9 Things Solopreneurs Need to Try in 2021

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Solopreneurs have to live by many rules. But, one of the most important rules for success and growth has to do with the ability to innovate. 

For your business to thrive and grow, you have to be able to introduce new methods, products, and ideas that will ultimately propel it forward. 

But, with so many things to try in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, what should solopreneurs focus on? 

To help you answer that question, read on to discover the 9 tactics and strategies solopreneurs should try in 2021 and how they can help you make this your best business year yet. 



1. Start a YouTube Channel

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Over the years, I’ve found that running an online business means continually having to come up with effective and affordable ways to market my products and services. As a solopreneur, you’re likely in the same boat. 

A great way to put your offers in front of your target audience without breaking the bank is by using YouTube. 

This channel has been used by countless other business owners as a cost-effective way to reach a global audience and grow their business. My wife used it successfully in Brazil, and you too can integrate it as part of your marketing strategy to start seeing amazing results in your own business.

Why Use YouTube? 

The main advantage of starting your own YouTube channel is that you can tap into YouTube’s massive horde of traffic. 

  • After Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine.
  • It’s also the third most-visited site in the world (behind Google and Facebook, respectively).
  • There are over 1 billion people that visit the video-sharing site each month
  • Every minute, users upload over a hundred hours of video to the platform. 
  • There’s plenty of tools and software that make creating content for YouTube a breeze such as one of my personal favorites, the Movavi video editor.

If that’s not enough to convince you of the power and potential of this platform, here are a few more benefits that YouTube can offer to your business:

  • YouTube SEO strategy helps you get found on Google
  • Your content on the platform never dies
  • You can grow a global audience with your video content
  • YouTube makes it easy for you to build an email list
  • Your channel audience will promote and buy from you
  • AdSense for video makes it easy for you to monetize your content
  • You can also target your ideal audience with YouTube ads

On your channel, you can grow your audience by sharing video content about your business, products, or services to demonstrate how they fit into your viewers’ lives. 

Some of the most common video content formats solopreneurs use to get more business include video courses, tutorial videos, live videos, event videos, video interviews, and video testimonials.



2. Focus on Analytics

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Solopreneurs have to dive deep into analytics to gain valuable insights on how to improve different aspects of their business. This is definitely something you need to embrace in 2021.

In marketing, everything that happens, and every action that is taken can teach you something that could benefit your business. Through analytics, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t so you know what to avoid, and what to do more of. 

For this, you will need the best analytics tools for your business, including the following:

  • Content analytics tools
  • Usability (UX) analytics tools
  • Customer analytics tools
  • A/B or split testing tools
  • SEO analytics tools
  • Social media analytics tools
  • Product analytics tools, etc.

So, for instance, you might use your social media analytics tools to discover the best posting times when your audience is most likely to be receptive to, and engage with your message.

On your website, you might use UX analytics tools to help you find out which pages have a high bounce rate so you can take steps to improve and optimize them.

Ultimately, these types of tools will help you answer nearly every question you may have about your online assets or the behavior of your customers, leading to improved results from your marketing efforts.



3. Choose an Ad Intelligence Publisher

Right now you may be wondering, “What is ad intelligence, and how can it help me as a solopreneur?”

An ad intelligence solution gives you vital insights into your brand’s advertising activities (as well as those of your competitors), giving you a competitive advantage over other companies in your industry. 

The best-selling products and apps are typically those that advertise with ad intelligence. As a solopreneur, you can use dynamic creative ads to generate bigger and improved conversions. But to find success in this arena requires a merging of science and art. 

It takes lots of work and expertise to know exactly what type of creative ads you need. Online ads are getting shorter, smarter, and faster-paced. They are designed to accommodate the bite-sized way online users consume content…

… and that’s where an ad intelligence publisher comes in. 

Choosing an ad intelligence publisher will benefit you in the following ways: 

  • Competitive Intelligence: Leading ad intelligence publishers will allow you to look over your competitors’ shoulders to see where they are advertising, the types of ads they’re running, and how much they are spending on them. 

You can then use this information to inform your own ad strategy so you can discover new advertising opportunities and compete more aggressively. 

