Are you off and running, chasing your dreams of becoming a solopreneur? Have you thought about incorporating digital marketing in your business? Statistics suggest that 72% of marketers believe that traditional marketing is no longer sufficient, and Digital Marketing will raise their company revenue by 30%.
Now the question arises: Who are Solo Entrepreneurs?
A solo entrepreneur is someone who chooses to go into business alone and collaborates with others to grow the business without boundaries. Most likely, as a solopreneur, you won’t have employees working under you but you may find creative ways to support different aspects of your business like hiring website builders, virtual assistants, freelance copywriters, or joining an affiliate program, depending on the type of business you own.
If you plan to become a solo entrepreneur and attain financial and creative freedom of entrepreneurship but don’t know where to start, this article will help you out. This write up focuses on digital marketing strategies for solopreneurs as it is the path followed by several businesses with great results. But to see success, you need to be committed and willing to learn.
People are becoming increasingly aware of the role of Digital Marketing and prefer to consume digital content. By 2020, executives forecast that 47% of their revenue will be driven by digital marketing. On top of that, 56% of CEOs reported that improving their digital strategies boost profiles.
So if you want to see business growth as a solo entrepreneur, digital marketing is the route to take.
Digital Marketing for Solopreneurs
Here are some strategies you can apply to grow your small business into something big.
1. Build a Dynamic Website
Websites for business are a given these days. However, trends keep changing, and in order to sustain the fierce competition, you have to embrace them. Ensure that your website is not only showcasing your expertise but providing solutions to potential clients.
It should also offer you with a tool that accumulates data, including sales leads. Moreover, a website that is not mobile responsive will not have many visitors. As per a study, 72% of people want mobile-responsive websites. Check out the latest website trends for 2019 and try to incorporate as many trends as you can.
2. Search Engine Optimization
Building a website with an impressive design and layout is not nearly enough. The chances are that there are thousands of websites in your industry alone. If your website is not optimized for search engines, your site will not come up on the top when your target audience searches for it. As per statistics, the conversion rate for SEO is 14.6%, beating the 1.7% conversion rate for traditional outbound methods by a large margin while nearly 39% of all global e-commerce traffic comes from search.
Also, 61% of marketers cited that improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing concern. Thus, SEO can be a brilliant option for your digital marketing strategy to compete with larger companies by being visible.
3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great marketing strategy that allows you to let others cover the promotion part for you and your brand. That said, it requires you to pay a commission to your affiliate.
If you have enough resources, there is no reason why you should not include affiliate marketing in your business strategy. It’s estimated that affiliate marketing spending will cross $6.82 billion in 2020.
Even if your business is a small scale business or a startup with little or no resources to invest in such marketing strategies, you can still benefit from affiliate marketing.
Search for a company that offers an affiliate program in your industry and promote their products or services on your website. You will get a commission every time your marketing efforts lead to the desired conversion.
Here’s a successful affiliate marketing story, for instance:
Jaseel SK, currently, CPO at FareFirst, first joined Travelpayouts, an affiliate program for travel websites in 2015 right after he completed his time in college.
Prior to that, he tried a few different things, including promoting referral websites, but nothing worked. Joining this program, however, was a game-changer as he was able to make approximately $400 a month by 2015 and the amount jumped to nearly $7,000 by the end of 2016. The best part is that he was able to clear his entire college expenses with that money and become independent. In 2018, his earnings were slightly over 200K USD per year.
4. Social Media Marketing
For this type of marketing to work, you have to first determine your business type. Some companies integrate social media with their business and use it for brand awareness, to keep in touch with their customers and update about breaking news. Others use it to let customers know of their latest products or services.
The statistics reveal how most companies are using social media to scale up their growth.
According to a study, 36.1% of marketers say they have been able to make conversions via social channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. One of the most vital aspects of social media is to use it to strengthen your customer base to achieve repeat sales.
5. Email Marketing
Basically, email marketing is about building a list of customers and potential customers. This list contains the names and emails of people who are interested in your business. No wonder the ROI per $1 spent is $44 in email marketing, the highest ROI among different marketing channels.
As a solo entrepreneur, you should consider integrating email marketing strategy in your business to increase ROI and generate leads. One way is to create personalized campaigns. As per studies, over 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered, personalized campaigns. Creating subject lines that improve click rates is another strategy. For instance, a subject line that features the first name has a 26% higher open rate.
Email marketing also helps you drive traffic back to your website and ensures that the traffic going back to your site is relevant. Also, with effective email marketing campaigns, your business can build brand awareness.
You can also combine your email marketing strategy with the social media marketing strategy to drive results.
Wrap Up
In the modern economy, if you want your business to succeed, you will have to up your digital game.
It’s clear that businesses in the modern economy require digital marketing to step up their game. Customers are present online, and it is where they are likely to prefer that you reach them.
Most importantly, it is online where the buying process begins today.
Many solo entrepreneurs or small business owners think that they don’t have the time or the resources to be competitive online. More often than not, they believe they can only face so many challenges all at once, and they are still wetting their feet in the business world.
But taking things slowly and sticking to traditional forms of advertising, will not move the business forward.
If you really want to see your business prosper (which of course, you do), going digital is the only way in this competitive market. Embrace the latest trends in digital marketing and give a chance for your business to succeed.
Image: Depositphotos.com
This article, “A Guide to Digital Marketing Strategies for Soloprepreneurs” was first published on Small Business Trends