5 Tips for Starting a Successful Side Hustle

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Do you know that starting a successful side hustle is not rocket science? Although there are many variables at play but what matters the most is the entrepreneurial spirit in you to succeed. Obviously, there are challenges and obstacles which you’ll face if you’re holding down a full-time day job and running a side hustle business concurrently; but the benefits that will accrue to you in terms of time and financial freedom are immeasurable in the long run.

 

I’m going to walk you through my top 5 tips and secrets which you’ve to consider if you hope to start a side hustle business and earn money online. You’ve to treat these points as sacrosanct if your goal is to solve problems and pain points in the marketplace while making money online as an entrepreneur.

 

Tip #1: Be an Expert on Something

 

Without mincing words, I want you to know that majority of people always want to identify with an expert to lead them on a topic they are interested in. Are you in personal development or personal finance niches? Then become a go-to expert in your niche and you’ll have followers, fans base or list members who will be interested in what you are doing.

 

The only time any group of people may remotely identify with a novice or newbie on any topic is when he is doing a case study that will benefit his followers as well. In this case, his followers may want to see the outcome of starting a business or anything similar and possibly learn from it.

 

Personally, I love business case studies because it teaches a lot about what to do and what not to succeed. My first major task before pursuing any specific niche market is to always work on my expertise status. I’ll immerse myself on the subject matter by reading books, taking online courses or enrolling in coaching programs related to my field.

 

The idea is to learn, know enough and be able to demonstrate reasonable knowledge on a topic above mediocrity which will invariably help me to shine as a thought leader who people will be willing to follow.

 

As soon as you conduct market research on your target topic to confirm the feasibility of your side hustle idea, your next step should be on how to become an expert on the topic which you’re interested in. The easiest way to get started is to create a blog around a niche and start publishing content for your target audience to engage with while digging deep by constant reading and learning.

 

By engaging with your blog readers, you’ll be able to draw patterns and conclusions from your interactions with them and their responses. And from the comments and questions they will be asking, you can gauge their expectations therefrom. It will also help you to know what topic ideas to focus on when writing blog posts. This will give you a sense of direction.

 

Tip #2: Build an Audience

 

Your target audience is the set of people who are continually interested in your topic and are willing to engage with you through your publications. If you don’t have a raving audience to bank on, it means you don’t have reliable and profitable niche market to start a side hustle business in the first place. Or you’ve not built an expert status strong enough to grab people’s attention in your target niche market.

 

Like I mentioned earlier, the best ways to build an audience around a topic is to start a blog and build an email list of subscribers. If you can get 100 subscribers on your list, you can be confident that you’ll be able to scale up over time. You cannot be an expert or authority on a subject without followers to toot your horn. This is why you cannot underrate this point if you’re striving to start a successful side hustle business.

 

Tip #3: Be Generous with Content

 

Starting a side hustle is mainly about solving pain points in the marketplace by providing solutions as applicable. There are many ways to use content in this regard. You can create videos, write ebooks, publish high-quality blog posts on a subject, and so on.

 

If you’re a side hustler, what is important to you is to make a compelling first impression before your readers cum solution seekers as the go-to guy or gal in your field. You may not be the very best but you’ve to be among the best in the target niche market. By being generous with superior and unique content, you can draw in your prospects and leads into your sales funnel and then take it up from there.

 

For example, if you’ve a premium side hustle guide on how to make money online, you can create a free ebook on this topic and give it away to your readers to download. In the free PDF ebook, you’ll have the best opportunity to include links to the landing page of a premium course you want to promote and sell to your target market.

 

As a matter of fact, there is nothing complicated about starting a successful side hustle if you’re an expert on a subject and you’re able to create content consistently to wow your readers, solve their pain points and also build credibility and trust with them.

 

You’re aware that people buy from who they know, like and trust. The only way for you to quickly achieve this goal is to engage with your audience through content as a proof of your worth on the subject matter before selling any product or service to them.

 

For a lot of niche markets, I’ve been able to neatly repackage pieces of content which I’ve already published online on a topic for free, add more value and then sell it for tidy sum of money. What I did was to add new content, subtopics and repackage it for its money’s worth.