  • Ad Transparency: The right ad intelligence publisher will also be able to provide you with more transparency into your own ads so you can determine where and how your ad spend is allocated. This information can offer you leverage when it comes to your dealings with ad inventory providers.
  • Improved Brand Strategy: The right ad intelligence platform will give you real insights into how different creators, channels, and placements perform. You can then use that information to guide your brand strategy so you can produce the best outcomes possible with the least spend.



4. Focus More on Site Speed

Website speed is an element that affects search signals for page experience. Of course, there are a lot of other important elements, such as mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS, non-intrusive interstitials, and so on. 

But, site speed is a crucial factor for great user experience – and the latest broad core algorithm update from Google has made it matter even more.

The Core Vitals update, which rolled out on June 21, means that Google’s algorithm now considers the real-life user’s experience on your website a ranking factor. 

Core Web Vitals are a group of metrics used by Google to determine the level of UX in the real world.

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I’m sure you, like everyone else, have landed on a website you really wanted to read but were left frustrated with slow-loading pages. 

There has always been a strong correlation between website speed and rankings, but with this latest update, Google wants to further improve user experience, and so the search giant is giving faster web pages precedence over slow ones.

Luckily, there are a lot of tools and plugins you can use to measure your website page speeds. You will get suggestions on where and how to make improvements so your pages can load faster.

For instance, you can use Google Search Console to check if your website is performing well for Core Web Vitals. 

Simply navigate to the tab under “Enhancements”. This will direct you to a report that evaluates your website’s performance compared to the Core Vitals elements.

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Site speed can be particularly difficult when you are displaying ads on your site.  I’ve personally dealt with this by using Adsense and if you’re in the same boat, consider some adsense alternatives instead.  

I’ve found that many other platforms perform significantly better from a speed standpoint. 



5. A/B Test Your Pages

A/B testing your pages is yet another tactic you need to embrace as a solopreneur. A/B or split testing has the benefit of helping you in the following ways:

  • Improve user engagement
  • Create better content
  • Reduce bounce rates
  • Increase conversion rates
  • Boost conversion values

… and much more. 

You need to choose the right A/B testing tools that allow you to test, experiment, and analyze the results so you can embrace new opportunities based on your findings. 

You can test everything from high-traffic areas on your website to low-conversion pages or even high drop-off rates that could use some improvement. 

Based on your continuing research, you can implement changes to your marketing strategy and continually improve your website to provide a better user experience and boost your rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages).



6. Email Marketing and Automation

As previously mentioned, solopreneurs need to find effective and affordable ways to reach and communicate with their target audience. This is why email marketing strategy should be included in your marketing plan.

Email marketing can help you attract potential customers and engage with current ones in an extremely cost-effective way. You can use your email list as a valuable tool to help you contact your subscribers whenever you want to, and share your latest news or offers.

Although at first, getting started with email marketing might seem like a huge undertaking, there are email marketing and automation tools you can use that make your work a lot easier. 

The best email marketing tools have features for:

  • Sending automated emails;
  • Targeting your ideal customers;
  • Boosting engagement, and ultimately 
  • Increasing lead generation and sales. 

Such tools are highly beneficial for solopreneurs and can be the difference between a thriving business and one that flounders.

Before you can start marketing to customers and prospects, first you must build an email list. 

To do this, simply offer free content or anything else that your subscribers will find valuable (e.g. a free trial, discount, contests, giveaways, etc.) in exchange for their email addresses. 

The more enticing your offer, the faster you will be able to build your email list. Once you have their emails, you can start sending them newsletters with information related to your products/services, business, or industry. You can inform them about sales, discounts, etc.

Pro Tip: You can use social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube together with your website to help you build your email list faster. Simply create a sign-up button on your business’s Facebook page and add a call to action and a link to sign up in your video descriptions on YouTube.



7. Focus on Community Building

There’s a big difference between talking to an audience and engaging with a community. The most successful businesses are those that understand this and have made the shift from selling products to building communities. 

