The huge costs and expenses associated with setting up a physical shop for a business may discourage an aspiring entrepreneur. It forces others to apply for jobs in a work-from-home arrangement.
The economic demands of life can be a problem, but a home business might just be the perfect solution. It’s easy to start a home business since you won’t need to rent an office space to start operating. A reliable Internet connection and a workstation at home are sufficient to kick off your dream business.
Below are suggestions of various small business ideas you can do at home.
1. Pastry Business
Most people love cakes, bread, cookies, and other pastry delights. The huge demand in the pastry business stems from people’s breakfast needs, snacks, and important celebrations such as weddings, birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, and corporate ceremonies.
If you’ve got a knack for baking, then you can jump-start a pastry business with your kitchen equipment like an oven, mixers, and kitchen space. You can then leverage friends, neighbors, social circles, and other acquaintances as primary customers.
Social media and video channels can fuel business growth, and other advertising firms help scale to new heights. You can use your business experience, profitability, and customer base to set up a physical shop and scale upwards.
2. Digital Marketing Services
According to a survey by Statista, there were almost four billion Internet users globally as of 2017. The huge number of Internet users has led to the rise of e-commerce, social media influencing, and vlogging.
This presents opportunities to marketers and other specialists who’re needed for marketing assistant roles.
These jobs don’t necessarily need service providers to set up offices. People who have the required skill set in the digital marketing sector can connect directly with customers via the Internet.
Some of the available roles that you may be good at include:
- Social Media Manager: You can manage social media profiles for busy people like entrepreneurs, celebrities, and politicians. Some of the roles include moderating comments, producing and scheduling posts, and content strategy.
- SEO Expert: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving website rankings in organic search results. Website owners hire SEO experts to improve mobile responsiveness, navigation, user interphase, keyword traits, and other search aspects.
- Content Marketer: Content marketing is the big thing in the digital marketing world. If you’re a good copywriter, businesses are always on the lookout for talented content marketers. As a content marketer, you get the opportunity to strategize and produce high-converting blogs, infographs, and other pieces of content.
Digital marketing can be one of the best small business opportunities to try as you often don’t need a lot of start-up capital. It can also be very lucrative if you manage to scale your business, and staff can be trained to make your own involvement more hands-off.
3. Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is an e-commerce model that online marketers use to sell products. You can easily create a site for shipping any unique product like Lifting Magnets or other industrial equipment to the overseas market with the help of a website designer or e-commerce sites. This requires you to develop a partnership with a producer, warehouse, and shipping or delivery agent.
The role of drop shipping is to eliminate or mitigate the need for producers to conduct marketing, delivery, and storage. The success of this enterprise relies on your ability to select suitable partners.
Late deliveries or failed orders can generate low reviews or negative comments and may affect your business’s reputation.
The drop shipping business can yield fruits if you concentrate on a specific niche or similar products and select an economically-growing region, while ensuring prompt delivery and excellent customer service.
4. Cleaning Services
Cleaning needs are always in demand, especially during the holidays when everyone’s at home. You can easily run a cleaning services firm from home by acquiring a few tools and a prospective customer base to start with.
With just a vacuum cleaner, you can get things started up for your business. Using additional consumables like detergents and other tools like scrubs, brushes, spray bottles, brooms, and micro-fiber cloth may be an added advantage.
Some customer needs include carpet cleaning, sofa set cleaning, general cleaning, glass cleaning, and other specific cleaning needs. You can incorporate a website to highlight testimonials, price lists, your work portfolio, and contact info.
By offering exemplary service, you could win the hearts of high-net-worth clients who could be the key to growing your business to new levels.
5. Blogging
People search for ideas, stories, and other forms of inspiration found on blogs, videos, social media posts, and other Internet publications. There are millions of blogs on the Internet serving this purpose.
If you have the passion to research and create highly-valuable content, you could direct part of the Internet traffic to your site.
A considerable number of Internet users earn thousands of dollars every month. However, this reward comes from consistency, determination, and tons of investment.
You can earn money through blogging in the following ways:
- Affiliate Marketing: This is the process of marketing other products on your website, social media, or other forms of your own media. The website owners are paid for the traffic, endorsement, and sales that are traceable or related to your blogging efforts.
- Google AdSense: AdSense utilizes the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) model. Advertisers pay Google for the total clicks generated. The revenue is shared with site owners—the higher the traffic on your site, the more likelihood of higher returns. You’re required to register your site on Google AdSense for ads to be placed on your site.
- Selling Your Own Products: You can tap into the huge traffic generated on your blog to sell educational courses, e-Books, or other products without paying any advertising cost. The conversion rate depends on how such products relate to user search queries.
6. Creating a YouTube Channel
Video is one of the most preferred media forms by consumers and marketers. A fair share of YouTube users has made a fortune making videos in 2019, like nine-year-old Ryan Kaji, who made USD$26 million just by making toy reviews. Jeffree Star followed closely with USD$17 million, while the Rhet and Link channel made USD$17.5 million in the same year.
You can turn any of your passions, hobbies, or full-time jobs into a YouTube channel.
Here’s how to make money on YouTube:
- Affiliate Marketing: Business owners approach channels with huge subscribers and influence on the Internet. Just like blogging, you’re supposed to promote the link to the viewers and subscribers. As the channel owner, you’ll receive a commission for any sales generated.
- Influencer Marketing: In this option, the video, related expenses, and content are produced mainly from the brand. Such businesses intend to leverage on your huge popularity to improve their brand awareness. Influencer marketing requires a structured agreement because the channel owner acts as a brand ambassador. The payment is contract-based and may also include sales commissions.
- YouTube Partner Program: YouTube rewards content creators with part of the revenue generated from adverts and other sources. Some of the sub-programs include ad revenue, premium revenue, channel membership, and merchandise shelf.
Overall, YouTube offers unlimited earning opportunities and exposure to the enormous Internet user population.
7. Freelance Writing
Freelance writing requires a stable Internet connection, a computer, and the ability to generate quality content. If you’re interested in this area, you’ll need writing skills, research skills, typing skills, and copywriting skills. With passion and dedication, these skills can be learned and acquired.
A new writer’s learning curve includes working for content mills and other relatively low-paying clients. You can turn freelance writing into a thriving home-based business by consistently developing skills, networking, and persistent marketing.
Some of the key areas you can acquire clients in and work are:
- Digital Marketing Agencies: Online marketing agencies have numerous clients with varying content writing needs. You can create blog posts, landing page copy, social media posts, or develop content for link-building purposes.
- Websites: Website owners require freelance writers to develop content for affiliate marketing, internal sales process, and higher rankings in search results. You can try consistently pitching to website owners through email, social media places, or reaching out in offsite platforms.
- Freelance Marketplace: The world has been continuously shifting to the freelance marketplace and the process of outsourcing certain business aspects. The need made it possible to have sites like Upwork, Fiverr, Legit, and People Per Hour. Such sites aren’t limited to freelance writers only; they are equally open to other professionals and fields.
- Social Media: You can also find writing gigs on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and others. Utilize strategies like including wiring samples on your profile, participating in writing discussions, or utilizing search functions to find available writing gigs.
Conclusion
There are plenty of businesses that you can do from home. You can seek inspiration from your hobbies, passions, existing talents, or successful bloggers and Internet personalities. If Internet connection is an issue, then you could go for other options like opening a cleaning services firm or a pastry shop at home.
You can also utilize Internet-related opportunities like drop shipping, digital marketing, freelance writing, and blogging to make a living or maybe a fortune.
