AI transcript
0:00:04 Let’s be real. Nobody starts a business for the joy of calculating tax withholdings.
0:00:10 That’s where our partner Gusto comes in to take the stress out of payroll, benefits, and HR,
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0:00:30 I’m talking about automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits,
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0:01:00 So try Gusto today at gusto.com slash side hustle, and get three months free when you run your first
0:01:06 payroll. That’s three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash side hustle. One more time,
0:01:14 gusto, G-U-S-T-O dot com slash side hustle. Today, I’m excited to share some marketing tips that are
0:01:20 working from real side hustle show listeners. One common theme the past couple years is the strategy
0:01:26 of social media content to try and hit the algorithm on the platform of your choice and then get those
0:01:32 viewers or readers to follow you or more importantly, to join your email list. My friend Deacon from
0:01:38 Well Kept Wallet has had some success in this area, turning to maybe an overlooked and maybe under
0:01:44 saturated social media channel in threads. About a year ago, I decided to start posting on threads.
0:01:49 I started to see some traction. So I began to study what made for viral content on threads.
0:01:53 I quickly started to see my posts getting significantly more views than my followers.
0:01:57 For instance, I only had 1500 followers, but my posts would get over 100,000 views,
0:02:03 sometimes millions. This made me decide to double down on threads. I then created a call to action
0:02:07 for my threads so that I could drive people to my email list. I began to get so many replies,
0:02:12 though, that I decided to look for an app like ManyChat for threads, but I couldn’t find one.
0:02:16 I then decided to develop an app that automatically replies to threads and called it RadReply.
0:02:22 Now, I just set up an automated response and RadReply automatically replies for me with the call
0:02:26 to action that I want people to do, which is to comment a specific word and then send them to a
0:02:30 landing page on my site where they sign up for my email list and get the lead magnet they were requesting.
0:02:35 This has been a game changer for me because with my organic traffic being significantly down,
0:02:37 I now have a new way to grow my audience.
0:02:43 RadReply.com. It’s free as of this recording. Check it out. Now, looking at the type of content
0:02:48 that’s doing well for Deacon, he’s in the personal finance space. So it’s related to budgeting,
0:02:55 investing, inflation, and he’ll put like, comment the word checklist and I’ll send you my free
0:03:00 financial checklist to start making some of your financial goals a reality. And you’ve probably seen
0:03:05 that on other platforms. And it’s usually automated through ManyChat, like you mentioned,
0:03:10 but maybe threads and RadReply are worth a look, especially if you’re already creating
0:03:16 that kind of written content for LinkedIn or X. So make sure to follow WellKeptWallet while you’re
0:03:21 over there on threads. But on the positive side, the way these algorithms work today is if they like
0:03:26 your content, they’re going to show it to way more people than just your followers anyway. So it’s a way
0:03:32 to reach a pretty broad audience. And maybe the other takeaway from this is if you have a pain or a
0:03:36 problem in your business, you might be able to literally build the solution with AI.
0:03:40 You know, Deacon went out shopping. He was he was ready to pay for ManyChat, but they didn’t have the
0:03:44 feature that he wanted. It doesn’t work with threads. He’s like, well, shoot, I ought to be able to create
0:03:49 this. I know Deacon’s a smart dude, but I don’t think he’s a software developer. So my guess is he
0:03:54 built this tool as like a vibe coding project. So for more on that, definitely check out our episodes
0:03:59 from earlier this year with Pete McPherson. I will link those up in the show notes about building
0:04:05 different web apps and tools with the help of AI. Next up is a super interesting email growth hack from
0:04:11 Nate McAllister, who ran into at FinCon last month, where he’s found a creative way to reduce his
0:04:16 marketing spend or essentially subsidize his subscriber acquisition costs.
0:04:24 Hey, this is Nate McAllister from entreresource.com. I use a number of different tactics to grow my audience
0:04:31 and build my business. SEO has been my biggest one for the past probably 12 years. But the world of SEO
0:04:37 is changing dramatically. AI answers, AI generated content, and then just some algorithmic changes
0:04:42 with Google have made it so it’s not as easy as it used to be. And it’s not as predictable as it used
0:04:50 to be. So I like to really double down now in paid ads. I’ve always run paid ads, but that’s become my main
0:04:56 source. So I’m growing my email list primarily with paid ads because that’s the one thing that I own. I
0:05:01 don’t really trust all the other social media platforms at scale. One way that I’m growing my
0:05:07 email list that a lot of people are not talking about, which surprises me, is Sparkloop. So I’m
0:05:12 using Sparkloop in two ways. One, to get people to promote my newsletter, and I pay them if they send
0:05:17 me email subscribers. But two, the way that’s more exciting is I actually get paid to promote other
0:05:23 people’s newsletters. And here’s how it works. When somebody opts into one of my forms, they’re shown
0:05:29 a pop-up that suggests about five other newsletters. And then when someone opts into those, I get paid
0:05:34 if they go through and actually open emails and click on things. They do a little vetting process to make
0:05:40 sure that the people that you’re sending are actually legitimate. So I can add an easy 50 cents on top of
0:05:44 every single email opt-in that I get. That’s about the average of what you’ll get paid.
0:05:50 So check out Sparkloop. It’s an amazing way to liquidate ad spend a little bit. At worst,
0:05:55 you’re going to be getting a big discount on your ad spend. So if you’re able to get leads for under a
0:05:59 dollar, like let’s say you’re paying a 90 cents for a lead, and then every time you get a lead,
0:06:04 you’re averaging 50 cents on Sparkloop. You’re basically paying 40 cents per lead. If you can
0:06:09 get below 50 cents, you’re now growing your list for free and you can scale it as much as you want.
0:06:11 All right, guys, thank you so much for having me. I’ll talk to you later.
0:06:17 Again, that was Nate from entreresource.com, like entrepreneur resource by entreresource.
0:06:21 Make sure to subscribe to his newsletter. Do it for free. Help him out there. And I believe you can
0:06:28 create a free Sparkloop plan to enable this little co-registration widget strategy. In fact, I’m
0:06:32 curious to test it out myself. I’m just having a hard time getting it to work with the different
0:06:35 forms and emails and opt-ins that I’ve got duct taped together on the site since the last
0:06:40 redesigned there. But when it comes to newsletter growth, it’s not the only game in town. Our next
0:06:45 contributor, Lewis from Anywhere Income, has another couple of recommendations for you to check out.
0:06:51 My name is Lewis Baldron, and I actually run a little side hustle that is a newsletter myself. It’s called
0:06:58 anywhereincome.xyz. One revelation I have had that not a lot of people talk about is newsletter discovery
0:07:04 networks like Refind and Mecco. It can be very cost effective, around 50 cents to a dollar per
0:07:10 engaged subscriber. You do have to set up some list cleaning, automations, and what have you. But I think
0:07:16 regardless of what sort of business you have, a newsletter obviously is a super powerful way to
0:07:20 own your audience and engage them. And newsletter discovery networks just seem to be untapped whilst
0:07:25 everyone is throwing money at meta ads and going on the social media route, which obviously works but
0:07:30 takes a lot longer. Hope that helps, mate. If any of your listeners are interested, they can subscribe
0:07:35 for free at anywhereincome.xyz. Keep up the good work. Cheers, mate.
0:07:40 Again, that was Lewis from Anywhere Income. And now I’ve got some homework to check out Refind and
0:07:45 Mecco, M-E-C-O. I’ve actually already been approved for Refind, so I might have to test that out.
0:07:51 I will link both of those up in the show notes for you. Now, it’s one thing to get people onto your list,
0:07:56 but it’s another thing to build a business on the back of that. Now, one smart way that some people are
0:08:02 doing it is asking a few questions to get to know their subscriber and then making semi-informed
0:08:07 product recommendations based on those answers. It’s kind of like the same thing I do with the
0:08:12 find your side hustle quiz or the side hustle show playlist quiz at hustle.show. You can see it in
0:08:17 action over there. Only instead of going straight for a sale or an affiliate conversion, in my case,
0:08:21 those are trying to get people deeper into the most relevant content for them. But here’s Robert from
0:08:27 tooltester.com explaining how it works in their business. Hey, it’s Robert from email tooltester.
0:08:35 We use quizzes a lot as a way for people to find the best product on our website. We review email
0:08:41 marketing services. We’re an affiliate website and we just let people answer a couple of questions
0:08:49 and in the end, they will get their ideal result for an email marketing service. This can work really
0:08:57 well for, as I said, affiliate websites or also e-commerce stores where there’s a range of options and you want to
0:09:02 make it easier for people to choose the best one. In the end, you can set it up so they have to
0:09:10 enter their email address so you get a real lead from that and then they will get sent the result of the quiz.
0:09:19 Two providers we use are InvolveMe and Interact that work really well and integrate with email platforms so
0:09:22 you can send the emails in an automated way.
0:09:28 Interact is the quiz tool that I’ve been using as well. It’s been great. I’ve got a referral link I’ll put in the
0:09:33 show notes for you. You definitely see this on the front end of a lot of e-commerce sites. Tell me a little
0:09:38 bit about your skiing personality and we’ll recommend the best skis for you. Tell me a little bit about your
0:09:43 skincare routine, your wants and needs and we’ll recommend the best skincare product for you. And done right,
0:09:49 you can even use the quiz as a lead magnet. I remember when we talked to Tori Dunlap on the show,
0:09:55 this was the conversion mechanism that she had in place when she went viral on TikTok. Take your free
0:10:01 money personality quiz and then from there, I think she had five buckets that she would put people into
0:10:07 based on their answers. But from there, she’s going to lead you down the path to the content and
0:10:12 affiliate recommendations that make the most sense for you based on where you’re at. And when that viral
0:10:19 moment came, she was ready for it. She added like 100,000 people to her list in a week. We’ve got a
0:10:26 full episode on quiz marketing and quiz funnels with Ryan Levesque. He’s actually got a whole book on the
0:10:33 topic called Ask or the Ask Method or something like that. But that is episode 508 in your archives if you
0:10:38 want to go back and check it out. And the other thing that Ryan pointed out in that episode that can be
0:10:43 super valuable, depending on your niche, is that the quiz allows you to collect some really cool
0:10:50 first party data about your audience, their wants and needs that can fuel future content. It can fuel
0:10:56 email or sales copy. It can fuel future product development. One thing that’s really surprising
0:10:59 for me is there’s a quiz on the Side Hustle Nation homepage, at least at the time of this recording.
