How to Build and Scale an Online Service Business With Minimal Resources

Blog
September 12, 2024 | by Aleesha Jacob

Key takeaways

  • Choose a service based on your skills and market demand
  • Budget-friendly marketing: pay-per-click, social media, content
  • Referrals and testimonials will help build a client base

Choose a business

Viable choices include affiliate marketing, content creation, and reselling hosting. Affiliate marketers specialize in generating traffic. They use paid and unpaid approaches to sell products, and when someone buys something, they receive a fee. Often, an affiliate marketer will own a YouTube channel, a blog, or another online asset and monetize it by marketing third-party products.

As of 2024, almost 82% of affiliate marketers make at least $20,000 a year. The average return on each dollar invested in this online service is $15, which comes to an ROI of 1,400%.

Affiliate marketing accounts for 5-25% of leading brands’ online sales, and its total revenue grows by 10% a year.

Content creators produce engaging written, audio, or visual content and sometimes distribute it online. Some have blogs, while others rely on YouTube or another platform. Content creators can earn revenue from selling ads, pitching products, or selling merchandise.

Reseller hosting companies offer customized hosting plans at different prices. They market their services online and use SEO tools and social media to drive traffic and conversion.

They also use tools to offer customer support, process payments, and issue invoices. The parent host is responsible for maintaining the server. They activate reseller accounts, which are comprised of the primary control account with permissions to provide reseller web hosting.

Budget-friendly marketing

Once you’ve chosen an online service business, you need to consider budget-friendly marketing strategies. Paid advertising is a reliable and scalable way of generating traffic. If it can drive a sustainable return on investment, you should pursue paid ads as your main strategy.

Among the platforms you can explore are Google and Bing, both search engines that feature advertising. You only pay when someone clicks on the ad. Social media are also worth exploring. According to 75% of respondents in a recent survey, it’s easier to find what you’re looking for with paid ads. Businesses make 100% on every $1 spent on Google Ads.

The use of social media like Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn continues to grow. They can be excellent channels for building and maintaining a group of ideal customers. The most successful marketers apply a combination of organic social media marketing and paid ads on the same platform. Organic marketing is based on social media posts’ organic reach.

Automation tools for social media posts, email marketing, and customer relationship management might save you money and time.

Content marketing is another affordable form of marketing. Budding entrepreneurs create valuable content through e-books, blogs, or videos to drive traffic to their websites. 74% of businesses generate leads using content marketing, and 54.5% intend to spend more on it this year than in 2023.

48.6% of companies that don’t use AI for content marketing report above-average success, compared to 43.8% that do.

Encourage referrals and testimonials.

How to Build and Scale an Online Service Business With Minimal Resources MonitizeMore

Offer discounts or free services in exchange for referrals. This helps you acquire new clients at a low cost. Post testimonials on your website and socials to attract more customers.

92% of people trust referrals from acquaintances. 82% of small businesses say referrals are their primary source of new business. Recommendations are the source of 65% of new business opportunities, and it’s 37% easier to retain a customer who another customer referred.

Expand your offerings

Now that you’ve built a stable online service business, you can expand your offerings depending on demand. If demand increases, you can afford to hire people to handle it. Consider entering new niches to attract new clients.

Final thoughts

Be bold, start small, and focus on what you’re good at and experienced in. You can use free or cheap tools and marketing techniques to scale your business on a budget. Focus on delivering value, monitor your performance using Google Analytics, and be flexible to ensure long-term success.

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