How to profit from the gig economy

Cultivate a pool of repeat customers

When you have a pool of repeat customers, you can have certainty in terms of your income level and future cash flow.

Repeat customers are gold to your gig business.

They can be your source of referrals to their friends and family members. Word of mouth is still the best advertisement you can get!

These customers can also give you a good rating every time you provide services to them.

Up-sell your services

There’s a ton of competition when it comes to the gig economy.

You need to be out there doing things that other people aren’t already doing in order to maximize your income since you have already established trust with your customers who have used or are using your services.

There’s really nothing against networking and promoting yourself to open up new opportunities for yourself.

When you already have a customer and they have bought from you and have experienced your service, you can capitalize on that relationship and up-sell them more products and services.

As a gig worker, you may have other jobs apart from driving in a ridesharing arrangement.

Say you are a nutritionist. You can subtly start the conversation about nutrition and when it is appropriate, introduce your nutrition services or products.

One of the best ways to boost your income as a rideshare driver is to refer new passengers and drivers to the rideshare platform. This is another source of additional income for you.

Be on a lookout for opportunities to make additional money. Find creative ways to generate more income for yourself.

Advertise your services

Your potential customers will not know about your gig or services until you tell them about it or they stumble upon it when they are searching.

You have a choice of actively promoting your gig by spending some money or waiting passively for people to show up at your doorstep and buy your services.

That’s why using existing marketplaces that have a lot of Internet traffic and potential customers are the best way to go when you are starting out.

Here are some marketing channels you can use to promote your gig and gain more customers and revenues. Do remember not to spam these channels but to do it tastefully.

Always follow the owner’s rules as to direct marketing.

  1. Facebook group posting can be used to promote your gigs. Share your gigs to the relevant groups and pages. Join at least 100 relevant Facebook groups and post your gigs regularly with different text and images.
  2. Pinterest is a photo or image-based social site to promote your gigs on various boards.
  3. Online forums on various niches or topics. Join relevant forums. Put your gig link as a signature, find other people’s problem and give them the right solution to their problem. When you answer or reply to anyone’s questions, they will see your gig link.
  4. Use YouTube to advertise your gig. Create a video that is relevant to your chosen buyer keywords and upload it to YouTube. Optimize it with proper title, description, and tags. Share your video on Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus and other top-rated social sites regularly.
  5. Quora is one of the best ways to promote any gigs, products, and other offers. Answer other people’s questions and put your gig links inside your content.
  6. If you have a list of customers, use email marketing to promote your gig.

In describing your gig in an effective manner, take note of the following:

  1. Niche your gigs by the result not service – Customers don’t want your skills. They want results! Show them how you will help them achieve results they want. Write down your skills (editing, writing, graphics design etc.) and combine them with a requirement. The customer must see how your services can give them a specific outcome. Rather than saying “I will design a graphic”, say instead “I will design up to 10 graphics for your landing page to attract your first 100 customers.”
  2. Quantify your gig offerings – Take all your gigs and add two numbers: time and quantity. Rather than saying, “I will write a Fitness Blog for your website”, say instead, “I will write two 500-word fitness article for your website in 48 Hours”.