 

Your prospects don’t really care about repackaged free content being sold to them if what you’re selling will solve their problems in one place instead of dissipating valuable time gleaning pieces of information here and there on the internet. Gone are the days when you can deceive your readers with incomplete information and coercing them to click a link to learn more.

 

Tip #4: Own an Online Platform

 

While it’s good to use Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, to create online presence using a combination of SEO (search engine optimization) and social media marketing tactics, owning an online platform such as building a website or creating a blog is better. It will help you in personal branding drive as well as building credibility and trust with your target audience over time.

 

The smartest thing you can do is to create YouTube channel, post or publish content on LinkedIn or create a Facebook page and use these media to funnel targeted traffic to your blog for lead nurturing. This way, you’ll be able to control what happens in your business and not be at the mercy of third-party algorithms.

 

But you’ve to understand that creating an online platform of your own will involve time and money investments. Also, you’ve to develop digital skills to manage your website effectively. Otherwise, you’ll be spending lots of money to hire freelancers by outsourcing tasks which you cannot execute.

 

Tip #5: Create a System for Consistent Online Marketing

 

If you want to be top of mind to your target customers or clients, you’ve to integrate a system that will allow you to consistently promote your brand, product or service to your target audience through online marketing.

 

You can achieve this feat by using two-pronged strategies of blogging and content marketing.

 

You can also take it a step further by integrating automation tools such as email marketing software that will help you to build a list of highly targeted leads and customers. If you’ve been online for any length of time, you’ll agree with me that the World Wide Web is a marketplace of survival of the fittest.

 

And the only way you can really survive as an online business owner or entrepreneur is by being ahead of the crowd in thought leadership, digital marketing strategies, content marketing and email marketing.

 

Do you want to start a successful side hustle with ease and make money online. You can download my side hustle playbook for free to discover strategies, tactics, methods, secrets and tips to build an email list of subscribers, start a blog and make money. It’s a complete lowdown of what it takes to quit your day job, start a side hustle business and achieve financial freedom in record time.   

Ultimate Guide to Start a Successful Email Marketing for Beginners

As a beginner, did you know that you can start a successful email marketing campaign from scratch and use it to grow your online business profitably and successfully in a matter of months? In this blog post, I’ll share some hard-to-find nuggets, tips, secrets, tricks and hacks to build an email list of subscribers from scratch so that you can make money online.

 

One of the best ways to generate targeted traffic to your website, landing page, lead magnet page, etc, is by having and following an email marketing strategy. And it has many advantages which we’ll look at shortly.

 

As you may already know, successful online marketing greatly revolves round building relationships with your target audience and constantly nurturing that relationship for mutual benefits.

 

As it were, online shoppers hardly purchase products or services from strangers and/or websites they don’t trust. This is why as an online business owner, blogger, webmaster, merchant, etc, you must find a way to integrate email marketing system as part of your major digital marketing channels.

 

The question is, “Why do you have to start an email marketing campaign in the first place?”

 

First, let’s get down to the basics or fundamentals of email marketing so that you’ve a good handle of it.

 

What is Email Marketing?

 

Simply put, email marketing is a system of regularly sending informative, educative, entertaining, and marketing messages and content to a group of people otherwise known as your list of subscribers using software provided by an ESP (email service provider) such as GetResponse autoresponder.   

 

From time to time, available statistics have adjudged email marketing as the leading and most cost effective digital marketing channel which any internet marketer can adopt in order to continuously attract targeted prospects and leads as well as getting more clients.

 

With foolproof email marketing system, you can achieve a number of business goals such as creating strong brand awareness, nurturing your leads, selling more of your digital products and services, getting more clients who know, like and trust you without breaking the bank.

 

As a matter of fact, an average email marketing ROI (return on investment) is around $36 for every $1 spent. This goes to explain why majority of successful online business owners focus more on list building than anything else.

 

As an email marketer, you’ve to sign up for reliable email marketing software in order to seamlessly pursue this goal to its logical conclusion. As an entrepreneur, it’s a good investment if you want to constantly reach out to your target audience and possibly improve sales and profits of your internet business.

 

The truth of the matter is that it takes up to 7 times to expose a specific product or service to a potential buyer before he may decides to make a purchase. What happens if there is no way or system for you to capture the email address of this hot lead for further and future communications? 