Community building is essential to your success as a solopreneur. It gives you the ability to pool your knowledge with other solopreneurs, get feedback from your customers, and find innovative ways to achieve your business goals. 

This is particularly true for Facebook groups which are a great way to fuel your business growth. 

With over 1.8 billion active monthly users, Facebook groups can be a powerful marketing tool to help you attract new customers and engage existing ones through the use of exclusive content, support, and community. 

One of the major benefits of Facebook groups is that it’s a direct line to customers. Also, you will be able to build long-lasting relationships with them and increase your organic reach. 

Additional benefits that come with creating a community on Facebook include:

  • Enthusiastic community members help acquire new members. This results in a tight vital loop and lowers your customer acquisition costs.
  • Members don’t like to abandon the community, which means you’ll have increased retention as well as improved lifetime value.
  • Community members support one another which results in high gross margins because of lower cost of service.

Bottom line, if your business can transition from just delivering a product or service to building a real community around your brand, you will be able to unlock huge competitive advantages that will help you create and support a superior business model. 



8. Diversify into Other Social Media Platforms

Another way solopreneurs can grow their business in a tech-based world is by diversifying into different social media platforms like Pinterest, TikTok, etc. 

You may already be using at least one social media platform as part of your overall marketing strategy. But, to increase your impressions and conversions, you need to diversify into other social media platforms where your target audience already hangs out. 

That’s not to say that you should be on every social media network. This will just result in you spreading yourself too thin and becoming ineffective on all platforms. Rather, it’s about choosing the most likely places where you can reach out to your audience and connect with them on a platform that they frequent regularly. 

For instance, if you are a travel-related business that’s already using Facebook (which has customers in just about every demographic) or Twitter, you might consider adding either Pinterest or Instagram. 

These are visual-driven platforms that will give you a chance to show off glamorous images of your destinations. Or, for B2B marketers, LinkedIn, which is more text-driven, might be a better alternative.

As a solopreneur, you know that when operating a solo enterprise, it’s important to ration your time wisely. That’s why you may be loath to add to the social media site(s) that you are already using.

But, if you take the time to consider the needs of your particular industry and choose a platform where your target audience is most active, you will experience a high return on your investment of time and effort.



9. Invest More Into Your Business

When you decide to start a new business as a solopreneur, you are essentially making a decision to take on all the work yourself, which makes your job much, much bigger. 

Flying solo means you have to do all the work, but it also means you have more creative freedom and control compared to other operative styles. 

So while it may be daunting to have to do all those tasks on your own, it’s not impossible to run a successful company on your own in the long term.

However, to do so in the most efficient way, you must consider investing more into your business, which makes sense since you control the outcome. 

This can be in the form of investing in courses to upgrade your skill, investing in automation technology to free up more of your time such as data pipeline tools, or investing in outsourcing – among other things.

Here’s a closer look at how you can invest more into your business to achieve better results:

  • Upgrade Your Skills: The best thing you can do for yourself as a solopreneurs is to recognize where your skill limits lie. If possible, take the time to upgrade your skills so you can perform better in your business. However, it’s important for you to know what you can – and cannot – do.
  • Leverage the Power of Technology: Another way to help your company thrive is by investing in (and making good use of) technology and automation tools that can help you with every aspect of your business from branding to organization, budgeting, finding a target audience, and building customer connections.
  • Consider Outsourcing: If you are the only one working in your business, it limits your potential for growth. Your business will always be a one-man or one-woman show, but outsourcing some of your tasks can help reduce the number of hours you work in your business so you can work on it instead.



Conclusion

Solopreneurship is a journey that involves doing whatever it takes to bring your vision into reality. Good marketing will help you achieve your goals faster and propel your business to phenomenal success.

If you haven’t already tried these 9 things outlined in this article, now is a good time for you to get started. 

Check each item off your list and you will finish 2021 on the right track and possibly make it your best business year yet.

Have you tried any of the marketing tips outlined above? If so, what has been your experience? Sound off in the comments!


Author’s Bio:

Ron Stefanski is a website entrepreneur and marketing professor who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business.  You can learn more from him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com

You can also connect with him on YouTube or Linkedin.

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