Opportunities to Impress a Fresh Public (During a Pandemic)
You set up your home-based business a few months, perhaps a year, ago. You designed initial marketing campaigns for the launch. Maybe enjoyed initial success and reaped its financial rewards. Life was good.
And then it all dried up.
This is the story of hundreds of thousands of struggling businesses during the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, you might have encountered difficulties long before this dreadful virus ended life as we know it.
Lockdowns and social distancing represent economic nightmares that can be so frightening, they can even force us and our governments to weigh up the pros and cons of avoiding exposure to a proven deadly virus. With second waves a fact and the world not knowing what the next few weeks, months, and even years bring, new and existing businesses are having to use every trick in the book to stay afloat.
But don’t give up yet. There are ways to survive in the home business sector without depending on subsidies. None of them are guaranteed, but all of them are potential lifelines.
1. Expand Your Services
In the past months, we have seen the results of turning one’s back on clearly-outlined business limitations. Social distancing forces small, family-owned restaurants to challenge fast food moguls by venturing into the takeout sector — something they never had to do before.
Festival organizers and concert hall managers, left with empty fields and seats, arrange concerts in candlelight for social media streams and virtual dance fests.
Former business advice has been turned on its head. While before we were told not to expand too quickly, increasing your business’ range of services as soon as possible has become a necessity.
Let’s look at a few scenarios.
If you have a home-based writing business, offering translation, editing, or copywriting services, for example, it’s time to go global. If you write for a niche market, expanding your area of expertise could bring in new clients. If you are uncomfortable writing about machinery, perhaps it’s time to learn about the nuts and bolts of cranes and engines.
If this isn’t an option, using a freelance platform with writers from areas where the basic minimum wage is much lower than that of your country is. Even if their English usage isn’t great, their broader knowledge could be of vital importance. All you need to do is edit their work.
Teachers and lecturers and anyone with niche knowledge might think the best step is to expand their client base to social media, perhaps starting up a YouTube channel.
No.
Virtual teaching must compete with the vast number of free learning opportunities.
Instead, advertise on more traditional channels (more about this later) that are less likely to offer something for free — think newspapers and the services section of online classified advertisements. Digital teaching is a no-brainer with social distancing laws, but finding paying clients to tutor on social media isn’t so simple.
In short, it is time to think far outside of the box that envelops your current business core. Research similar businesses and consider markets further from home. Right now, expansion is good, and its research, at least, costs nothing.
2. Advertise on TV
What?!
According to The Hollywood Reporter, a 30-second commercial during the 2020 Super Bowl cost $5.6 million.
And this is the kind of information that causes most small to medium business owners to balk (laugh) at the idea of advertising on TV.
However, thanks to Google and Facebook, ad revenue for digital media has overtaken that of TV commercials. And TV commercial fees are dropping — rapidly.
Local TV channels or TV stations abroad mean even relatively small home-based businesses can appear on a TV screen. And you don’t need a lot of equipment, either. A good idea, a voice-over artist, someone who knows how to edit high-definition smartphone footage, and it’s done.
And with the world in lockdown…a lot more people are sitting together to watch TV than usual. JP Morgan calls these the “newly captivated at-home audiences”.
Before you quickly pass on to the next survival tip, don’t push this one to the back of the queue. If you’ve ever watched TV, you know that even the really bad, unprofessional, badly-acted commercials can stick in your head for years.
While most online advertisements are swiped away or put up with to get the free version of a paid service, most of us watch traditional TV ads, especially the short ones. The long ones give you time to go to the cookie cupboard.
3. Buy Website Traffic
Buying website traffic is not cheating, it’s business logic.
Any business without its own website cannot survive during a pandemic. Online sales are the equivalent of retail social distancing. You only need to look at your local High Street to see the effects of COVID-19 on physical stores.
So, for the sake of argument, we will surmise that you — a home-based business owner — have a well-designed, up-to-date, and responsive business website.
This is exactly the type of website that can benefit from a huge surge of visitors.
What’s huge? That depends on your budget. For well under $100, you can order visits from 10,000 people. As a low conversion rate is around 0.01%, this could earn you one new client.
However, when you order visits from 10,000 people interested in the type of service you offer and live in countries where you operate, that conversion rate increases.