0:11:03 And it’s take the two minute quiz, find your side hustle. And one of the questions is,
0:11:08 are you looking for a side hustle to earn extra money? Or are you looking for a side hustle to
0:11:13 eventually quit your job? And for the first year that we ran, the first several months, had thousands
0:11:18 of responses. And 80% said, I just I’m looking for a side hustle to make extra money. And the copy at
0:11:21 the time, and maybe it still is, I maybe need to go update it. But the copy was like, you know,
0:11:25 escape the rat race, quit your day job. It’s like, oh, it would resonate with way more people
0:11:30 percentage wise, if it was shifted around earn extra money. And that could be different because that’s
0:11:35 website traffic versus the podcast audience where I get the sense that you listening are a little more
0:11:39 entrepreneurial, and maybe looking for something that can scale to quit your job. It was really
0:11:43 eye opening. So that’s kind of some of the data that you can get from from a quiz like that. Again,
0:11:48 interact is the tool that I’ve been using for the last several years. It’s been pretty cool.
0:11:53 So we’ve been talking a lot about email, but we’ve got lots of other great marketing strategies from
0:11:56 side hustle show listeners to share coming up right after this.
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0:14:11 Next up, if you’ve got a local service or even an online service, you’re going to want to listen to
0:14:19 Hi, Nick. I’m Crystal with Legacy Notary Services here in Southern Maryland. And one way that I’ve been
0:14:26 able to attract new clients is by asking for the review right after the notary appointment. If they
0:14:32 could just take 10 seconds and give me a review on how things went with the notary appointment before I
0:14:38 leave them, that actually drives more traffic to my website. And it boosts my analytics when people
0:14:45 Google notary near me and I can operate in all 50 states as an apostille agent for loan document
0:14:52 authentication for foreign countries. So that helps with the algorithm on Google. Thanks so much for
0:14:58 letting me share. Asking for those reviews. Simple but effective. You know the saying, if you don’t ask,
0:15:04 the answer is always no. Well, it’s probably true when it comes to reviews. Your customers love you and the
0:15:09 time to strike is right after you’ve delivered a great service. My wife will deliver the digital
0:15:14 pictures that she takes for weddings or families. And almost every time there’s the response of OMG,
0:15:19 these are amazing. Thank you so much. That’s the perfect time to hit reply with the Google profile
0:15:24 link directly to the review page and make that ask. Hey, would you mind just copying and pasting that
0:15:28 into a Google review for me? It would take like 10 seconds, right? I like how Crystal framed that.
0:15:33 It’s only going to take you 10 seconds. That would be a huge help for my business. Another way to improve
0:15:40 your visibility in Google is to feed the beast. Give them more data and metadata and content to chew on
0:15:45 so they can put you in front of more customers. Here’s how Coach Dom Costa is doing it.
0:15:51 Hi from Coach Dom Costa with my scrap metal recycling business down here in the Los Angeles Harbor area.
0:15:58 My big tip is Google my business. Yes, siri. Every time I pick up stuff, I take a picture. Every time I dump
0:16:06 it, I send in a video. I post pretty regularly and I am the second person in my area below an international
0:16:14 scrap metal recycler. Yes, me with my $1,000 to $2,000 a month income from scrap metal recycling. I am listed
0:16:21 under a multinational corporation just by posting daily on Google my business. Don’t sleep on it,
0:16:28 kids. It’s free. I highly recommend it. Google my business. Set up your account now. You won’t go
0:16:33 wrong. It’s going to drive sales and opportunities to you over and over again. Thank you for all you do,
0:16:38 Nick. This is really cool. And it’s something we’ve heard from other side hustle show guests as well.
0:16:44 No one thinks to use their Google business profile as a social media channel. And it’s not like you’re
0:16:48 going to get a ton of engagement by posting pictures and updates there, but you don’t need to. You’re
0:16:54 feeding the content directly into the engine that can feed you better lead flow. If you have a Google
0:16:59 profile for your business, when was the last time you posted content to it? Challenge yourself to start
0:17:04 doing it regularly. Look for excuses to take pictures, tag them with the locations, feed those
0:17:10 into the machine and see what happens. Another thing that can help with discovery and visibility
0:17:15 is getting backlinks and press mentions. With a little concerted effort, you can get this quote
0:17:20 unquote earned media coverage. And it’s not necessarily going to be the highest converting traffic,
0:17:25 but it can boost your SEO. It can boost your credibility. And according to our recent guest,
0:17:31 Tanya Van Gastel, it can also help in the brave new world of GEO, generative engine optimization,
0:17:37 basically getting your brand to be recommended by ChatGPT and other AI tools. Here’s how Rosie Bell
0:17:40 is using this tried and true tactic in her business.
0:17:45 Hi, Nick. My name is Rosie Bell and I’m a travel journalist and I run two sites,
0:17:51 discoverysessions.com and Press Trip Pros, which is a matchmaking platform connecting travel journalists
0:17:57 and travel content creators with organizers of press trips. My marketing tip is using Harrow,
0:18:03 which is a DIY PR platform that recently relaunched after being bought by feature.com. And it’s still
0:18:07 a great place for journalists to find sources for their stories. I’ve given coverage to businesses big
0:18:13 and small, old and new, and also gotten features from my own online businesses in the likes of HuffPost,
0:18:19 Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and NBC News. And I’ve even had entire segments dedicated to me on
0:18:24 national television, which had a major impact on my businesses. There are so many benefits to being
0:18:30 featured in the media. You can build brand awareness, trust, credibility, visibility, and you can be
0:18:35 considered an authority on a topic and get sales spikes, get backlinks from high authority sites,
0:18:40 and press begets press so when one site features you, others might want to as well. The great thing
0:18:45 about Harrow is that it’s completely free to use and anyone can reply with a pitch to a journalist’s
0:18:52 specific callout. Another alternative to Harrow is sourceofsources.com or SOS, which was started by the
0:18:57 original creator of Harrow. You can find feature opportunities in major publications like the
0:19:02 Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Travel and Leisure, and USA Today, no matter what stage of your business
0:19:07 you’re at, which is just fabulous. Thanks so much for the opportunity to share this tip with listeners
0:19:12 of the show. I’ve been a listener myself for many years, and I hope this helps site hustlers find
0:19:18 visibility. Thank you, Rosie, for that. I have been a Harrow user, help a reporter out user on both
0:19:23 sides of the equation for many years, and I’ve gotten some great mentions from it. Quoted is
0:19:29 another one to check out. That’s Q-W-O-T-E-D, Quoted, another potential place to connect with
0:19:35 journalists. So my advice when pitching journalists is to quickly establish your credentials to match
0:19:39 what they’re looking for, because they’re probably going to get a lot of inbound pitches. In my case,
0:19:44 a lot of the time, people will be looking for a quote-unquote side hustle expert to speak to a
0:19:49 specific trend, like AI-powered side hustles or something like that. So I can open my reply with,
0:19:55 hey, I’m Nick. I’ve been covering side hustles for the last 12 years. I’ve written several books on this
0:20:00 topic. I’ve interviewed 600 side hustlers on the award-winning side hustle show podcast. Something
0:20:05 like that, just to quickly and quantify your credentials. And if you don’t have those exact
0:20:10 credentials, you probably have a version of them that will at least get your foot in the door. So pump
0:20:16 yourself up a little bit in that intro, make sure pitch can stand out from the crowd, stand out from
0:20:21 the heap of others in that inbox. The other way to use press is to not just wait around for inbound
0:20:26 journalist inquiries that happen to match your niche or what you’re an expert on, but also to
0:20:32 proactively pitch your story. 1-800-GOT-JUNK comes to mind, how Brian in his first summer pitched
0:20:37 the local newspaper, this feel-good story about how in this tough job market, local teen creates his own
0:20:41 job. And then for the picture that they ran along with the story, it’s him standing in front of his
0:20:47 pickup truck with the phone number and a huge font on the side. And the leads from that kept him busy
0:20:53 for a long while. Or more recently, Chef Jessica, when she was starting her personal chef business, she
0:21:00 catered her journalist pitch to how families were adapting to food allergies or dietary restrictions.
0:21:05 And in a business like hers, there’s really only so many clients you can take on. So it didn’t take much
0:21:09 to be in a really good position. Next up is our mobile gift wrapper extraordinaire,
0:21:15 Michelle Hensley, who relies on word of mouth, but he’s also proactive about getting the word out
0:21:21 with some precision targeted direct mail. Hi, Side Hustle Nation. Michelle Hensley here,
0:21:27 founder of Nifty Package Company and the host and owner of MichelleMHensley.com,
0:21:31 the mobile gift wrapping business coach. As a business coach, it’s essential to leverage your
0:21:37 unique strengths as a creative entrepreneur. So one proven strategy for us is that we do such a good
0:21:43 job that we foster growth through referrals. So what you want to do is whether it’s event styling
0:21:49 or custom illustrations or handmade accessories, identify what distinguishes you from your competitor.
0:21:55 So this could be your turnaround time. This could be your materials or what type of branding you have
0:22:01 or can do. What is your communication style? Another complementary approach is that we employ
0:22:06 precision targeted direct mail campaigns. We do this by understanding our ideal client profile.
0:22:13 In the early stages of Nifty, I realized that the average value of an order was $230 per basket.
0:22:19 This was a clear pivot towards luxury positioning. So I definitely worked on that. Our gift wrapping is
0:22:25 costly. It’s also American made. We marketed that approach and we refined our outreach to affluent
0:22:31 demographics such as corporate leaders and zip codes. So this really helped us. And as a hybrid model
0:22:36 blending services with on location wrapping and products that are signature baskets and luxury items,
0:22:43 we prioritize client guidance every step of the way. So my recommendation is this. Regularly review your
0:22:49 client roster and sales metrics to refine your avatar and make sure you understand what you’re doing and
0:22:54 who engages most frequently, who invests in the highest and use these insights to help you with
0:22:59 your marketing. Your creative authenticity is a powerful differentiator in the automated landscape.
0:23:05 So by honing your unique value proposition, cultivate your referrals and pursuing targeted outreach,
0:23:08 you can accelerate your path to profitability.
0:23:12 This positioning piece is something that’s easy to overlook when you’re just getting started.
