Today I was thinking about the fact that as a business owner/solopreneur, we will never really know if a choice we make is right or wrong, even in the long term.
Why do I say that?
Let’s say you want to sell LinkedIn outreach services to another business entity. You’re trying to decide between a few offerings, like a monthly subscription or a 3-month package…
After some audience and market research, you think either could work and craft very appealing messages for each, then decide to test the results. So you offer each one to 10 people.
Option 1 is bought by 2/10 of the people you offer it to, and Option 2 is bought by 4/10 (both pretty good conversion rates for services like this!).
Obviously, it makes sense to stick with Option 2 here.
But I believe that ultimately, this is just a very educated guess and not objective proof.
For example, maybe the 2nd group of 10 fit your target market better, or maybe you tried Option 1 and got much better at pitching your services by the time you started selling Option 2…
There are just so many variables, and you’d never know which option is best unless you ran with both for months and months – which usually isn’t worth it (depends on the type of small business, but I generally recommend being laser-focused on just 1 offering to get started once you’ve tested a few).
Anyway, what does this mean for us solopreneurs and small business owners?
It means we have a very unpredictable, fun job 😀
Sure, it can be scary at times, especially knowing there is no “right” answer, but it’s the ambiguity that makes it so fun (in my humble opinion). Check out the vlog where I discussed this thought in more detail:
Now, let’s get into a real life SG example on testing:
A few weeks ago I was running a free giveaway targeting solopreneurs. Prizes included a few Amazon gift cards and a 2-month coaching package with yours truly to kick-start a new solopreneur business idea you want to get going, or ramp up a new business you’re currently working on.
Why?
Because I was testing different ways to grow my email list, and as mentioned above, all we can really do is test a different solopreneur marketing strategy and use the information that we get to make the most educated decision possible.
For example, if your goal is to grow your email list, there are many marketing strategies, like:
- free traffic (from social media accounts, blog, etc.)
- paid traffic (FB ads, search engine optimization, influencers, etc.)
- other creative ways (gorilla marketing, contests, etc.)
I put out content to drive free traffic to potential customers and also love testing different paid methods because I enjoy it and want to keep getting better at it. Ultimately, only testing and time will show you which is the best way forward.
Just make sure to take the time to evaluate each marketing test so you know which gives you the best outcome in regard to business expenses. For example:
- you run FB ads, and it’s costing you $0.75/email signup
- you run a giveaway that costs $200, and you collect 200 entrants/emails
In that scenario, you’re better off sticking to FB ads and saving the $0.25/email captured. At the end of the day, solopreneur marketing (and most of digital marketing) comes down to simple math – and I go into more detail on comparing different forms of solopreneur marketing strategies here:
To summarize: you will likely never know the perfect answer to some questions for your solopreneur new business, so make the most of it. Come up with some good ideas, try different things and go back and review the results of each on an on-going basis.
And if you want more solopreneur marketing tips like these directly to your inbox (just once a week!), make sure to sign up to the email list here.
