Scaling a home-based business takes time and effort, but once you get it right, you can finally have the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of. Successful home businesses tend to go a long way and are often very appealing to customers, generating incredible loyalty. How can you scale a home-based business so that it really starts to make you lots of money? Here’s our advice.
Optimise your digital curb appeal
You’ll want to start by optimising your digital curb appeal. Selling products online requires a lot of local and regional visibility to get the volume you need to transform your income.
- Start with a Google Business Profile. This is the most critical element of any business looking for more visibility. Make sure that you show up on Google Maps and add a business address so that people know where to find you.
- Go to an agency and hire them to include more keywords related to your city or neighbourhood. Ensure that you’re targeting the searches that people use on Google Maps and Google search so that you capture the right type of attention for your business.
- Research intent-heavy keywords that your prospective customers are likely to type in when they’re looking for products and services like those you offer.
Use edu-marketing
Another way to make your business scale faster is to use so-called educational marketing. The idea here is to become more than just a vendor trying to flog products and services. Instead, you’re introducing your audience to the problems they don’t even know they have and then telling them how you can solve them in a way that benefits their life.
You can also use another approach: showing the how and why behind what you do. For example, let’s say that you have a craft like woodworking and you sell specific items, perhaps chairs you’ve made at home. You can explain why your chairs are superior to mainstream chairs on the market, perhaps because they’re more durable or they’re made of better material that would last longer.
People love this sort of behind-the-scenes content because it creates a real connection between them and your brand. You’re not just another vendor on the internet trying to out-compete competitors. You have a personality and a story behind you that generates a lot of buy-in.
Leverage local social media
If you’re not already doing it, you should also leverage local social media as a small home-based lifestyle business. You’re mainly focusing on the people who live close by and are immediately around you.
The best way to start is by joining local Facebook groups or Nextdoor. Instead of posting ads, provide people with free advice and link to your website or products occasionally. If someone asks for a recommendation, you can share what you offer and provide guidance.
If you don’t want to monitor all of these groups manually, you can use social listening tools. They highlight opportunities for you to insert quasi-marketing messages.
Another approach is to tag your city and local landmarks in your posts so they appear in local discovery feeds. This connects your products and services to a specific area, allowing you to bypass conventional marketing restrictions. As long as you’re adding value, most platforms will accept this type of practice.
Use services that scale your outreach
While you’re trying to scale a home-based business, ensure that you’re leveraging the right type of software for things like email and text message marketing. The last thing you want is to have to send people messages manually, as this can be extremely time-consuming.
These days you don’t even have to write much of the marketing content yourself, while it’s still a good idea to edit it and ensure that it aligns with your brand voice. You don’t need to spend hours typing away at a computer. Essentially that’s a waste of time. You can also use templates to convey marketing messages more effectively. Many software platforms provide you with an outline of the optimal approach and then you can use A/B testing to see which versions of your messages work best for conversions or other metrics that matter to you.
Build a referral engine
If you haven’t done so already, it’s a good idea to build yourself a referral engine. Word of mouth is the lifeblood of many small home-based lifestyle businesses. So if you have people talking to each other and recommending you, then this is one of the best ways to drum up revenue.
For example, many lifestyle companies offer a discount to the person referring you as well as the person being referred. This rewards both people for the interaction and encourages more sign-ups. Simply rewarding the referrer often isn’t the best option because the person being referred doesn’t know much about you other than somebody recommending you. Another thing you can do is ask people to make referrals after sending them an invoice. You can actually include the referral request on the invoice itself if you want to. Research shows that it can increase referrals by up to twenty percent and it’s so simple to do.
Form non-competitive partnerships
Another approach to scaling your home-based business is to form non-competitive partnerships. These are ideal if you are running your business on a shoestring and need support quickly. Other companies often have resources that you can tap into as long as the arrangement is mutually beneficial.
For instance, let’s say you are running a home-based graphic design business and one of your clients is a florist with multiple locations. You could advertise your design services on their packaging, introducing your name and concept to other business owners who might want to buy flowers
Another option is to perform a cross-promotion. Here, you feature your partner in your newsletter, and they return the favour. Something small like this can allow you to both tap into new audiences and expand your reach.
So there you have it, some of the ways you can scale your home-based business, even if it feels impossible. All it usually requires is some persistence.