0:23:16 And I think that’s natural. Look, I’ll take any customers I can get at the beginning,
0:23:22 but it can become more refined and targeted over time. In that episode, we did with Tanya recently
0:23:28 about her AI powered headshot company. It started out as this more broad B2C business to consumer
0:23:34 service, but then really found a niche within professional headshots for remote companies. So they shifted
0:23:39 their messaging, they shifted their positioning and, and the headshot output to match that. And that allowed
0:23:45 them to charge higher prices because the perceived value was a lot higher. And they ultimately had to convince
0:23:51 fewer decision makers to hit that buy button when one customer all of a sudden could order hundreds or thousands
0:23:56 of headshots at one time instead of individuals making one $29 order at a time. And I think that’s something that
0:24:02 helped the side hustle show early on too. Yes, there were other entrepreneurship podcasts. Yes, it felt
0:24:07 crowded even back in 2013. But here was one that spoke specifically to that person trying to build
0:24:13 something on the side. I don’t know, just a theory with some survivorship bias, the benefit of hindsight
0:24:18 there. But next up is a strategy that definitely works in the podcasting world. And that’s collaborating
0:24:24 with your so-called competitors and tapping into each other’s audiences. Only this sign hustle show
0:24:28 listener is applying it to a completely offline business.
0:24:34 Hey Nick, this is Gary Youngblood with 13th Colony Shuttles here in Savannah, Georgia. You can find us on the web
0:24:41 at 13thcolonyshuttles.com. One marketing strategy that is working really well for me right now is actually
0:24:49 collaboration with my competitors. There are two other local agencies here in Savannah that provide shuttle services
0:24:58 around town and there’s so much work that not one company can handle at all. So typically what I do is if I get
0:25:04 someone requesting a ride for me and I cannot fill their request, then I will market it out to one of the
0:25:09 other companies here in town. I found that that’s worked really well for me because I’ve gotten so much
0:25:14 business from their referrals to me that I’m busting at the seams. Hope this helps.
0:25:19 Thanks Gary for sharing that and happy to hear business is rocking for you. This one reminds me of
0:25:26 an episode we did a long time ago with John Doherty. The story started with John doing SEO work for his
0:25:32 corporate job, then doing freelance SEO work as a side hustle, then doing that full-time, then raising
0:25:37 his rates, and then still eventually getting so busy that he had to turn clients away. So he had this idea,
0:25:44 what if I could refer them to other trusted friends and service providers in this space and get a referral fee
0:25:49 from that? Would the other companies be willing to pay? That was a question he had. Sure, for a $2,000 a month
0:25:55 contract to add to their agency? Of course they would. We called it high-touch affiliate marketing in episode
0:26:01 273. And John eventually went out to build this whole separate business that specialized in making these
0:26:08 recommended referrals. It was called Credo, getcredo.com. And since that recording, it’s been like seven years, it looks like
0:26:14 they’ve expanded beyond SEO into quite a few different digital marketing verticals. So if you’re a service
0:26:19 provider in that space, maybe that’s another marketing angle, getting your service or agency vetted and
0:26:24 listed and connecting with clients through that platform. But I like Gary’s call to befriend your
0:26:29 so-called competitors and see if you can pass business back and forth. If you’re too busy or if it’s not a
0:26:34 perfect fit and vice versa in you getting business back from them. I’ve got more creative and actionable
0:26:39 marketing strategies from Side Hustle Show listeners coming up right after this.
0:26:45 Here’s the harsh truth about missing a business call. It’s kind of like watching money fly out the window
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0:28:53 See Mint Mobile for details. We’ve been talking about creative, proven, proactive ways to market your
0:28:58 business in this episode, which is one part fulfilling existing demand. If people are looking
0:29:03 for what we sell, they want to make sure they can find us. But what about those people who might need
0:29:08 our help but aren’t exactly looking for it just yet? That’s where this next tip might come in.
0:29:13 Hey, my name is Espen Campbell. I have a business named Vortex Rugby, which is an apparel business.
0:29:20 Specifically, we sell shorts, but we are opening up more apparel options to tank tops and bucket hats
0:29:24 and t-shirts and some other things. That’s really interesting as the rugby space specifically in the
0:29:31 U.S. is growing a bunch and so is the apparel. So we’ve been able to grow through Instagram. It’s mostly
0:29:37 been how we’ve been marketing, but now I’ve been able to use more traditional marketing through
0:29:44 scraping a lot of the rugby union websites. So more of the high level tournament websites and then
0:29:50 scraping all of those contact informations and being able to use clay and enriching a lot of that while
0:29:57 then being able to use HubSpot and Automate to have it be a real, almost like a B2B sales because that’s
0:30:05 what I have done before. And then being able to reach out and kind of have these sequences of drip emails of what’s
0:30:12 important. Is it price? Is it when their season is? Is it the club itself? So trying to do something new in that
0:30:18 space. The impact is that we’re growing exponentially. We’ve gone from two to 5,000 followers on Instagram in a year.
0:30:26 We’ve gotten more than 15 team orders for not just shorts, but for a full entire team kits. So it’s really
0:30:46 fun. And, you know, we’ve gone to a bunch of tournaments, but the impact is also that when we go places, people know who we are. And it’s not just like, oh, another apparel brand shows up. But they have recognized us either on Instagram or seen our emails or the president has seen them or they’ve seen our shorts, which are very vibrant and eccentric. So they’re very easy to tell.
0:31:13 All right, Espen, thank you for sharing that. I like this for a lot of reasons. First was tackling a growing niche. I don’t know much about rugby, but it sounds like it’s an up and coming market in the U.S. at least, which means a rising tide can lift all boats. That’s a great place to be in just market selection wise. And second, Vortex isn’t just selling generic commoditized rugby shorts, if there is such a thing. Instead, they really stand out with their bold, loud, bright, fun designs, which makes them really recognizable.
0:31:35 And then, like we’ve seen from other Side Hustle Show guests, if there’s a way to take a consumer product or service and turn it into a business product or service, selling one-to-many instead of one-to-one, like Espen mentioned, going after leagues and tournaments and teams rather than individual rugby players. For any new brand, it’s this battle of awareness. It sounds like Vortex is playing both sides of the ball.
0:31:46 Yes, we can create compelling social media content for discoverability on Instagram, but we’re not just going to sit around and wait for people to find us. We’re also going to be proactive about finding them and getting in their inboxes.
0:31:52 Clay.com, C-L-A-Y, was the data enrichment tool that he mentioned. I’ll link that up for you.
0:32:00 Now, another Side Hustle Show listener being proactive in their marketing efforts is Matthias, who took to Reddit to spread the word about his new website.
0:32:13 Hey, Matthias here from XFerturist World Tools. I just started my blog, XFerturist World Tools.com, like two weeks ago, and I started marketing three days ago, and I already get like three leads from Reddit.
0:32:28 What I do, I go on to Reddit, look for subreddits specific to my target audience, in my case, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and side hustlers like us, and they talk about tools, and they look for comments about tools, posts about tools, somebody has problems, look for another tool.
0:32:38 So I have a lead magnet where I explain how to replace expensive tools with cheaper version or lifetime deals, and I answer this question, somebody has about a tool, and say, hey, did you check out this tool?
0:32:41 I made a review on my blog post, check it out, and I hope this helps.
0:32:48 And I make two to three posts a day, not too much. I don’t want to be spammy. I just make it specific. I provide value first, and then drop my link.
0:33:10 As with all things Reddit, you got to tread carefully, but if you can legitimately answer people’s questions, it’s a great place to start, not just for market research, but to get those all-important first few visitors, first few subscribers, very grassroots.
0:33:20 But some of those threads get a lot of traffic in their own right, because they’re indexed in Google, and if your response gets upvoted, it can end up with a lot of visibility for months, maybe even years.
0:33:26 And I feel like more and more guests are mentioning Reddit in response to the question of, well, where’d you find your first customers?
0:33:33 Tanya mentioned this for her AI headshot service. Hannah Morgan mentioned this for her virtual house management service.
0:33:36 Frey Chu mentioned this for his thrift store directory website.
0:33:41 I mean, Reddit has just a ton of traffic, and it’s kind of marketing one-on-one.
0:33:45 How am I going to get in front of my customers where they’re already hanging out, where they’re already searching for answers?
0:33:52 It’s a bit of an SEO shortcut in that way, if you can figure out how to post your stuff and not get your account shut down.
0:33:55 Again, that was Matthias from Extraterrestrial Tools.
0:34:00 Now, surprisingly, we haven’t heard a ton about AI yet, but that’s about to change.
0:34:08 Some Side Hustle Show listeners are using AI tools to get more mileage out of their existing content, which is always interesting to me as a content creator.
0:34:18 Is there a quick way to repurpose the work you’re already doing in a way that is native to each platform, so you’re not just spamming up the place in order to reach a broader audience?
0:34:20 Cheyenne might have the answer.
0:34:27 Hey, it’s Cheyenne from DomesticDaydreams.com slash blog, at Domestic Daydreams on social media, and the Homemakers Helper podcast.
0:34:33 How I’m marketing my cleaning routines membership is by posting organic short-form video content on Instagram and Facebook.
0:34:35 I now post three times a day.
0:34:42 I then use voice-to-text to plug in the transcript of my short-form videos and elaborate with any additional thoughts and tips.
0:34:45 Then I have AI format that into a blog post for me.
0:34:51 I edit the blog post, embed my short-form video, and record the blog as a podcast episode, and then I embed that too.
0:34:55 After publishing, I pin it to Pinterest and email it out to my email list.
0:35:05 I then use Facebook retargeting ads to retarget anyone who has visited my website and blog or interacted with my Facebook or Instagram with the offer I’m selling.
0:35:13 In the last 20 days, I’ve added 60,000 followers on Facebook, 46,000 followers on Instagram, and over 8,000 email list subscribers.
0:35:17 But even better, I’ve increased my revenue by over 60% by doing this.
0:35:18 Time out.
0:35:19 Did I hear that correctly?
0:35:22 100,000 new followers in 20 days?
0:35:24 8,000 new email subscribers?
0:35:29 Show of hands if we need to get Cheyenne on the podcast to learn more about what she’s doing, because she’s clearly doing something right.
0:35:45 One of the most exciting developments of this brave new AI world is to somehow clone yourself, and maybe there’s a way to build some automations and agents that are trained on you and your voice, and do that around the work you’re already doing to save some time and serve more people.