 

This means you’ll continually lose majority of your potential buyers who are not ready and able to make a purchase, sign up for your email newsletter, click a link or take action which you wish on their first visit to your website or landing page.

 

To this end, it’s very important you pay close attention to this email marketing for beginners guide and start implementing immediately the ideas shared so that you can get visible results as soon as possible.

 

Benefits of Email Marketing

 

I guess you’ll not underrate email marketing when you understand the reason why i.e. what’s in it for you. So, let’s quickly go through some of the advantages of email marketing.

 

1. It will help you to create and increase your brand awareness and identity in the marketplace.
2. It will help you to get more targeted traffic to your blog, website, sales page or specific web pages.
3. You’ll be able to get targeted prospects, leads and customers which will ultimately drive more sales and revenue.
4. You’ll have the golden opportunity to nurture and retain your customers by continually engaging them with high-impact content.
5. You’ll be able to gain customers insights through data analytics.
6. Email marketing saves you time and efforts in performing repetitive tasks in your online business.
7. It’s cost effective and affordable when you compare it to other digital marketing channels.
8. Emails can easily be distributed to the recipients who have signed up for your email newsletter.
9. You can personalize email marketing which increases open rate.
10. High ROI of about $36 for every $1 spent.
11. Ability to build trust and credibility with your potential buyers.
12. Etc.

 

Although there are pros and cons of email marketing, the advantages outweighs the disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that it is a monthly subscription which can easily add up if you’re not productive and effective with your campaigns.

 

Now that you know the pros of email marketing, let’s discuss the tools and resources you need to set up any campaign of your choice.

 

Tools and Resources to Set Up a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

 

This is the right time to invest money, time and energy to create the infrastructure for your email marketing strategy. You cannot wing it at this level because your potential subscribers need to be convinced upfront that you’ve something valuable to offer them in exchange for their email addresses.

 

These online business tools to set up an email marketing campaign include:

 

• Domain name,
• Web hosting services,
• Email marketing software,
• Valuable lead magnet,
• Email messages for your autoresponder series, and
• Squeeze page with opt-in form.  

 

Before you get started, you’ve to choose a niche market to focus on. Niche market selection will be informed based on your interest, passion, hobby or experience in a specific topic. An email marketer may choose personal finance while another may go for cyber security. It’s either you “follow your passion” or “follow the money.”

 

With that said, let me explain each of these online marketing tools and how to sign up for them.

 

Domain Name

 

A domain name is a unique address to identify your website or blog. For instance, HustleVim.com is a domain name that can be used for a blog website which will chronicle and discuss side hustle ideas. It costs about $10 (Ten Dollars) to register and/or renew a domain name per year.

 

There are lots of domain registrars on the World Wide Web where you can get cheap domain registration. But Namecheap.com is a good place to get a domain name for your internet business. Click here to go to Namecheap and register adomain name.   

 

Web Hosting Services

 

If you buy a domain name, you absolutely need a reliable website hosting company to host your website domain. Although web hosting services companies usually offer domain name registration service as well, I like to separate my web host from my domain registrar.

 

Why I use Namecheap for domain name registration, I use HostGator.com to host majority of my blogs. HostGator also offer free domain name for first time customer if you follow this link to sign up for their website hosting services.

 

You can go for the Baby Plan which will allow you to host unlimited domain names on the same account. This is the best, reliable and cheap web hosting service I can recommend for you to start an online business right away.

 

Email Marketing Software

 

In order to make your email marketing automation easy and seamless, you’ve to get reliable ESP (email service provider) which will supply you with the platform to manage every email campaign you intend to embark on.

 

There are avalanche of ESPs out there but you can sign up with GetResponse email marketing software because they are cheap, reliable and beginner friendly. GetResponse.com has 30-day free trial which you can take advantage of to test the waters and get a good handle of how email marketing works.

 

Valuable Lead Magnet

 

Email marketing is all about the common saying that if you rub my back, I’ll rub yours too. For any lead or prospect to give you his email address for future communications which will obviously include promotional messages, you’ve to offer something valuable for free to download.

