Marketing can be an extremely lucrative position. It’s also increasingly easy to branch out and pick up some marketing-related money as a side hustle. There are lots of ways to work freelance, or even start up your own small marketing business.
All of the jobs featured on this list can be worked part-time, but they also could transition into a full-time gig if that’s where your interests lie. Read on to learn more about how you can make extra money with your marketing skills.
Go Freelance
It’s easier than ever to start a freelance business. Where once you might have had to (don’t laugh) place an ad in the newspaper, you can now take a quick trip to one of the many online freelancer platforms. All it takes is a few minutes to set up a profile, and from there you can quickly connect with hundreds or even thousands of potential clients who need marketing assistance.
The nice thing about freelancing as a side hustle, of course, is that you can decide for yourself how much work you want to take on. Many a freelancer has even found that what started as a side hustle became a profitable full-time business arrangement.
Social Media Management
Social media management is less demanding than traditional copywriting or content creation. This article is about one thousand words. A social media post might be fifty. It’s not to say that digital marketing professionals are living on easy street.
The work is data-driven and thoughtful. Strategy is required. Still, a talented marketer could comfortably take on several social media clients without losing any semblance of work-life balance. The income would be sweet, and the work itself could be accomplished with a relatively modest time investment.
Website Analysis
SEO consultants take a close look at websites to find out what they are doing right, and what could use improvement. The idea is always to boost traffic and increase search engine friendliness. Like all of the gigs that will be featured on this list, the work itself is not easy. It takes expertise and a time investment.
Still, much of it can be software-driven, and there is a decent amount of flexibility in terms of how much time you put into it.
AdWords
AdWords is a digital marketing tool that allows businesses to hire marketing professionals, and only pay them when the content generates clicks. It’s good for both parties. The business gets a pretty enticing offer. Work they only have to pay for if it gets them good results.
And you get sweet commissions.
Drip Campaigns
Drip campaigns are how businesses frame their email marketing. The schedule and pacing of email messaging make a big difference in what sort of impact the campaign will ultimately have. Marketers have the skill and knowledge to know how to strategize with companies to meet their goals.
While email drip campaigning can itself be a full-time responsibility, it is easily managed as a side hustle by marketers who are happy enough to pick up the occasional client.
Content Creation
The article in front of you is what you might call, “content creation.” Someone (a noble, smart, wonderful someone) needed an article written. They paid someone to write it. Good marketers are usually also good writers.
Content creation works as a side hustle because it can pay handsomely, and it isn’t very demanding. You accept projects you want. Decline the ones you don’t, and (usually) work at your own pace. There aren’t really blogging emergencies, so as long as you are professional you can typically work at a relaxed speed.
Personal Branding
A final sidebar, a postscript, if you will, is the lucrative potential of personal branding. We put this one at the end because it’s not, strictly speaking, a side hustle.
We are talking about you here. The you that faces the public. Personal branding is nothing new, but it has grown in prominence as a mainstream concept for finding employment in the modern job market. People of all professional backgrounds now look to frame themselves as a complete package for a business to take advantage of.
Instead of Joe Blow with a degree in marketing, you are Joe Blow the— well. The beautiful thing about developing a personal brand is that that is for you to decide.
I don’t know. Businesses, when you get right down to it are mostly concerned with profitability. I don’t understand how—
How public perception could impact a business’s bottom line? A talented marketer such as yourself should have no trouble grasping as much. Businesses are now all about the culture that they promote. The way they look to the public.
Some of these initiatives come from a sincere place. Others don’t. Honestly, for your purposes, it doesn’t really make a difference. The deal is this: businesses want to cast a very deliberate image of themselves out to the public, and you are part of the story they are trying to tell. If your personal brand matches theirs, it can go a long way toward helping you get hired, or promoted, or, well. Whatever it is you want it to accomplish.
It’s also worth mentioning that a strong personal brand can help you pick up work on the side as well. There isn’t a tangible dollar figure you can put to having a good personal brand, and yet is an important aspect of working in the modern era.
So, how do you make a strong personal brand? It’s a lot of little things. A strong, carefully cultivated social media presence is an easy first step. It’s also important to make sure that you don’t put anything out in the world that contradicts the image you are trying to wear professionally.
Find a way to make it easy for companies to understand who you are as they do background checks, and eventually make hiring or promotion decisions.