0:35:48 Here’s how our next contributor is doing just that.
0:35:52 Hi, Mike Lynch here from R Campfire Unplugged and the Flywheel Factory.
0:35:58 When I started my RV blog, I ran into the same wall most content creators hit.
0:36:01 Blog posts took 6 to 10 hours to write.
0:36:06 I tried to outsource, but could never get the courage up to spend the money to have someone else write for me.
0:36:10 And my growth stalled because I couldn’t publish consistently.
0:36:13 That pain is what pushed me to experiment with AI.
0:36:25 I built a system where I capture my ideas with my own words, run them through a custom GPT that knows my brand voice, and then automate the workflow into blogs, emails, and social posts.
0:36:41 The impact at R Campfire Unplugged, I cut writing time from 6 hours to under 60 minutes, saved countless dollars that I would have spent outsourcing, and finally started publishing at the pace I needed to grow traffic and affiliate revenue.
0:36:49 That success became Flywheel Factory, a system to help other creators escape the same traps.
0:36:50 Here’s the simple plan we teach.
0:36:51 Capture your voice.
0:36:54 Turn one idea into multiple assets.
0:36:57 Automate the publishing so your effort compounds.
0:37:01 If you’re still grinding it out the old way, the risk is burnout and stagnation.
0:37:08 But if you build a flywheel, every piece of content makes the next one easier and growth compounds.
0:37:13 So my advice to fellow side hustlers is, you don’t need more hustle, you need a system.
0:37:15 That’s the flywheel.
0:37:17 Flywheelfactory.io.
0:37:18 We’ll have to check it out.
0:37:21 I can definitely relate to the dilemma Mike described.
0:37:23 You know you need some new content.
0:37:25 You’ve even got the idea for it.
0:37:32 But you’re staring down the barrel of that 6 to 10 hour time block to produce something really solid, which almost never exists, the time block.
0:37:36 So you procrastinate on it, fill in the time with other stuff that may or may not move the needle.
0:37:42 So really cool that he’s found a way to train that custom GPT in his brand voice and start to scale smarter.
0:37:47 Next up is a tip that’s ostensibly for authors, but I think it goes quite a bit broader than that.
0:37:54 Hey Nick, this is Eric Keller, author of The Bear Soldier at bearsoldier.com.
0:38:05 What’s working best for me right now is a three-part play that blends interactive content, shareable assets, and measurable attribution without a huge budget.
0:38:06 Whoa, whoa, whoa.
0:38:08 We’re using AI to record these now?
0:38:11 Either that or Eric’s a professional audiobook narrator.
0:38:12 But all right, go ahead.
0:38:13 What have you got for us?
0:38:14 Part one.
0:38:17 Give visitors something to do in 30 seconds.
0:38:24 I launched a living campaign map for the book, an interactive World War II route with photos and one sentence,
0:38:31 It loads fast, and each click reveals a short, satisfying story nugget.
0:38:32 The goal is simple.
0:38:38 Transform a bounce-prone book page into a toy people want to explore and share.
0:38:39 Part two.
0:38:42 Make sharing automatic and beautiful.
0:38:48 When a visitor opens a battle or waypoint, my site quietly generates a dynamic open graph image.
0:38:54 Basically, a custom social preview with the photo, title, and year.
0:39:01 If they click Share, that exact moment posts to social with a compelling card, which boosts click-throughs.
0:39:05 A lot of authors rely on one generic cover image.
0:39:10 This creates dozens of unique, authentic entry points back to the site.
0:39:11 Part three.
0:39:14 Measure what matters with Amazon attribution.
0:39:20 Every off-site, buy on Amazon button, carries an Amazon attribution tag.
0:39:26 So I can see which channel, or even which moment on the map, actually leads to purchases.
0:39:28 That replaced guesswork with data.
0:39:32 It also lets me make smarter choices about where to spend time.
0:39:41 Podcasts, newsletters, or creator shout-outs that align with World War II, or animal lovers tend to perform best for this book.
0:39:43 The microfunnel looks like this.
0:39:45 Map for curiosity.
0:39:47 Free chapter email opt-in.
0:39:49 Amazon buy with attribution.
0:39:53 A short welcome sequence that invites book clubs and educators.
0:40:03 The welcome sequence includes a printable discussion guide and a short behind-the-research note, which helps turn one purchase into a group read.
0:40:04 Results.
0:40:14 I’m seeing longer on-site engagement, a meaningful lift in email sign-ups, and clearer insight into which posts and guest spots actually move books.
0:40:20 If you write history or narrative non-fiction, you don’t need a massive ad budget.
0:40:23 Give people a small, purposeful interactive.
0:40:24 Make it share-ready.
0:40:27 And track with attribution so you can iterate.
0:40:33 I’m Eric Keller, Bearsoldier.com, author of The Bear Soldier.
0:40:35 Thanks for the chance to share what’s working.
0:40:36 All right.
0:40:37 You convinced me, Eric.
0:40:38 I got my copy.
0:40:41 And I think the bigger takeaway is you can’t just write the book.
0:40:43 You’ve got to become a marketer as well.
0:40:46 Thinking, well, who would really enjoy this work?
0:40:47 Who would get the most value from it?
0:40:54 In this case, people interested in World War II or animal lovers or ideally a cross-section of both.
0:40:58 And then building something that’s compelling for them to interact with and share with.
0:41:05 And this is something AI has enabled us to do a lot more easily and inexpensively than ever before.
0:41:15 To build these interactive elements and tools into our sites and to get inspiration, you can probably just look at what’s working in your niche or in other niches and put your own unique spin on it.
0:41:20 One pitch that came across my desk this summer was a Wordle-inspired game.
0:41:22 But instead of words, it was real estate values.
0:41:26 It would give you a picture of the house and maybe the location.
0:41:27 And then you had to guess the listing price.
0:41:31 And it gained some viral attention in the Zillow and real estate world.
0:41:33 Not sure what that looks like yet for Side Hustle Nation.
0:41:40 But I’ve got some ideas cooking and maybe some kind of income calculator or even a side hustle sidekick.
0:41:41 I like that name.
0:41:43 A virtual side hustle advisor of sorts.
0:41:45 So what am I working on marketing-wise?
0:41:48 The episode wouldn’t complete if I didn’t throw my own two cents in here.
0:41:51 I’ve got a few experiments going on right now.
0:42:00 One is related to the Facebook monetization program, basically trying to pump out a bunch of attention-getting content onto the Side Hustle Nation Facebook page.
0:42:07 Not the group, but the actual page in the hopes that Facebook pushes it out to a broader audience and they’ll actually pay you for that.
0:42:14 Because the more time people spend engaging with your content, the more time they’re spending on Facebook, the more money Facebook is making on advertising.
0:42:16 So they’re sharing some of that revenue with you.
0:42:22 So it’s an interesting way that they’re incentivizing creators to make this kind of content.
0:42:22 So that one’s pretty new.
0:42:23 I’m a couple weeks in.
0:42:30 I’ve made like $6 so far, but we’ve got a full episode on this coming up with the guy who inspired me to take a crack at it.
0:42:33 And he’s doing like $30,000 a month with it.
0:42:36 So it’s definitely something that can scale to a serious income stream.
0:42:43 On the podcast side, I’ve been testing a lot of different listener acquisition channels the last year or so.
0:42:51 Player FM, audience lift, and pod role are probably my favorite or most cost-effective so far.
0:42:54 One cool thing that you can do is promote specific episodes.
0:43:00 So if we had a guest on like a year ago, it’s a way to breathe new life into that older episode.
0:43:04 And I’ve had some success splitting the cost of that promotion with the guest.
0:43:12 And then one of my favorite sessions at FinCon was with Coach Carson about how he pivoted from being an audio-first podcast.
0:43:20 He runs, I think it’s called Coach Carson, the Real Estate Investing Podcast, to being a YouTube-first show and grew his channel to over 100,000 subscribers.
0:43:24 Nothing would impress my kids more than getting that play button plaque from YouTube, seriously.
0:43:27 But he had a couple suggestions I’m trying to implement.
0:43:34 One was recording a separate video-specific intro for the podcast episodes that we post to YouTube.
0:43:40 Really leaning into the hook and the story in the first 20 seconds, you know, following all the YouTube best practices.
0:43:46 And then second, looking at what topics or videos have outperformed for similar channels.
0:43:54 If that channel normally gets 10,000 views per video, but some video got 100,000, okay, that’s an interesting tidbit of data, right?
0:43:56 Could you create something similar?
0:43:59 So trying to recreate those in your own style, your own voice.
0:44:05 Chad gave the example of finding a video on how to do the math, how to evaluate if a rental property was a good deal.
0:44:05 Should you buy it?
0:44:07 That one did really well on this other channel that he found.
0:44:12 So he said, well, look, I already have my own method of evaluating if a rental property is a good deal.
0:44:16 So I can easily record that, share that, and that video did really well for him too.
0:44:19 So those are a few things that we’ve got going on.
0:44:24 I feel like the written side of the business, the website side, has been neglected this year.
0:44:29 I just haven’t been motivated to work on it in the face of declining traffic and earnings.
0:44:32 But it’s actually still a pretty significant part of the business revenue-wise.
0:44:34 So I do need to prioritize some maintenance and upkeep over there.
0:44:37 SEO might be dying, but it’s not completely dead yet.
0:44:45 And as I go through, I find some content that might be ripe to make a video version of, which is just another evergreen asset to add to the business.
0:44:48 But big thanks to all our listeners who shared their insight for this episode.
0:44:51 You might be wondering, well, how’d they find out about this casting call?
0:44:53 It’s all through email.
0:44:55 So make sure to join the list if you haven’t already.
0:44:59 SideHustleNation.com slash join is an easy way to do it.
0:45:03 So you’ll have first crack at the next kind of roundup episode like this one that we do.
0:45:05 SideHustleNation.com slash join.
0:45:08 And big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:45:14 You can hit up SideHustleNation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:45:17 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:45:18 That is it for me.
