in what you’re going to do, as if you’re in two minds then you’re likely to go around in circles, thus being very busy but not actually making your business happen.
A good approach for finding clarity is to write down all the different options that interest you, like a brainstorm, and then circle the top three. From here, you can assess each of the three top options according to a variety of metrics that are important to you – for instance, creative expression might be a real “must have” for some people, whilst for others, they are more financially focused on generating a specific income.
Then, once you’ve decided your broad option (e.g. selling creative items online) it’s time to get a little deeper in terms of what you’re going to offer. Here, you need to work out what items are you going to offer – for instance, are you going to make handmade bracelets, and if so, what makes your handmade bracelets better than anyone else’s?
(Video by SEO link builder Julian Goldie)
In this sense, it’s helpful to pick out a niche that you will operate within; meaning you become a master of a particular area, catering to a small section of the market, rather than a broad audience.
STEP TWO: PLATFORM
The next step is to consider what platform to use. For instance, with selling handmade bracelets, you might consider selling via Etsy, Amazon and eBay – along with offline options, potentially. You might also set up your own website along with a content marketing strategy to generate leads and get people to find about your bracelets.
STEP THREE: MARKETING
The next step is to come up with a marketing strategy; this is how you are going to drive traffic to your sales platform – for instance, you could use Facebook Ads that utilise hyper personalisation technology to ensure you are connecting with interested prospects. You can also increase the search presence of your website with SEM or Search Engine Marketing. A key part of this can be buying things like niche edits or guest posts (you can read more on how to buy niche edits here).
STEP FOUR: BRANDING
The final step in the process is to work out your branding strategy, in some ways this is tangible in the sense that you could package your bracelets in custom made packaging from a bag supplier, but also, it’s intangible in the sense that you need to work out what your brand stands for… as only then can you focus on aesthetic aspects such as packaging, logo design and colour palettes.
In summary, there are only four simple steps, so there’s no need to feel overwhelmed. The first step is to get clarity on what you are going to offer, utilise a platform to sell your products or services, come up with a marketing plan, and brand your offering so it’s attractive to customers.
