Aim for success in 2011 and start your marketing efforts today
First of all, I hope you’ve all had a very Merry Christmas. However you celebrated the season, I hope that you’ve had a fantastic break and are feeling fresh and revitalized (and not too full of chocolates and alcohol!).
In my post from October, titled ‘It’s Time To Give Something Back To The Freelance Writing Community‘, one of the regular commenters here at Get Paid To Write Online, Christina Crowe, asked:
What are the best ways to market a freelance writing business?
A simple and straightforward question, this is arguably the most popular question I get asked.
Everyone wants to know how they should be marketing and promoting a freelance writing businesses, as simply put, the more marketing you do of any product or business, the more successful you’re likely to be.
The problem that many find with marketing their freelance writing business is not that there’s a distinct lack of opportunities for marketing and promotion, but that they don’t know which routes to take.
Do you place an advert in a business telephone directory telling everyone you’re a freelance writer?
How about taking out an advert on the front page of your local newspaper, promoting your article writing services?
Pay for a few links to your blog on high traffic websites, perhaps?
Maybe a stint with Google’s Adwords?
Understandably, it can be confusing trying to market your freelance business and many writers tend to put their marketing efforts on the back burner, thinking they’ll give them another shot in a few weeks time.
If you’re ready to start 2011 with a bang and want to give your marketing efforts a kick start, have a read through the following five points – they should all help you market your freelance writing business in a simple and effective way.
1. Start thinking you’re a freelance writing business
The very first thing you have to do is stop thinking that you’re just a jobbing writer, someone who’s going from project to project, without any real direction.
If you think and believe this, it’s going to make your clients wonder just how serious you are about writing and they’re going to think twice about hiring you – no one wants to be working with someone who’s supposed to be offering a professional service but who’s acting as though they’re providing a favour to a friend.
Businesses like to operate with businesses – it’s a simple fact. They’re a business who can be trusted and so they’d prefer to spend their money with another trusted business, knowing that they’ll get back a product that’s of the quality they deserve for their money.
If you can get over to potential clients that your not just one of the many new writers out there who is looking for work but are in fact an established freelance writing business, it’s not only going to put you in a more professional frame of mind, but you’re going to find you receive more interest from high paying clients.
2. Have a professional website
Once you’ve got it into your head that you’re now operating a freelance writing business and you aren’t just a writer who works on the occasional freelance project, you need to have a professional website to showcase your talents.
You don’t have to get a company in to design a website especially for your business, you just need to have a separate website or blog that you can use solely for business.
The simple reason behind this is that perception is everything and impressions count for such a lot in business.
For example, if a potential client came across your website, would you prefer if the website was one that combined your personal and professional lives, displaying your freelance writing rates alongside your holiday photographs or one that did nothing but showcase your business side, from your resume through to your previous clients?
3. Get yourself known in the community
You could be the best freelance writer out there, but if no one knows you’re available, how are they supposed to hire you when they need a freelance writer?
Getting yourself known in the freelance writing community isn’t difficult and you don’t have to spend hours upon hours every day contacting everyone directly – you’ve just got to start commenting on blogs, posting in forums and contributing or helping people out in groups, such as those on LinkedIn.
Your contributions to the blogs, forums and groups don’t have to be amazing or lengthy, either – as long as you’re saying something useful and relevant, you’ll soon find your feet in the community and you’ll be surprised at just how fast you grow in confidence and how quickly you become known within the community.
4. Start networking
I love networking. I love meeting new people and I love learning about them.
It’s because of this adoration for meeting new people and learning new things that I’ve got a particular fondness for one of the most importance aspects of marketing – networking.
When you mention the word networking, a lot of people shy away from the idea, believing that they have to sign up to in-person networking events where they go along every month and chat to other likeminded individuals, a process which they think is of no benefit to them.
The truth is that you really don’t need to be networking in this sense and I’ll be honest here, I haven’t been to an offline networking session in a long time. I know from colleagues that they’re a great way to meet new people, including potential clients, but I’ve always found them to be a little too corporate for my liking. Or at least the ones I attended were.
I find the best form of networking for me is to simply get in touch with other writers. Follow them on Twitter, read their blogs, e-mail them directly – I’ve met some fantastic people by simply dropping them an e-mail to say hey, introducing myself and striking up a conversation.
It doesn’t matter how you do it, whether you go to a weekly offline networking group or you start talking to some of your fellow writers online, but just make sure you’re meeting new people regularly – the people you meet might not be able to offer you any work directly, but there’s a very good chance they’ll pass on your details next time they know someone who’s looking for a freelance writer.