0:45:20 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:45:23 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:45:26 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:10 That’s where our partner Gusto comes in to take the stress out of payroll, benefits, and HR,
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0:01:14 gusto, G-U-S-T-O dot com slash side hustle. Today, I’m excited to share some marketing tips that are
0:01:20 working from real side hustle show listeners. One common theme the past couple years is the strategy
0:01:26 of social media content to try and hit the algorithm on the platform of your choice and then get those
0:01:32 viewers or readers to follow you or more importantly, to join your email list. My friend Deacon from
0:01:38 Well Kept Wallet has had some success in this area, turning to maybe an overlooked and maybe under
0:01:44 saturated social media channel in threads. About a year ago, I decided to start posting on threads.
0:01:49 I started to see some traction. So I began to study what made for viral content on threads.
0:01:53 I quickly started to see my posts getting significantly more views than my followers.
0:01:57 For instance, I only had 1500 followers, but my posts would get over 100,000 views,
0:02:03 sometimes millions. This made me decide to double down on threads. I then created a call to action
0:02:07 for my threads so that I could drive people to my email list. I began to get so many replies,
0:02:12 though, that I decided to look for an app like ManyChat for threads, but I couldn’t find one.
0:02:16 I then decided to develop an app that automatically replies to threads and called it RadReply.
0:02:22 Now, I just set up an automated response and RadReply automatically replies for me with the call
0:02:26 to action that I want people to do, which is to comment a specific word and then send them to a
0:02:30 landing page on my site where they sign up for my email list and get the lead magnet they were requesting.
0:02:35 This has been a game changer for me because with my organic traffic being significantly down,
0:02:37 I now have a new way to grow my audience.
0:02:43 RadReply.com. It’s free as of this recording. Check it out. Now, looking at the type of content
0:02:48 that’s doing well for Deacon, he’s in the personal finance space. So it’s related to budgeting,
0:02:55 investing, inflation, and he’ll put like, comment the word checklist and I’ll send you my free
0:03:00 financial checklist to start making some of your financial goals a reality. And you’ve probably seen
0:03:05 that on other platforms. And it’s usually automated through ManyChat, like you mentioned,
0:03:10 but maybe threads and RadReply are worth a look, especially if you’re already creating
0:03:16 that kind of written content for LinkedIn or X. So make sure to follow WellKeptWallet while you’re
0:03:21 over there on threads. But on the positive side, the way these algorithms work today is if they like
0:03:26 your content, they’re going to show it to way more people than just your followers anyway. So it’s a way
0:03:32 to reach a pretty broad audience. And maybe the other takeaway from this is if you have a pain or a
0:03:36 problem in your business, you might be able to literally build the solution with AI.
0:03:40 You know, Deacon went out shopping. He was he was ready to pay for ManyChat, but they didn’t have the
0:03:44 feature that he wanted. It doesn’t work with threads. He’s like, well, shoot, I ought to be able to create
0:03:49 this. I know Deacon’s a smart dude, but I don’t think he’s a software developer. So my guess is he
0:03:54 built this tool as like a vibe coding project. So for more on that, definitely check out our episodes
0:03:59 from earlier this year with Pete McPherson. I will link those up in the show notes about building
0:04:05 different web apps and tools with the help of AI. Next up is a super interesting email growth hack from
0:04:11 Nate McAllister, who ran into at FinCon last month, where he’s found a creative way to reduce his
0:04:16 marketing spend or essentially subsidize his subscriber acquisition costs.
0:04:24 Hey, this is Nate McAllister from entreresource.com. I use a number of different tactics to grow my audience
0:04:31 and build my business. SEO has been my biggest one for the past probably 12 years. But the world of SEO
0:04:37 is changing dramatically. AI answers, AI generated content, and then just some algorithmic changes
0:04:42 with Google have made it so it’s not as easy as it used to be. And it’s not as predictable as it used
0:04:50 to be. So I like to really double down now in paid ads. I’ve always run paid ads, but that’s become my main
0:04:56 source. So I’m growing my email list primarily with paid ads because that’s the one thing that I own. I
0:05:01 don’t really trust all the other social media platforms at scale. One way that I’m growing my
0:05:07 email list that a lot of people are not talking about, which surprises me, is Sparkloop. So I’m
0:05:12 using Sparkloop in two ways. One, to get people to promote my newsletter, and I pay them if they send
0:05:17 me email subscribers. But two, the way that’s more exciting is I actually get paid to promote other
0:05:23 people’s newsletters. And here’s how it works. When somebody opts into one of my forms, they’re shown
0:05:29 a pop-up that suggests about five other newsletters. And then when someone opts into those, I get paid
0:05:34 if they go through and actually open emails and click on things. They do a little vetting process to make
0:05:40 sure that the people that you’re sending are actually legitimate. So I can add an easy 50 cents on top of
0:05:44 every single email opt-in that I get. That’s about the average of what you’ll get paid.
0:05:50 So check out Sparkloop. It’s an amazing way to liquidate ad spend a little bit. At worst,
0:05:55 you’re going to be getting a big discount on your ad spend. So if you’re able to get leads for under a
0:05:59 dollar, like let’s say you’re paying a 90 cents for a lead, and then every time you get a lead,
0:06:04 you’re averaging 50 cents on Sparkloop. You’re basically paying 40 cents per lead. If you can
0:06:09 get below 50 cents, you’re now growing your list for free and you can scale it as much as you want.
0:06:11 All right, guys, thank you so much for having me. I’ll talk to you later.
0:06:17 Again, that was Nate from entreresource.com, like entrepreneur resource by entreresource.
0:06:21 Make sure to subscribe to his newsletter. Do it for free. Help him out there. And I believe you can
0:06:28 create a free Sparkloop plan to enable this little co-registration widget strategy. In fact, I’m
0:06:32 curious to test it out myself. I’m just having a hard time getting it to work with the different
0:06:35 forms and emails and opt-ins that I’ve got duct taped together on the site since the last
0:06:40 redesigned there. But when it comes to newsletter growth, it’s not the only game in town. Our next
0:06:45 contributor, Lewis from Anywhere Income, has another couple of recommendations for you to check out.
0:06:51 My name is Lewis Baldron, and I actually run a little side hustle that is a newsletter myself. It’s called
0:06:58 anywhereincome.xyz. One revelation I have had that not a lot of people talk about is newsletter discovery
0:07:04 networks like Refind and Mecco. It can be very cost effective, around 50 cents to a dollar per
0:07:10 engaged subscriber. You do have to set up some list cleaning, automations, and what have you. But I think
0:07:16 regardless of what sort of business you have, a newsletter obviously is a super powerful way to
0:07:20 own your audience and engage them. And newsletter discovery networks just seem to be untapped whilst
0:07:25 everyone is throwing money at meta ads and going on the social media route, which obviously works but
0:07:30 takes a lot longer. Hope that helps, mate. If any of your listeners are interested, they can subscribe
0:07:35 for free at anywhereincome.xyz. Keep up the good work. Cheers, mate.
0:07:40 Again, that was Lewis from Anywhere Income. And now I’ve got some homework to check out Refind and
0:07:45 Mecco, M-E-C-O. I’ve actually already been approved for Refind, so I might have to test that out.
0:07:51 I will link both of those up in the show notes for you. Now, it’s one thing to get people onto your list,
0:07:56 but it’s another thing to build a business on the back of that. Now, one smart way that some people are
0:08:02 doing it is asking a few questions to get to know their subscriber and then making semi-informed
0:08:07 product recommendations based on those answers. It’s kind of like the same thing I do with the
0:08:12 find your side hustle quiz or the side hustle show playlist quiz at hustle.show. You can see it in
0:08:17 action over there. Only instead of going straight for a sale or an affiliate conversion, in my case,
0:08:21 those are trying to get people deeper into the most relevant content for them. But here’s Robert from
0:08:27 tooltester.com explaining how it works in their business. Hey, it’s Robert from email tooltester.
0:08:35 We use quizzes a lot as a way for people to find the best product on our website. We review email
0:08:41 marketing services. We’re an affiliate website and we just let people answer a couple of questions
0:08:49 and in the end, they will get their ideal result for an email marketing service. This can work really
0:08:57 well for, as I said, affiliate websites or also e-commerce stores where there’s a range of options and you want to
0:09:02 make it easier for people to choose the best one. In the end, you can set it up so they have to
0:09:10 enter their email address so you get a real lead from that and then they will get sent the result of the quiz.
0:09:19 Two providers we use are InvolveMe and Interact that work really well and integrate with email platforms so
0:09:22 you can send the emails in an automated way.
0:09:28 Interact is the quiz tool that I’ve been using as well. It’s been great. I’ve got a referral link I’ll put in the
0:09:33 show notes for you. You definitely see this on the front end of a lot of e-commerce sites. Tell me a little
0:09:38 bit about your skiing personality and we’ll recommend the best skis for you. Tell me a little bit about your
0:09:43 skincare routine, your wants and needs and we’ll recommend the best skincare product for you. And done right,
0:09:49 you can even use the quiz as a lead magnet. I remember when we talked to Tori Dunlap on the show,
0:09:55 this was the conversion mechanism that she had in place when she went viral on TikTok. Take your free
0:10:01 money personality quiz and then from there, I think she had five buckets that she would put people into
0:10:07 based on their answers. But from there, she’s going to lead you down the path to the content and
0:10:12 affiliate recommendations that make the most sense for you based on where you’re at. And when that viral
0:10:19 moment came, she was ready for it. She added like 100,000 people to her list in a week. We’ve got a
0:10:26 full episode on quiz marketing and quiz funnels with Ryan Levesque. He’s actually got a whole book on the
0:10:33 topic called Ask or the Ask Method or something like that. But that is episode 508 in your archives if you
0:10:38 want to go back and check it out. And the other thing that Ryan pointed out in that episode that can be
0:10:43 super valuable, depending on your niche, is that the quiz allows you to collect some really cool
0:10:50 first party data about your audience, their wants and needs that can fuel future content. It can fuel
0:10:56 email or sales copy. It can fuel future product development. One thing that’s really surprising
0:10:59 for me is there’s a quiz on the Side Hustle Nation homepage, at least at the time of this recording.