 

This could include free PDF ebook, video, infographic, podcast, audio, audio book, webinar, app, software, and so on. The idea is to ethically bribe your lead so that he can willingly exchange his email ID with the product or service you’re offering as a giveaway.

 

For instance, I may decide to write an ebook on how to start a side hustle business successfully and give it away for free to my blog readers. All I’ve to do is to set up an email newsletter using GetResponse autoresponder to manage my email marketing campaign. And voila, I’ll start building an email list of subscribers through promotion.

 

Series of Email Messages for Autoresponder Delivery

 

Having a lead magnet to give out to your subscribers is not just enough. You’ve to take further steps to create series of email content which you can upload into your autoresponder for a specific campaign at a defined frequency.

 

The first of these series will be the welcome email which is usually set as day zero (Day 0). This is to ensure that the email marketing software delivers the welcome email with link to download the lead magnet immediately it is sent to the new subscriber as he completes the sign up form.

 

Landing Page with Opt-in Form

 

Email service providers like GetResponse usually provide email marketing templates with sign up forms to set up your lead magnet page. Even if you don’t know how to code as a newbie, there are email marketing templates which you can choose from and integrate to your website.

 

Majority of ESPs now integrate their email marketing software with WordPress blog platform which makes it easier to set up at any level of your experience if you’re using self-hosted WordPress blog platform.

 

How to Become a Successful Email Marketer

 

To be frank with you, not all email marketers are successful on the internet. For you to become a successful email marketer you must take note of the following points.

 

• Set customer-focused goals and fervently pursue them with your email marketing campaigns.
• Demonstrate high level of expertise in your target niche topic or field. This means you’ve to study, learn and master your niche inside out.
• Be timely with valuable content. For instance, I signed up for about three email newsletters of some highly successful bloggers in the online marketing space. Lately, I’ve been receiving information from them regarding ChatGPT and AI writing tools because that is what is raging now. You must be in the vanguard of trending news in your industry as an email marketing guru.
• Build trust, credibility and bond with your target audience by sending high quality content and occasional promotional messages.
• Where possible and necessary, show income and social proofs or testimonials for whatever you’re promoting. You can do case study and send out to your subscribers.
• In order to not irk your subscribers, you’ve to make sure you segment your list as soon as you can after getting started with your email marketing campaign.
• Perform split or A/B testing of headlines, pre-header text, html versus plain text email, etc with your email messages.

 

Elements of a Good Landing Page

 

There are basic elements which you’ve to consider when designing your lead magnet page. Let’s look at some of the essential ones.

 

1. Create eye-catching headline and sub headline.
2. Make sure that your subscription form is designed and placed above the fold.
3. Create valuable lead magnet.
4. Make bullet points of features which can be translated to benefits for your subscribers.
5. Integrate an image of the free incentive with alt-text on the sign-up page.
6. Include social proof or real testimonial if available.
7. Include privacy policy at the sign up box area or footer of the page clearly stating that you don’t rent or sell email contacts of your list members.

 

Steps to Start a Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

 

The following steps outline the best email marketing strategy you should consider for your campaign.

 

1. Choose a niche market and topic to focus on.
2. Build your website or create a blog.
3. Create your lead magnet page where you can integrate the opt-in box.
4. Create your lead magnet to give away for free.
5. Sign up for email marketing platform so that you can access and create subscription form.
6. Upload your free incentive and set up download page on your web server.
7. Promote your landing page.

 

How to Promote Your Landing Page

 

In case you don’t know, nobody will find your website or landing page and sign up for your mailing list if you don’t go out there to promote it. Internet marketing can be so competitive to the extent of discouraging the faint-hearted from going further and becoming successful.

 

What you can do is to learn, hone and master each of these digital marketing methods one at a time.

 

• Blogging
• Guest posting
• Niche forum marketing and online communities
• SEO (search engine optimization)
• Free ebook distribution
• Paid advertising such as pay per click (PPC), banner adverts, etc
• Making use of email signature
• Publishing on social media
• Etc

 

In my second part of this guide on email marketing for beginners, I’ll delve into the specifics which you’ve to look out for such as email marketing mistakes to avoid, terminologies and glossary, email segmentation and personalization, just to mention a few.