Self-isolation is the best time to create your presence. You’ve got several weeks or months to perfect your business processes and online presence, which gives you plenty of room for improvement before the actual launch of your business. Additionally, the situation encourages you to make the most of online resources but also to establish cost-effective business processes and structure. The typical costs of a business include real estate, team recruitment, and HR management. Starting at home puts you in an advantageous position, as you can save yourself valuable expenses!
Set Up the Foundations for Your Business
You may not be ready to start operations right now. But, instead, you can make the most of your time at home to boost your business know-how. You’ll find plenty of online materials that teach you more about the challenges of running a business. Besides, you can increase your knowledge about areas that can be useful for your business activities, such as joining the Google Analytics academics for digital marketing or discovering the art of writing compelling content. These are the essential foundations of a successful business.
Additionally, you can also consider building a business that will be ready for the post-lockdown lifestyle, such as joining a franchise and starting making your place. The advantage of a franchised business is that you can get a lot of financial support to launch, which means you are ready to hit the ground running as soon as the lockdown is lifted.
Focus on Virtual Assets
What if you’re ready to operate full-time during the lockdown, but you still lack a location? It is unsafe to rent city offices for the time being. However, you can’t safely share your home address with your customers. Therefore, there’s a simple trick that many freelancers and digital businesses use, which is to create a virtual business office. What does it include? You can get a virtual number which will direct calls to your number of choice, such as your mobile phone or your landline. Additionally, you also should pick a virtual mailbox. Mails can be scanned and stored in a secured storage cloud online. The advantage of virtual assets is that they protect your privacy while providing a professional look and feel.
Do Your Market Research
Staying at home sucks. But you’re not the only one stuck at home. Everyone else is. As a result, you’ve got access to the best market research tool in history. Most people will turn to their favorite search engines to ask for tips, search the best products, or browse the web aimlessly. You can spot new trends on Google trends or even check search volume in tools such as the Keyword Planner in Google AdWords – both free to use with a Google account. Gathering marketing information about your audience can be a difficult task. However, when everyone shares the same space, aka the web, you can obtain valuable data to position your brand.
Create Your Online Presence
How long does it take to build a website? The answer is a handful of minutes if you believe the website development platform, Wix.com. You can create your business site in a few clicks, using the quick questionnaire that does all the hard work for you. If Wix isn’t the right platform for you, Squarespace and WordPress are just as popular among new entrepreneurs.
You can also use the time to claim your business social media accounts. Twitter and LinkedIn are two of the most important platforms for social media presence. Instagram is also making a huge buzz; however, whether you use it will depend on your business and audience.
Spread the Word About Your Business
Is now the best time to start a paid search engine marketing (SEM) campaign? While paid ads that appear on the search result pages can increase visibility, you have to be realistic. A lot of businesses are trying to boost sales through SEM during the lockdown. Your ads are unlikely to get noticed. However, you can focus your efforts on platforms where people spend a lot of time. YouTube is one of those lockdown friendly platforms that share tips, online workouts, recipes, and entertainment. As such, starting a YouTube channel to reach out to your audience is an excellent idea. You can use it to vlog about your business idea and share your expertise.
In conclusion, building a business when you’re self-isolating is not an impossible dream. Whether you choose to start operating inline during the lockdown or to prepare the foundations of your business for the post-pandemic revival, it’s up to you. The bottom line is that you can make the most of your time at home to build a successful business without breaking the bank. It’s an opportunity you may not get again. So if you’ve been dreaming of scaling your side hustle up, now’s your chance.