0:11:03 And it’s take the two minute quiz, find your side hustle. And one of the questions is,
0:11:08 are you looking for a side hustle to earn extra money? Or are you looking for a side hustle to
0:11:13 eventually quit your job? And for the first year that we ran, the first several months, had thousands
0:11:18 of responses. And 80% said, I just I’m looking for a side hustle to make extra money. And the copy at
0:11:21 the time, and maybe it still is, I maybe need to go update it. But the copy was like, you know,
0:11:25 escape the rat race, quit your day job. It’s like, oh, it would resonate with way more people
0:11:30 percentage wise, if it was shifted around earn extra money. And that could be different because that’s
0:11:35 website traffic versus the podcast audience where I get the sense that you listening are a little more
0:11:39 entrepreneurial, and maybe looking for something that can scale to quit your job. It was really
0:11:43 eye opening. So that’s kind of some of the data that you can get from from a quiz like that. Again,
0:11:48 interact is the tool that I’ve been using for the last several years. It’s been pretty cool.
0:11:53 So we’ve been talking a lot about email, but we’ve got lots of other great marketing strategies from
0:11:56 side hustle show listeners to share coming up right after this.
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0:14:11 Next up, if you’ve got a local service or even an online service, you’re going to want to listen to
0:14:19 Hi, Nick. I’m Crystal with Legacy Notary Services here in Southern Maryland. And one way that I’ve been
0:14:26 able to attract new clients is by asking for the review right after the notary appointment. If they
0:14:32 could just take 10 seconds and give me a review on how things went with the notary appointment before I
0:14:38 leave them, that actually drives more traffic to my website. And it boosts my analytics when people
0:14:45 Google notary near me and I can operate in all 50 states as an apostille agent for loan document
0:14:52 authentication for foreign countries. So that helps with the algorithm on Google. Thanks so much for
0:14:58 letting me share. Asking for those reviews. Simple but effective. You know the saying, if you don’t ask,
0:15:04 the answer is always no. Well, it’s probably true when it comes to reviews. Your customers love you and the
0:15:09 time to strike is right after you’ve delivered a great service. My wife will deliver the digital
0:15:14 pictures that she takes for weddings or families. And almost every time there’s the response of OMG,
0:15:19 these are amazing. Thank you so much. That’s the perfect time to hit reply with the Google profile
0:15:24 link directly to the review page and make that ask. Hey, would you mind just copying and pasting that
0:15:28 into a Google review for me? It would take like 10 seconds, right? I like how Crystal framed that.
0:15:33 It’s only going to take you 10 seconds. That would be a huge help for my business. Another way to improve
0:15:40 your visibility in Google is to feed the beast. Give them more data and metadata and content to chew on
0:15:45 so they can put you in front of more customers. Here’s how Coach Dom Costa is doing it.
0:15:51 Hi from Coach Dom Costa with my scrap metal recycling business down here in the Los Angeles Harbor area.
0:15:58 My big tip is Google my business. Yes, siri. Every time I pick up stuff, I take a picture. Every time I dump
0:16:06 it, I send in a video. I post pretty regularly and I am the second person in my area below an international
0:16:14 scrap metal recycler. Yes, me with my $1,000 to $2,000 a month income from scrap metal recycling. I am listed
0:16:21 under a multinational corporation just by posting daily on Google my business. Don’t sleep on it,
0:16:28 kids. It’s free. I highly recommend it. Google my business. Set up your account now. You won’t go
0:16:33 wrong. It’s going to drive sales and opportunities to you over and over again. Thank you for all you do,
0:16:38 Nick. This is really cool. And it’s something we’ve heard from other side hustle show guests as well.
0:16:44 No one thinks to use their Google business profile as a social media channel. And it’s not like you’re
0:16:48 going to get a ton of engagement by posting pictures and updates there, but you don’t need to. You’re
0:16:54 feeding the content directly into the engine that can feed you better lead flow. If you have a Google
0:16:59 profile for your business, when was the last time you posted content to it? Challenge yourself to start
0:17:04 doing it regularly. Look for excuses to take pictures, tag them with the locations, feed those
0:17:10 into the machine and see what happens. Another thing that can help with discovery and visibility
0:17:15 is getting backlinks and press mentions. With a little concerted effort, you can get this quote
0:17:20 unquote earned media coverage. And it’s not necessarily going to be the highest converting traffic,
0:17:25 but it can boost your SEO. It can boost your credibility. And according to our recent guest,
0:17:31 Tanya Van Gastel, it can also help in the brave new world of GEO, generative engine optimization,
0:17:37 basically getting your brand to be recommended by ChatGPT and other AI tools. Here’s how Rosie Bell
0:17:40 is using this tried and true tactic in her business.
0:17:45 Hi, Nick. My name is Rosie Bell and I’m a travel journalist and I run two sites,
0:17:51 discoverysessions.com and Press Trip Pros, which is a matchmaking platform connecting travel journalists
0:17:57 and travel content creators with organizers of press trips. My marketing tip is using Harrow,
0:18:03 which is a DIY PR platform that recently relaunched after being bought by feature.com. And it’s still
0:18:07 a great place for journalists to find sources for their stories. I’ve given coverage to businesses big
0:18:13 and small, old and new, and also gotten features from my own online businesses in the likes of HuffPost,
0:18:19 Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and NBC News. And I’ve even had entire segments dedicated to me on
0:18:24 national television, which had a major impact on my businesses. There are so many benefits to being
0:18:30 featured in the media. You can build brand awareness, trust, credibility, visibility, and you can be
0:18:35 considered an authority on a topic and get sales spikes, get backlinks from high authority sites,
0:18:40 and press begets press so when one site features you, others might want to as well. The great thing
0:18:45 about Harrow is that it’s completely free to use and anyone can reply with a pitch to a journalist’s
0:18:52 specific callout. Another alternative to Harrow is sourceofsources.com or SOS, which was started by the
0:18:57 original creator of Harrow. You can find feature opportunities in major publications like the
0:19:02 Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Travel and Leisure, and USA Today, no matter what stage of your business
0:19:07 you’re at, which is just fabulous. Thanks so much for the opportunity to share this tip with listeners
0:19:12 of the show. I’ve been a listener myself for many years, and I hope this helps site hustlers find
0:19:18 visibility. Thank you, Rosie, for that. I have been a Harrow user, help a reporter out user on both
0:19:23 sides of the equation for many years, and I’ve gotten some great mentions from it. Quoted is
0:19:29 another one to check out. That’s Q-W-O-T-E-D, Quoted, another potential place to connect with
0:19:35 journalists. So my advice when pitching journalists is to quickly establish your credentials to match
0:19:39 what they’re looking for, because they’re probably going to get a lot of inbound pitches. In my case,
0:19:44 a lot of the time, people will be looking for a quote-unquote side hustle expert to speak to a
0:19:49 specific trend, like AI-powered side hustles or something like that. So I can open my reply with,
0:19:55 hey, I’m Nick. I’ve been covering side hustles for the last 12 years. I’ve written several books on this
0:20:00 topic. I’ve interviewed 600 side hustlers on the award-winning side hustle show podcast. Something
0:20:05 like that, just to quickly and quantify your credentials. And if you don’t have those exact
0:20:10 credentials, you probably have a version of them that will at least get your foot in the door. So pump
0:20:16 yourself up a little bit in that intro, make sure pitch can stand out from the crowd, stand out from
0:20:21 the heap of others in that inbox. The other way to use press is to not just wait around for inbound
0:20:26 journalist inquiries that happen to match your niche or what you’re an expert on, but also to
0:20:32 proactively pitch your story. 1-800-GOT-JUNK comes to mind, how Brian in his first summer pitched
0:20:37 the local newspaper, this feel-good story about how in this tough job market, local teen creates his own
0:20:41 job. And then for the picture that they ran along with the story, it’s him standing in front of his
0:20:47 pickup truck with the phone number and a huge font on the side. And the leads from that kept him busy
0:20:53 for a long while. Or more recently, Chef Jessica, when she was starting her personal chef business, she
0:21:00 catered her journalist pitch to how families were adapting to food allergies or dietary restrictions.
0:21:05 And in a business like hers, there’s really only so many clients you can take on. So it didn’t take much
0:21:09 to be in a really good position. Next up is our mobile gift wrapper extraordinaire,
0:21:15 Michelle Hensley, who relies on word of mouth, but he’s also proactive about getting the word out
0:21:21 with some precision targeted direct mail. Hi, Side Hustle Nation. Michelle Hensley here,
0:21:27 founder of Nifty Package Company and the host and owner of MichelleMHensley.com,
0:21:31 the mobile gift wrapping business coach. As a business coach, it’s essential to leverage your
0:21:37 unique strengths as a creative entrepreneur. So one proven strategy for us is that we do such a good
0:21:43 job that we foster growth through referrals. So what you want to do is whether it’s event styling
0:21:49 or custom illustrations or handmade accessories, identify what distinguishes you from your competitor.
0:21:55 So this could be your turnaround time. This could be your materials or what type of branding you have
0:22:01 or can do. What is your communication style? Another complementary approach is that we employ
0:22:06 precision targeted direct mail campaigns. We do this by understanding our ideal client profile.
0:22:13 In the early stages of Nifty, I realized that the average value of an order was $230 per basket.
0:22:19 This was a clear pivot towards luxury positioning. So I definitely worked on that. Our gift wrapping is
0:22:25 costly. It’s also American made. We marketed that approach and we refined our outreach to affluent
0:22:31 demographics such as corporate leaders and zip codes. So this really helped us. And as a hybrid model
0:22:36 blending services with on location wrapping and products that are signature baskets and luxury items,
0:22:43 we prioritize client guidance every step of the way. So my recommendation is this. Regularly review your
0:22:49 client roster and sales metrics to refine your avatar and make sure you understand what you’re doing and
0:22:54 who engages most frequently, who invests in the highest and use these insights to help you with
0:22:59 your marketing. Your creative authenticity is a powerful differentiator in the automated landscape.
0:23:05 So by honing your unique value proposition, cultivate your referrals and pursuing targeted outreach,
0:23:08 you can accelerate your path to profitability.
0:23:12 This positioning piece is something that’s easy to overlook when you’re just getting started.
