Automate Your Side Hustle and Save Up to 25 Hours a week

Use these automation tips to grow your side hustle.

A side hustle is a great way to bring in extra money and diversify your income streams. By definition, a side hustle means you still have a main job and have to balance your responsibilities. The average side hustle earns an average of $686 per month, and those who spend 12 hours a week or more on their side hustle earn $1,122 per month.

The more time you invest in your business, the greater your potential to make more money with your side hustle. However, not everyone can find the time needed. Automating your side hustle can help you increase your income and save time without sacrificing the quality of your work. Here are three ways to automate and make the most of every minute.

Workflows

Every business has standard workflows, processes, and repeatable tasks. Automating your workflows can help free up your time and attention. There are programs like Zapier and IFTTT that can automate repetitive tasks so they will run without your constant attention. These programs can connect with thousands of different applications to help streamline your business operations. 

You can create multi-automated workflows that have up to 100 actions and automate an entire process. It can be something simple as sending new leads or customers a personalized handwritten note or a more complicated workflow, such as building your own custom customer-relationship manager (CRM) and sales processes.

According to a study from Zapier, those in marketing save the most time using automation tools. They save an average of 25 hours a week. IT professionals are close behind and save 20 hours a week. Here are other roles and how much time they save using automation: 

• Customer service representatives save 16 hours per week using automation
• HR professionals save 8 hours per week using automation
• Sales representatives save 6 hours per week using automation
• Accountants save 4 hours per week using automation

If you have a side hustle, chances are you have to do all of these roles. The more you can automate, the more you can get done. 

Social media

Social media is a great way to connect with customers and prospects. Automating your social media can help you optimize your social media. There are a number of automation tools such as Hootsuite, Bugger, and SocialPilot that can customize your social media campaigns. You can pre-write your tweets and posts and the programs will send them out during the most optimal times.

These tools can help maximize the amount of time you spend growing your accounts and engaging your audience. Automating your social media can also be useful for enhancing your brand and developing a content plan, and getting the maximum ROI from all social media efforts.

Email marketing

Email marketing is an effective way to market your business. For every $1 you spend on it, your average return on investment is $36. Programs such as ConstantContact, Aweber, and MailChimp can help create an automated email strategy. You can send an automatic welcome email when someone subscribes to your list. You can also send email reminders to finish shopping for shoppers who have abandoned their digital shopping carts.

Email automation software helps you segment build your email list and send timed emails to your subscribers. You can send out personalized messages on a schedule or when specific conditions are triggered. In fact, 30% of professionals state that the biggest benefit of marketing automation was the time it saves them.

Finding ways to automate your side gig can increase your efficiency, productivity, and reduce the number of mistakes you make. A whopping 2 out of 5 Americans (40%) currently have a side hustle. More people are starting side hustles, so it can help them become more financially independent. Following these tips can make yours even more successful.