Getting started with your side hustle is not easy. This takes many long evenings of hard work: building skills, working on marketing, and growing your network, usually while working full time at the same time.
However, once you’ve got your online business established, your hard work will start to pay off. As you begin to be more successful and the dollars start to roll in, you may start to think about growing your business and making it a full-time job.
This is absolutely possible to do, but, just like starting a new business, growing one takes hard work, time and some degree of know-how. Here are 5 hacks that will help you to grow your online business.
Diversify
One of the best ways to grow your business is to diversify. This is not only key to growth, but this is a key business security strategy, especially if you are looking to replace your full-time income. Diversifying your business with multiple income streams means that if one fails, you have a plan B, plan C and even plan D to rely on. Best case scenario, if all streams turn out to be successful, this just means more overall success for your business!
There are various ways to diversify and establish additional income streams for an online business. For an ecommerce or products-based business, one obvious way to diversify is to expand the range and type of products you sell. This means not just selling more of the same kind of product, but looking for complimentary product ranges which are different to what you currently sell, but perfect for your target audience. You can also add additional income-generating activities to your site, such as ad revenue, or branch out to new platforms which also have income-generating potential, such as YouTube.
Set Up Online or Email Payments
Just because you don’t have a physical storefront and are therefore unable to use a card reader, this doesn’t mean you can’t accept card and debit card payments. Accepting credit and debit cards is critical to be able to grow your business, as this is becoming consumers’ by far preferred payment method. Research shows that 80% of consumers prefer to pay by either debit or credit card over other methods.
You can easily accept online card payments by using a credit card service provider to set up a payment gateway on your site. Another option which can be used as an alternative to an online payment portal, or used in conjunction with one, is email payments. Both of these options require some level of investment, but this will greatly expand your ability to accept funds and exponentially grow your customer base. From there, you unlock incredible potential in terms of sales, profits, and growing your business.
Be Authentic
Authenticity is key in terms of business. Trust is incredibly important to consumers: research shows that customers are 68% more likely to buy from a business who they trust. What’s more, this trust means more loyal customers, and ones who will promote your business to others.
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make, especially when growing from a small enterprise, is that they copy what other businesses are doing. Whether it is in terms of marketing, business model, sales approach, or something else, when you see something that another, larger or more successful business is doing, it can seem like a great idea to replicate that. However, this can often come across as inauthentic and cause your audience to lose faith in you. It is much better to take the essence of these ideas, and tailor them to fit your brand.
Use Marketing Tools
When growing your business, marketing is key. Digital marketing in our modern world is growing increasingly complex and competitive: from SEO and social media to videos, blogs and other content. This can be pretty overwhelming, especially if you have little marketing experience. Luckily, there are plenty of tools around to help you.
A number of these tools are even free to use. For social media management, a tool like Buffer is invaluable to plan and schedule your posts. You can create nice graphics for your social media posts as well as other marketing tools on Canva, an easy-to-use graphic design tool. To improve your site’s SEO, make sure to sign up to Google My Business and Google Analytics, and use a keyword research tool like Ubersuggest.
Raise Your Prices
This may seem counter-intuitive if you are trying to grow your business and attract new customers. However, believe it or not, now is the time to raise your prices, or at least review them and make sure you are charging a fair price. When you move from a side hustle to a full-time business, you need to make sure you are professional and giving it your all. You should also be charging accordingly.
Do some market research and see what your competitors are charging, and also what your ideal customer is prepared to pay. Use this information to set your prices, and be careful not to under-price yourself. This also means now is the time to stop giving away freebies to build your portfolio, “get experience”, or to assist friends and family.