0:23:16 And I think that’s natural. Look, I’ll take any customers I can get at the beginning,
0:23:22 but it can become more refined and targeted over time. In that episode, we did with Tanya recently
0:23:28 about her AI powered headshot company. It started out as this more broad B2C business to consumer
0:23:34 service, but then really found a niche within professional headshots for remote companies. So they shifted
0:23:39 their messaging, they shifted their positioning and, and the headshot output to match that. And that allowed
0:23:45 them to charge higher prices because the perceived value was a lot higher. And they ultimately had to convince
0:23:51 fewer decision makers to hit that buy button when one customer all of a sudden could order hundreds or thousands
0:23:56 of headshots at one time instead of individuals making one $29 order at a time. And I think that’s something that
0:24:02 helped the side hustle show early on too. Yes, there were other entrepreneurship podcasts. Yes, it felt
0:24:07 crowded even back in 2013. But here was one that spoke specifically to that person trying to build
0:24:13 something on the side. I don’t know, just a theory with some survivorship bias, the benefit of hindsight
0:24:18 there. But next up is a strategy that definitely works in the podcasting world. And that’s collaborating
0:24:24 with your so-called competitors and tapping into each other’s audiences. Only this sign hustle show
0:24:28 listener is applying it to a completely offline business.
0:24:34 Hey Nick, this is Gary Youngblood with 13th Colony Shuttles here in Savannah, Georgia. You can find us on the web
0:24:41 at 13thcolonyshuttles.com. One marketing strategy that is working really well for me right now is actually
0:24:49 collaboration with my competitors. There are two other local agencies here in Savannah that provide shuttle services
0:24:58 around town and there’s so much work that not one company can handle at all. So typically what I do is if I get
0:25:04 someone requesting a ride for me and I cannot fill their request, then I will market it out to one of the
0:25:09 other companies here in town. I found that that’s worked really well for me because I’ve gotten so much
0:25:14 business from their referrals to me that I’m busting at the seams. Hope this helps.
0:25:19 Thanks Gary for sharing that and happy to hear business is rocking for you. This one reminds me of
0:25:26 an episode we did a long time ago with John Doherty. The story started with John doing SEO work for his
0:25:32 corporate job, then doing freelance SEO work as a side hustle, then doing that full-time, then raising
0:25:37 his rates, and then still eventually getting so busy that he had to turn clients away. So he had this idea,
0:25:44 what if I could refer them to other trusted friends and service providers in this space and get a referral fee
0:25:49 from that? Would the other companies be willing to pay? That was a question he had. Sure, for a $2,000 a month
0:25:55 contract to add to their agency? Of course they would. We called it high-touch affiliate marketing in episode
0:26:01 273. And John eventually went out to build this whole separate business that specialized in making these
0:26:08 recommended referrals. It was called Credo, getcredo.com. And since that recording, it’s been like seven years, it looks like
0:26:14 they’ve expanded beyond SEO into quite a few different digital marketing verticals. So if you’re a service
0:26:19 provider in that space, maybe that’s another marketing angle, getting your service or agency vetted and
0:26:24 listed and connecting with clients through that platform. But I like Gary’s call to befriend your
0:26:29 so-called competitors and see if you can pass business back and forth. If you’re too busy or if it’s not a
0:26:34 perfect fit and vice versa in you getting business back from them. I’ve got more creative and actionable
0:26:39 marketing strategies from Side Hustle Show listeners coming up right after this.
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0:28:53 See Mint Mobile for details. We’ve been talking about creative, proven, proactive ways to market your
0:28:58 business in this episode, which is one part fulfilling existing demand. If people are looking
0:29:03 for what we sell, they want to make sure they can find us. But what about those people who might need
0:29:08 our help but aren’t exactly looking for it just yet? That’s where this next tip might come in.
0:29:13 Hey, my name is Espen Campbell. I have a business named Vortex Rugby, which is an apparel business.
0:29:20 Specifically, we sell shorts, but we are opening up more apparel options to tank tops and bucket hats
0:29:24 and t-shirts and some other things. That’s really interesting as the rugby space specifically in the
0:29:31 U.S. is growing a bunch and so is the apparel. So we’ve been able to grow through Instagram. It’s mostly
0:29:37 been how we’ve been marketing, but now I’ve been able to use more traditional marketing through
0:29:44 scraping a lot of the rugby union websites. So more of the high level tournament websites and then
0:29:50 scraping all of those contact informations and being able to use clay and enriching a lot of that while
0:29:57 then being able to use HubSpot and Automate to have it be a real, almost like a B2B sales because that’s
0:30:05 what I have done before. And then being able to reach out and kind of have these sequences of drip emails of what’s
0:30:12 important. Is it price? Is it when their season is? Is it the club itself? So trying to do something new in that
0:30:18 space. The impact is that we’re growing exponentially. We’ve gone from two to 5,000 followers on Instagram in a year.
0:30:26 We’ve gotten more than 15 team orders for not just shorts, but for a full entire team kits. So it’s really
0:30:46 fun. And, you know, we’ve gone to a bunch of tournaments, but the impact is also that when we go places, people know who we are. And it’s not just like, oh, another apparel brand shows up. But they have recognized us either on Instagram or seen our emails or the president has seen them or they’ve seen our shorts, which are very vibrant and eccentric. So they’re very easy to tell.
0:31:13 All right, Espen, thank you for sharing that. I like this for a lot of reasons. First was tackling a growing niche. I don’t know much about rugby, but it sounds like it’s an up and coming market in the U.S. at least, which means a rising tide can lift all boats. That’s a great place to be in just market selection wise. And second, Vortex isn’t just selling generic commoditized rugby shorts, if there is such a thing. Instead, they really stand out with their bold, loud, bright, fun designs, which makes them really recognizable.
0:31:35 And then, like we’ve seen from other Side Hustle Show guests, if there’s a way to take a consumer product or service and turn it into a business product or service, selling one-to-many instead of one-to-one, like Espen mentioned, going after leagues and tournaments and teams rather than individual rugby players. For any new brand, it’s this battle of awareness. It sounds like Vortex is playing both sides of the ball.
0:31:46 Yes, we can create compelling social media content for discoverability on Instagram, but we’re not just going to sit around and wait for people to find us. We’re also going to be proactive about finding them and getting in their inboxes.
0:31:52 Clay.com, C-L-A-Y, was the data enrichment tool that he mentioned. I’ll link that up for you.
0:32:00 Now, another Side Hustle Show listener being proactive in their marketing efforts is Matthias, who took to Reddit to spread the word about his new website.
0:32:13 Hey, Matthias here from XFerturist World Tools. I just started my blog, XFerturist World Tools.com, like two weeks ago, and I started marketing three days ago, and I already get like three leads from Reddit.
0:32:28 What I do, I go on to Reddit, look for subreddits specific to my target audience, in my case, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and side hustlers like us, and they talk about tools, and they look for comments about tools, posts about tools, somebody has problems, look for another tool.
0:32:38 So I have a lead magnet where I explain how to replace expensive tools with cheaper version or lifetime deals, and I answer this question, somebody has about a tool, and say, hey, did you check out this tool?
0:32:41 I made a review on my blog post, check it out, and I hope this helps.
0:32:48 And I make two to three posts a day, not too much. I don’t want to be spammy. I just make it specific. I provide value first, and then drop my link.
0:33:10 As with all things Reddit, you got to tread carefully, but if you can legitimately answer people’s questions, it’s a great place to start, not just for market research, but to get those all-important first few visitors, first few subscribers, very grassroots.
0:33:20 But some of those threads get a lot of traffic in their own right, because they’re indexed in Google, and if your response gets upvoted, it can end up with a lot of visibility for months, maybe even years.
0:33:26 And I feel like more and more guests are mentioning Reddit in response to the question of, well, where’d you find your first customers?
0:33:33 Tanya mentioned this for her AI headshot service. Hannah Morgan mentioned this for her virtual house management service.
0:33:36 Frey Chu mentioned this for his thrift store directory website.
0:33:41 I mean, Reddit has just a ton of traffic, and it’s kind of marketing one-on-one.
0:33:45 How am I going to get in front of my customers where they’re already hanging out, where they’re already searching for answers?
0:33:52 It’s a bit of an SEO shortcut in that way, if you can figure out how to post your stuff and not get your account shut down.
0:33:55 Again, that was Matthias from Extraterrestrial Tools.
0:34:00 Now, surprisingly, we haven’t heard a ton about AI yet, but that’s about to change.
0:34:08 Some Side Hustle Show listeners are using AI tools to get more mileage out of their existing content, which is always interesting to me as a content creator.
0:34:18 Is there a quick way to repurpose the work you’re already doing in a way that is native to each platform, so you’re not just spamming up the place in order to reach a broader audience?
0:34:20 Cheyenne might have the answer.
0:34:27 Hey, it’s Cheyenne from DomesticDaydreams.com slash blog, at Domestic Daydreams on social media, and the Homemakers Helper podcast.
0:34:33 How I’m marketing my cleaning routines membership is by posting organic short-form video content on Instagram and Facebook.
0:34:35 I now post three times a day.
0:34:42 I then use voice-to-text to plug in the transcript of my short-form videos and elaborate with any additional thoughts and tips.
0:34:45 Then I have AI format that into a blog post for me.
0:34:51 I edit the blog post, embed my short-form video, and record the blog as a podcast episode, and then I embed that too.
0:34:55 After publishing, I pin it to Pinterest and email it out to my email list.
0:35:05 I then use Facebook retargeting ads to retarget anyone who has visited my website and blog or interacted with my Facebook or Instagram with the offer I’m selling.
0:35:13 In the last 20 days, I’ve added 60,000 followers on Facebook, 46,000 followers on Instagram, and over 8,000 email list subscribers.
0:35:17 But even better, I’ve increased my revenue by over 60% by doing this.
0:35:18 Time out.
0:35:19 Did I hear that correctly?
0:35:22 100,000 new followers in 20 days?
0:35:24 8,000 new email subscribers?
0:35:29 Show of hands if we need to get Cheyenne on the podcast to learn more about what she’s doing, because she’s clearly doing something right.
0:35:45 One of the most exciting developments of this brave new AI world is to somehow clone yourself, and maybe there’s a way to build some automations and agents that are trained on you and your voice, and do that around the work you’re already doing to save some time and serve more people.
0:35:48 Here’s how our next contributor is doing just that.
0:35:52 Hi, Mike Lynch here from R Campfire Unplugged and the Flywheel Factory.
0:35:58 When I started my RV blog, I ran into the same wall most content creators hit.
0:36:01 Blog posts took 6 to 10 hours to write.
0:36:06 I tried to outsource, but could never get the courage up to spend the money to have someone else write for me.
0:36:10 And my growth stalled because I couldn’t publish consistently.
0:36:13 That pain is what pushed me to experiment with AI.
0:36:25 I built a system where I capture my ideas with my own words, run them through a custom GPT that knows my brand voice, and then automate the workflow into blogs, emails, and social posts.
