As the world grows more developed, people now has placed different value at their top priorities. It’s not only hard work and salary that people wants, but also leisure time to have a less stressful lifestyle that may threatens their mental health. People also valued family highly, and want to spend more time with their spouse and children. Traditional office job that requires you to stay in the office nine to five, no matter how light or heavy the workload, often cannot fulfill younger employees’ need and cater to these values. Some corporations have given employees many options to pursue such lifestyle, like flexible hours, but far greater numbers of companies still prefer traditional way.
If you feel like you’re not cut out to that kind of lifestyle, why not start a home business, where you can set up your own work hours, break, even vacation. With home business you don’t have to waste time and energy commuting as well.
There are many kind of home business you can start. But, with internet, there is an industry which is quite profitable: marketing. In internet marketing, you’re helping business owners who want to promote their product or service via internet.
What can you offer for your client?
You can offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) service, content writing, email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, or customized service according to the request of your client.
SEO is any strategy to make a page of your website (or your client’s) to rank high and appear in search engine result when someone entered a keyword related to the page. For example, if you wrote an article about caring a pet, you’ll want the article to appear in the search result, preferably first page, when someone is searching how to take care of a pet. As an internet marketer, it’s your job to find the most popular keyword and apply it in your content.
Content writing is a closely related service to SEO. Your clients will need high quality articles that can give useful and unique information to their readers. High-quality contents make readers want to go back to their website and eventually subscribe. These subscription is what your clients are usually after, because with the right handling, they can turn into sales.
Email marketing is writing an engaging email from your client to their subscribers. The purpose is to offer products or special promotion to the customers, or as simple as to keep contact with future customers. Email marketing is tricky, because there are so many scam and spam circulating around in the internet, and most people are really done with that, and they send email to trash even before opening them. Your skill in writing engaging email is what determines whether your client’s email will end up deleted or lead to purchase.
Social media marketing’s purpose is to drive more visitors to your client’s website or increase traffic. Your job is to create content that is suitable for the platform of social media you choose and interesting so the followers who see it would want to click and end up in your client’s website.
Affiliate marketing is writing content about a certain product, and if a visitor reads it and ends up buying the products through the link you provided in your website, your client will give you commission from the successful sales.
As you can see, all the options don’t require high investment from you. No rent, no inventories, no raw materials. All you need is a computer, an internet connection, and internet marketing skill, which, thankfully, you can learn by yourself, as long as you are committed and prepared to make an effort for it.
How to start getting up and running online marketing business
First and foremost, you have to solidly understand what you’re getting into. It’s true that internet marketing is possible to be self-taught, but make sure you have done your research from several different sources. Learn all hard skills that are needed in internet marketing such as SEO, copywriting, and analyzing metric. Experience is also important to strengthen your soft skill, such as predicting trend and creativity to create interesting content. You can get experience from freelancing yourself for small projects, before going full force running your own online marketing business.
Second, after you get the gist of the business, build a website or a blog. This is the place where your potential client can see the service you offer, see your portfolio and qualification, and contact you to make a deal. Treat this website as your show room, write articles that show your expertise at internet marketing.
Third, promote your business and yourself. Get public to notice your website. One of the ways is to use SEO well, so your website can appear in search engine result when someone is searching for internet marketing service or other related keywords. Another way is to set up social media account in which your target market is likely to use. With interesting content, you can gain significant number of followers, which can convert into website visitors and possible customers. Use your network of family and friends to gain first customers, which usually is the hardest to obtain. Guest on other website or blog to expose yourself to new set of readers.
Fourth, always review your performance weekly and monthly using analytic tools like Google Analytics. See if you’re in the right track or if you need to make some adjustment. Understand what each statistic means and determine the cause of any improvement or decline correctly. Sufficient experience in analyzing statistical performance will help you become expert at planning marketing strategy as well.
Five, keep improving and up to date. Marketing is an industry that changes fast. Ability to adapt fast with change is important, and one of the way to do that is keep yourself improving in every area related to internet marketing. Don’t hesitate to visit your fellow internet marketer’s website, see what the difference between their service and yours is. Conduct casual interview to your clients or former clients to gain insight what a customer really want from you.
Finally, all you need to do is deliver excellent performance with real result. When clients like your service, they will be likely to come back. Keep your clients satisfied and your reputation will follow. You’ll be able to get more clients and expand your business.
Good luck!