Side hustle’s have become both harder and easier to run in 2022, with drop shipping reducing risk and storage costs, but saturated markets make the hustle tougher. Luckily there are a few tips and tricks available to keep your small business running and mostly importantly growing.
Here’s a look at some tips that you may not already know:
Visibility
Keeping your brand visible online is essential, and the key to visibility to to make sure you’re pushing every channel available. If you run a mens streetwear business and you only market through Facebook, you’ll find your audience will dry up or you’ll soon see that it’s an expensive form of advertising that has no guarantees.
Whether you can afford an agency/ freelancer to help you or not, looking into other channels such as SEO, Google ads and PR can help to grow your business organically. Rather than constantly targeting users on FB with your clothing that they may not need currently, you can completely reverse the process and have users looking for “tracksuits” come to your website. While SEO is most certainly not a quick win, its essential you look into it and start considering the basics so you brand gets some visibility. Consider freelancers and SEO blogs to help you get started.
USP
However big or small, most brands need a unique selling point to survive long term. Whether you’re cheaper, eco-friendly or a premium product you need to remind your potential customers of this and add to or create an “about us” section on your website. Alot of users choose to shop with certain brands due to their philosophies or heritage, so it’s important your brand has an identity.
Balance
As mentioned earlier it’s essential to avoid putting all your eggs in once basket and only advertising on Facebook. While sort term you see a good return, it isn’t always the best way to grow your brand. Identifying influencers to help grow your brand can also help too, but this needs to be done in the right way.
Too often now you see influencers doing effortless brand advertisements, and while that user may have 500k followers, the post will lack engagement and that low visibility means that barely any of those 500k followers will actually see the post.
It’s difficult to find now, but if you have the right product you could send free samples or offer a commission based incentive. If you take anything from this, it’s to avoid paying thousands for influencers just because they’ve got a lot of followers. Instagrams algorithm is designed to promote more so than ever, meaning less users are interacting with the handles they follow.
The most difficult thing about side hustles are finding the time to work on it and making sure it financially viable.