0:36:41 The impact at R Campfire Unplugged, I cut writing time from 6 hours to under 60 minutes, saved countless dollars that I would have spent outsourcing, and finally started publishing at the pace I needed to grow traffic and affiliate revenue.
0:36:49 That success became Flywheel Factory, a system to help other creators escape the same traps.
0:36:50 Here’s the simple plan we teach.
0:36:51 Capture your voice.
0:36:54 Turn one idea into multiple assets.
0:36:57 Automate the publishing so your effort compounds.
0:37:01 If you’re still grinding it out the old way, the risk is burnout and stagnation.
0:37:08 But if you build a flywheel, every piece of content makes the next one easier and growth compounds.
0:37:13 So my advice to fellow side hustlers is, you don’t need more hustle, you need a system.
0:37:15 That’s the flywheel.
0:37:17 Flywheelfactory.io.
0:37:18 We’ll have to check it out.
0:37:21 I can definitely relate to the dilemma Mike described.
0:37:23 You know you need some new content.
0:37:25 You’ve even got the idea for it.
0:37:32 But you’re staring down the barrel of that 6 to 10 hour time block to produce something really solid, which almost never exists, the time block.
0:37:36 So you procrastinate on it, fill in the time with other stuff that may or may not move the needle.
0:37:42 So really cool that he’s found a way to train that custom GPT in his brand voice and start to scale smarter.
0:37:47 Next up is a tip that’s ostensibly for authors, but I think it goes quite a bit broader than that.
0:37:54 Hey Nick, this is Eric Keller, author of The Bear Soldier at bearsoldier.com.
0:38:05 What’s working best for me right now is a three-part play that blends interactive content, shareable assets, and measurable attribution without a huge budget.
0:38:06 Whoa, whoa, whoa.
0:38:08 We’re using AI to record these now?
0:38:11 Either that or Eric’s a professional audiobook narrator.
0:38:12 But all right, go ahead.
0:38:13 What have you got for us?
0:38:14 Part one.
0:38:17 Give visitors something to do in 30 seconds.
0:38:24 I launched a living campaign map for the book, an interactive World War II route with photos and one sentence,
0:38:31 It loads fast, and each click reveals a short, satisfying story nugget.
0:38:32 The goal is simple.
0:38:38 Transform a bounce-prone book page into a toy people want to explore and share.
0:38:39 Part two.
0:38:42 Make sharing automatic and beautiful.
0:38:48 When a visitor opens a battle or waypoint, my site quietly generates a dynamic open graph image.
0:38:54 Basically, a custom social preview with the photo, title, and year.
0:39:01 If they click Share, that exact moment posts to social with a compelling card, which boosts click-throughs.
0:39:05 A lot of authors rely on one generic cover image.
0:39:10 This creates dozens of unique, authentic entry points back to the site.
0:39:11 Part three.
0:39:14 Measure what matters with Amazon attribution.
0:39:20 Every off-site, buy on Amazon button, carries an Amazon attribution tag.
0:39:26 So I can see which channel, or even which moment on the map, actually leads to purchases.
0:39:28 That replaced guesswork with data.
0:39:32 It also lets me make smarter choices about where to spend time.
0:39:41 Podcasts, newsletters, or creator shout-outs that align with World War II, or animal lovers tend to perform best for this book.
0:39:43 The microfunnel looks like this.
0:39:45 Map for curiosity.
0:39:47 Free chapter email opt-in.
0:39:49 Amazon buy with attribution.
0:39:53 A short welcome sequence that invites book clubs and educators.
0:40:03 The welcome sequence includes a printable discussion guide and a short behind-the-research note, which helps turn one purchase into a group read.
0:40:04 Results.
0:40:14 I’m seeing longer on-site engagement, a meaningful lift in email sign-ups, and clearer insight into which posts and guest spots actually move books.
0:40:20 If you write history or narrative non-fiction, you don’t need a massive ad budget.
0:40:23 Give people a small, purposeful interactive.
0:40:24 Make it share-ready.
0:40:27 And track with attribution so you can iterate.
0:40:33 I’m Eric Keller, Bearsoldier.com, author of The Bear Soldier.
0:40:35 Thanks for the chance to share what’s working.
0:40:36 All right.
0:40:37 You convinced me, Eric.
0:40:38 I got my copy.
0:40:41 And I think the bigger takeaway is you can’t just write the book.
0:40:43 You’ve got to become a marketer as well.
0:40:46 Thinking, well, who would really enjoy this work?
0:40:47 Who would get the most value from it?
0:40:54 In this case, people interested in World War II or animal lovers or ideally a cross-section of both.
0:40:58 And then building something that’s compelling for them to interact with and share with.
0:41:05 And this is something AI has enabled us to do a lot more easily and inexpensively than ever before.
0:41:15 To build these interactive elements and tools into our sites and to get inspiration, you can probably just look at what’s working in your niche or in other niches and put your own unique spin on it.
0:41:20 One pitch that came across my desk this summer was a Wordle-inspired game.
0:41:22 But instead of words, it was real estate values.
0:41:26 It would give you a picture of the house and maybe the location.
0:41:27 And then you had to guess the listing price.
0:41:31 And it gained some viral attention in the Zillow and real estate world.
0:41:33 Not sure what that looks like yet for Side Hustle Nation.
0:41:40 But I’ve got some ideas cooking and maybe some kind of income calculator or even a side hustle sidekick.
0:41:41 I like that name.
0:41:43 A virtual side hustle advisor of sorts.
0:41:45 So what am I working on marketing-wise?
0:41:48 The episode wouldn’t complete if I didn’t throw my own two cents in here.
0:41:51 I’ve got a few experiments going on right now.
0:42:00 One is related to the Facebook monetization program, basically trying to pump out a bunch of attention-getting content onto the Side Hustle Nation Facebook page.
0:42:07 Not the group, but the actual page in the hopes that Facebook pushes it out to a broader audience and they’ll actually pay you for that.
0:42:14 Because the more time people spend engaging with your content, the more time they’re spending on Facebook, the more money Facebook is making on advertising.
0:42:16 So they’re sharing some of that revenue with you.
0:42:22 So it’s an interesting way that they’re incentivizing creators to make this kind of content.
0:42:22 So that one’s pretty new.
0:42:23 I’m a couple weeks in.
0:42:30 I’ve made like $6 so far, but we’ve got a full episode on this coming up with the guy who inspired me to take a crack at it.
0:42:33 And he’s doing like $30,000 a month with it.
0:42:36 So it’s definitely something that can scale to a serious income stream.
0:42:43 On the podcast side, I’ve been testing a lot of different listener acquisition channels the last year or so.
0:42:51 Player FM, audience lift, and pod role are probably my favorite or most cost-effective so far.
0:42:54 One cool thing that you can do is promote specific episodes.
0:43:00 So if we had a guest on like a year ago, it’s a way to breathe new life into that older episode.
0:43:04 And I’ve had some success splitting the cost of that promotion with the guest.
0:43:12 And then one of my favorite sessions at FinCon was with Coach Carson about how he pivoted from being an audio-first podcast.
0:43:20 He runs, I think it’s called Coach Carson, the Real Estate Investing Podcast, to being a YouTube-first show and grew his channel to over 100,000 subscribers.
0:43:24 Nothing would impress my kids more than getting that play button plaque from YouTube, seriously.
0:43:27 But he had a couple suggestions I’m trying to implement.
0:43:34 One was recording a separate video-specific intro for the podcast episodes that we post to YouTube.
0:43:40 Really leaning into the hook and the story in the first 20 seconds, you know, following all the YouTube best practices.
0:43:46 And then second, looking at what topics or videos have outperformed for similar channels.
0:43:54 If that channel normally gets 10,000 views per video, but some video got 100,000, okay, that’s an interesting tidbit of data, right?
0:43:56 Could you create something similar?
0:43:59 So trying to recreate those in your own style, your own voice.
0:44:05 Chad gave the example of finding a video on how to do the math, how to evaluate if a rental property was a good deal.
0:44:05 Should you buy it?
0:44:07 That one did really well on this other channel that he found.
0:44:12 So he said, well, look, I already have my own method of evaluating if a rental property is a good deal.
0:44:16 So I can easily record that, share that, and that video did really well for him too.
0:44:19 So those are a few things that we’ve got going on.
0:44:24 I feel like the written side of the business, the website side, has been neglected this year.
0:44:29 I just haven’t been motivated to work on it in the face of declining traffic and earnings.
0:44:32 But it’s actually still a pretty significant part of the business revenue-wise.
0:44:34 So I do need to prioritize some maintenance and upkeep over there.
0:44:37 SEO might be dying, but it’s not completely dead yet.
0:44:45 And as I go through, I find some content that might be ripe to make a video version of, which is just another evergreen asset to add to the business.
0:44:48 But big thanks to all our listeners who shared their insight for this episode.
0:44:51 You might be wondering, well, how’d they find out about this casting call?
0:44:53 It’s all through email.
0:44:55 So make sure to join the list if you haven’t already.
0:44:59 SideHustleNation.com slash join is an easy way to do it.
0:45:03 So you’ll have first crack at the next kind of roundup episode like this one that we do.
0:45:05 SideHustleNation.com slash join.
0:45:08 And big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:45:14 You can hit up SideHustleNation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:45:17 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:45:18 That is it for me.
0:45:20 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:45:23 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:45:26 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
Marketing can feel like shouting into the void, especially when you’re just getting started with your side hustle.
To find out what’s actually working today across a wide range of industries, I’ve crowdsourced some wisdom from Side Hustle Show listeners.
One common theme from the past couple years is the strategy of using social media content to try and hit the algorithm on your platform of choice, and then get those viewers or readers to follow you or to join your email list.
I asked listeners to share a marketing tactic that’s working well for them right now, and I got back a ton of great responses.
Here are 17 of the best marketing tips that were submitted, many of which you can apply to your business today.
Full Show Notes: 17 Marketing Tips from Side Hustle Show Listeners: What’s Working Now?
New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here!
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About The Side Hustle Show
This is the entrepreneurship podcast you can actually apply!
The award-winning small business show covers the best side hustles and side hustle ideas. We share how to start a business and make money online and offline, including online business, side gigs, freelancing, marketing, sales funnels, investing, and much more.
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Hosted by Nick Loper of Side Hustle Nation.
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