The Dutch-based etsygeeks has become a trusted name for businesses that want to increase brand awareness and sales through the purchase of large-volume, niche traffic. More visits to a website also increase its search engine ranking.
You can purchase web traffic for iGaming services, for example, if you own an online casino or provide Internet retro-games. Or select the Antiques niche for your online ceramics website. Pick Astrology and Horoscopes for your (future) client base. Or Legal Services for your COVID-related divorce-lawyer business, although you’re probably doing quite well.
The web traffic services linked to this article allow you to choose three niche groups for each order. You can even select an age group and up to three different countries where these real-life visitors reside.
UltimateWebTraffic, another trusted web traffic provider, offers similar services to Web Traffic Geeks. Both manage thousands of their own websites; these attract millions of visitors every day. Not bots, but human visitors.
They then direct the specific audience you indicated in your order to your website. Whether they stay or not is up to you — that is why you need a well-designed, up-to-date, interesting, and informative site.
4. Increase Your Skills Set
We have already talked about expanding the services you offer to your customers, but perhaps it’s time to grow your brain. As you will be very aware of, there’s a lot of competition out there, and a lot of it is free. So why not use the competition to beat the competition?
Working from home means we are likely to work more hours than if we work at the office. At home, we’re constantly surrounded by things to do. You might be able to close your home office door in the evening, but how often have you slipped in to write a quick letter or finish off a ‘small’ task before bed?
A survey from the UK TV channel ITV recently showed that people forced to work from home due to social distancing laws work more hours than they usually would at the office; 21% of them find it hard to switch off work throughout the day.
Know the feeling?
If you are someone who finds it hard to switch off completely but know you need another type of distancing — work-distancing — to remain sane, learning something new can have two positive effects. Firstly, you’re distancing yourself from work. Secondly, you are doing something that can boost your business in the long term.
From web design to learning how to use the latest CAD features, from cooking theory to business studies, and from studying GDPR legislation law to learning the human body’s ins and outs to expand your content writing business, someone’s offering a free course out there.
5. Join an Online Platform
Online platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer have earned a rather negative reputation, which isn’t completely deserved; the percentage they take from your earnings does seem quite high.
However, when you are trying to keep your home-based business afloat, any earnings are welcome.
The reason online work platforms or talent sourcing services get so much negative feedback from freelancers and those that hire them is because so many expect great returns from small investments. Those needing work done want to pay as little as possible for high-end results, while many freelancers want immediate recognition without doing the legwork.
If you advertise as a freelancer on a talent sourcing platform, you need to pay your profile as much attention as you would your CV or website. A full description, your website URL, proof of qualifications and experience, a smiley but professional photo is a must. Knowledge of how the platform works also helps.
Feedback is the key to successful freelancers. And very few people will hire someone with no feedback. To get the first 5 to 10 great reviews that will attract bigger and better-paying clients, you first have to be very, very humble.
Take time to write the perfect introductory letter for each job you apply for (not a cut and paste job) and be prepared to do work for pennies. At least until you earn some of that precious 5-star feedback. Explain that you are a trusted professional but are looking to expand and, for this reason only, are willing to accept low pay. Make sure the jobs you apply for are posted by verified employers — preferably for members who have used the platform before.
It takes time and energy to get your foot in the door. But once you have positive feedback under your name, you have a ready-made global client base. Even minus the platform’s 20% cut, you can earn considerable sums on these sites. The big success stories tend not to shout about their earnings — they are too busy working.
Computer programming, web design, advertising, voice-overs, translation, subtitles, architectural and interior design, teaching English as a foreign language, writing content…talent-sourcing platforms are potential goldmines. All they need is hard work and a lot of patience.
Moving Forward to 2021
We don’t know what 2021 will bring. But it can’t be worse than 2020, can it?
Working from home is something more and more people are getting to grips with, and we home-based business owners can only expect a higher degree of competition as further viral waves (the bad kind) are predicted.
By implementing one, if not all, of these tips, you increase your chances of survival in a tough and competitive environment.
Note that social media advertising, such as starting up your own YouTube channel, isn’t encouraged. Digital channels are heading towards a saturation point, and even if your idea, personality, and incentives attract attention, your service will need to be practically free to keep that attention going. Long-term freebies are great for the customer but not for your business.
Hopefully, this article will quickly become a reminder of the past, rather than a classic work that remains applicable as years go by.
