Solopreneur in Marketing: How to Thrive at Your Best
Written by: Hrishikesh Pardeshi, Founder at Flexiple, buildd & Remote Tools.
Last updated: Sep 03, 2024
Today’s generation strives to be self-dependent in every aspect, and which extends to their work-life as well.
Many individuals are now breaking the cycle of 9-5 jobs and have diverted towards building a business of their own by becoming solopreneurs.
While you can reap the numerous benefits that come with being a solopreneur, you also need to face the challenges head-on to succeed.
I’ve got some amazing insights on thriving as a solopreneur, but first, let’s find out how exactly a solopreneur is different from an entrepreneur.
What is the difference between a solopreneur and an entrepreneur?
As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for overlooking the overall progress of the business and hiring people to handle different aspects of the business process.
On the other hand, a solopreneur is someone that handles every process of their business on their own. A solopreneur wears many hats - CEO, content creator, marketer, sales manager, and more!
In fact, do you know that there are 57.3 million freelancers in the US alone? Yes, you read that right!
It comes as no surprise that millennials are the ones that are leaning more and more towards becoming solopreneurs and starting their own small businesses.
Now, if you are already a solopreneur, how can you scale your business without experiencing burnout? Fret not! In this article, I have shared how you, as a solopreneur, can thrive in marketing just by implementing some simple strategies.
Marketing tips and strategies for succeeding as a solopreneur
No one said that being a solopreneur would be easy. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t modify your strategies and work towards achieving your goal.
The tips and strategies mentioned below can help every established or aspiring solopreneur to thrive in their industry and create a market for their product/service.
1. Focus on building a brand
Yes, selling is a crucial aspect of the business process, but so is creating a solid brand presence.
Why do you think people keep upgrading to newer and advanced versions of Apple mobile phones? It’s the trust they have in that brand that influences their buying choices.
Likewise, when you have a strong brand presence, your product will sell itself.
To achieve that, you need to engage with your target audience on multiple social media platforms, create content that speaks to your audience and drives conversations.
Eventually, it all comes down to how much you can personalize your brand awareness strategy. Therefore, it needs to be specific and value-driven.
These minor changes in your strategies will compile and lead to better success.
2. Pick the right tools for executing marketing strategies
Since you’re the only one handling everything, you’ll need to rely on various tools that can help you get a kickstart on your strategy.
For instance, if you are working on multiple projects that have different deadlines and milestones, it would become difficult to manage them manually.
In such a scenario, you can simply get a project management tool that can help you streamline all your projects so you can keep track of each one.
If you want to find options for project management, communication, and scheduling platforms, you can find them on Remote Tools.
3. Work on building your email subscribers list
Did you know that 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers?
Yes! Email marketing really does make a difference. And when you are a solopreneur, it matters even more!
So, in order to have an extensive email subscriber list, you can start by offering some free resources such as eBooks, free PowerPoint templates, free trials, etc. Moreover, you can also arrange giveaways to attract a large audience.
Once you have sufficient subscribers, you can start sending outreach emails that are hyper-personalized and relevant to their needs. This practice will attract more and more people to your business.
4. Have a website; it’s non-negotiable!
Yes, you can rely on various platforms to engage with your potential customers, but that doesn’t change the fact that you still need a well-framed website for your business.
With high-quality content and consistent efforts, your website can rank higher on Google, making it easier for people to find your business. In fact, the layout of the website and its content are also the main deciding factors - 38% of people would stop engaging with the website if the layout or content is unattractive.
Therefore, you need to ensure that your website is easy to access, provides value to the visitors, and markets your product/service.
5. Create visual and engaging content
Although content still remains the king, content in visual form is even more effective!
If you are short on time and you have two options - read two long paragraphs that contain important statistics OR just take a glance at the graph with the same information. Of course, you’ll prefer to check the graph.
Likewise, customers also want easily accessible content that is appealing to the eyes and provides helpful information.
The above survey clearly indicates that the majority of users prefer video content, making it an important marketing strategy for every solopreneur.
For example, if you want to target top of the funnel traffic, you can prepare and translate video content that offers tips and tricks, tutorials, or resources and add it to your website. When your visual content is engaging on your website and social media, more people are likely to check out your product/service.
6. Be your own competition but keep an eye on others
While it’s helpful to consider yourself as your biggest competitor, it’s also essential to keep a lookout for what other competitors are doing.
There’s a possibility that your competitor has already launched some features that you’re currently planning to launch. So, if you’re not aware of that update, you’ll go on and launch the same feature a few weeks later, not realizing it’s similar to your competitor’s.
You can avoid such issues by keeping an eye on your competitors. Also, you can take some actions to make your product stand out from others.
7. Leverage automation for increasing productivity
As much as we want to do everything, every human has their limit.
And the sole purpose of being a solopreneur is to grow your business without experiencing burnout. This can only happen if you use automation in your business process.
The below graph shows how important automation is for not only lead generation and increase in revenue but also in saving 30% of your time that you can focus on actual selling!
With automation, you no longer need to perform manual tasks; you can just set up the automation, and it will look after your requirements.
You can automate your email marketing by setting up sequences of emails, collecting customer data right from your website, tracking your goals and forecasting sales with actionable sales insights.
Moreover, you can also schedule your social media posts beforehand using scheduler tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, TweetDeck, etc.
8. Don’t neglect the accounting part
While you’re growing your business, you need to make sure that you look after your accounting entries as well.
It’s quite common to miss out on a few accounting entries when we’re entering them manually. Maybe you were focused on some important project and completely forgot to write down an important expense.
So, when you’re adding expenses, you won’t remember that one.
At a small scale, this is negligible; however, for a growing business, it’s important to have sorted accounting and finance management.
This is where accounting tools such as FreshBooks can help you keep your accounting entries up-to-date, manage invoices and eliminate errors.
Final thoughts
With the right approach, you can easily succeed and grow your business! Becoming a solopreneur could be challenging, but you have a plethora of tools at your disposal that you can utilize to build a brand.
So, what are you waiting for? Take charge and lead the way as a solopreneur by implementing different marketing strategies to grow your business and build lasting customer relationships.
Author Bio
Narayani Pandya is an enthusiastic digital marketing professional, having work experience in sales and customer experience in the past. She enjoys having a cup of tea and walking on the grass when not working.