5 Free Ways to Advertise Your Side Job

You need to promote your side hustle, whether you would like to:

• Make money from your passion
• Turn your side project into a full-time source of income
• Create a recent source of income that will not take up all of your time

The problem is, you don’t have a lot of time or money to invest in marketing your side hustle. So what are you able to do to achieve your goals? There are a lot of free ways to market your side hustle that don’t take up a lot of time. Here are five of my favorites.

1. Explain your website

You need a place where people can go to learn about what you do. If you already have a website, you don’t need to spend anything more. If you don’t have a website yet, many website builders, from WordPress to Wix to GoDaddy and others, have a free version to enable you get began.

The biggest problem I see with side hustles, small businesses, and startups struggling to scale is this: No one understands what you do. Sometimes it’s because you’ll be able to’t put it into words, and sometimes it’s because you’re using fancy language to explain it. Remember: confused people don’t buy.

Now that you just know exactly what you do and who you do it for, explain your site’s content by:

• Removing all buzzwords and industry jargon
• Talking to customers about what you do, asking them to explain it, and then using their words on your website (they all the time simplify things)
• Specifically stating that you just provide XYZ product or service to ABC type people
• Add a price list to your website or at least give users an expected price range
• Showing screenshots, videos or diagrams of your work; people want to see that before they commit

2. Be energetic on social media

You need to be where your customers are, and your customers—whoever they are—spend time on social media. But you don’t need to be on every platform. Choose the platform where your audience spends the most time and follow these three steps:

• Post often, if not every day (ideas below)
• Comment on other people’s content, especially if it’s relevant to what you do, and generally be an engaged member of the platform
• Share your content with friends, clients and other contacts and ask them to interact with it

This will enable you build an audience and attract potential customers to your site who, now that you just’ve explained your site, will want to work with you. You also don’t have to be super skilled with your content, at least not at first.

To start, gather the questions you get from clients and other people you talk to. Each of those questions should create at least one opportunity to post on social media where you’ll be able to answer the query. Also, make sure you’re creating posts about exactly what you do, who you do it for, and why people should work with you. Third, create “how-to” or real-life posts that show how people can solve their problems (with your help) and what it’s really like to work with you.

Should you create this content as short videos, long videos, short text posts, long text posts, photos or some combination is up to you. Do what is easiest. All good things take time to build, but this is free marketing that works.

3. Direct contact with people

I get it. Sales may be scary. But you are building a business, and you’ll be able to’t expect people to want to work with you if you do not ask them to. You need to start as many conversations as possible with your ideal clients.

Conversations don’t necessarily have to start with a sales pitch. We’re talking about marketing, and this is more about creating a presence in the market. But start conversations, get to know people, ask them about their jobs, interests, problems, or anything that is relevant to the product or service you are offering. Build relationships. Then, if appropriate, ask them to buy.

More people will say no than yes. No problem. Keep going. Not only will you ultimately develop into a go-to option and make a lot of sales, but you’ll also learn more about your market and how to best serve it than you possibly can ever imagine. Even starting five conversations a day can exponentially catapult your side hustle into a real business.

4. Focus on reviews, early and often

Online reviews dictate whether people trust you, whether or not they’ll find you when they search online, and whether or not they’ll actually pay you. Once customers have a good experience, start asking for and getting reviews. In most cases, Google is the best place to get reviews. To do this:

• Create a Google My Business page
• Get a link to your review (view your profile, click “Get more reviews” and copy the link)
• Send an email or text message to every customer asking them to leave a review
• Reply to every review
• Take motion on any critical feedback (improve your offering or processes)
• Reuse these reviews as social media content and as social proof on your website

The more reviews you get, the more returns you will see, and it won’t be long before it starts to have a significant impact on your side business.

5. Blog and develop into good at Search Engine Optimization (SE)

Yes, online reviews will enable you rank in search results, but you furthermore may need to actively build your site’s authority. The more high-quality pages you add to your site that are related to your essential topic, the more likely you are to show up in search results—each for specific product searches and general questions about your topic.

If you are recent blogging for website positioningfirst you have to understand how does search engine optimization workThen you’ll be able to take the content you create for social media (as in #2 above) and turn it into blog posts.

One approach that works for others is to post on social media every business day and compile these five pieces of social media content into one blog post. For example, let’s say your side hustle is consulting with small businesses or local businesses on how to improve their marketing. You could discuss one marketing problem that local businesses face on social media each day, and then create a blog post about five marketing problems that local businesses face and how to solve them. This way, you’re creating one recent and precious blog post each week using content that you just’ve already created for social media. It’s free and doesn’t take up much of your time.

How must you approach these free marketing tactics?

Each of the free marketing tactics shared in this post is something you need to be doing, but you don’t have to start doing all of them at once. You have to walk before you’ll be able to run, so do them one at a time.

For example, you’ll be able to first explain your website because that may be a one-time thing that sets you up for success. Then start asking customers for Google reviews and just make that a part of your standard process. Then determine to either start blogging or be energetic on social media, do that every day for the next 30 days, and then you definately can add starting those conversations with customers.

Whatever you do, just make sure you’re taking one step forward. To turn your dream into income, you have to take that step.