5. Give something away for free
Everyone, without exception, loves things that are free.
Those complimentary mints in the cafe always taste better because they’re free; your hair always looks better if your hairdresser gives you a free styling because the boss is away and those two bars of chocolate you get on Buy-One-Get-One-Free tastes that much better because you’ve only paid for one of them.
When you have something that’s free, you tend to keep going back for more, whether it’s still free or not.
You’ll head back to that cafe because although you remembered it for the complimentary mints, you realise you had a great meal there; you pay extra for a better styling next time you go to get your hair cut as it made you feel better about yourself last time and you buy that chocolate again and head back to the same shop as you enjoyed how the chocolate tasted.
Transfer this to a freelance writing business and if you’re to offer something on your website for free, whether it’s an ebook, a white paper or a template of some form, you’ll find that once people get word of your free offerings, they’ll tell their friends and colleagues, who’ll then tell their friends and colleague, who’ll then tell…
Word of mouth marketing – it’s the oldest but one of the best forms of advertising you can utilize.
How you market your freelance writing business is really up to you. These five steps, however, should make the process a lot easier than you might have first thought.
Just a word of warning – don’t carry out any marketing efforts if you aren’t entirely sure what you’re doing. I’m a massive fan of Google, but I’ve worked with far too many clients who’ve been using Adwords and seeing next to no return on the money because they just don’t know how to use it properly.
Image: Rude Cactus
Article by Dan Smith
Dan Smith is freelance writer and small business consultant. Specialising in business development, he has a strong background in Search Engine Optimisation and has a distinct (dis)ability of not being able to say no.
Dan has written 84 awesome articles for us at Get Paid to Write Online
{ 7 comments }
Twitter: tammikibler
December 29, 2010 at 23:54
I would add business cards to this list. Although we are doing more and more word-of-mouth networking online, nothing beats a business card when meeting people face-to-face. Your business card becomes a tangible reminder of your meeting and increases the odds your prospect will find your website later.
Thanks for all your great tips this year, Dan.
Tammi Kibler wants you to read Your Questions About Engaging Followers on Twitter
Business cards are an aspect of marketing that I really do sit on the fence with. One day I think that they’re one of the best marketing tools you can utilize and other days I wonder just how beneficial they actually are.
Whilst I don’t use business cards myself, I have a reason for it – I always aim to make the first move in any new business relationship. I’ll take someone’s business card and then drop them an e-mail just to reintroduce myself, as when I’m in my ‘business cards aren’t that good’ frame of mind, I think that if I hand out a business card and wait for them to contact me, I have to rely on them – if I make the first move, it puts the potential client / colleague in a situation where a response is the generally accepted thing to do, irrelevant of whether it’s a positive one or not.
I’m not saying that business cards aren’t a great marketing tool and they do have their uses, I’m just generally of the belief that they aren’t an absolute necessity when you’re wanting to move your freelance writing business forward – or at least they haven’t been for me.
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my posts this year, Tammi. Hope to see you back here in 2011!
This is something all entrepreneurs and home business people need. Thinking of your work as a legitimate business changes the whole mindset. I’ve been working from home since 1987 and that was one of the first lessons that moved me forward.
Alison Moore Smith wants you to read Free 2011 Blogging Calendar
It is a kind of strange one, Alison – believing that your run a business and understanding how exactly you should run it is generally not one of the first things you learn when you’re wanting to work for yourself, as there’s so much else to learn.
When you do realise that you need to start thinking of your work as a business, however, it’s sort of like a light bulb moment in your development – things begin to fall into place and your business really does start to move forward.
Twitter: butterflycopy
December 30, 2010 at 17:50
I guess if you don’t do much in-person networking business cards are less important, but imagine if you were at an event and someone asked you for your card and you said, ‘sorry, I don’t have any, but I’ll email you my details’. Personally, I wouldn’t think that was particularly professional. (Though I have done it myself when I’ve run out of cards and directed them to my vCard on my contact page; time will tell.)
I don’t necessarily agree with having a business-only website. Sure, you don’t want one that mixes your personal blog in with work stuff. But with my website, I’ve tried to inject a lot of my personality into it – and yes, if you look at the Flickr feed I had put in, you’ll see holiday snaps. This actually goes down well. I regularly have people telling me how much they like my site, and clients say how cool my photos are, and it’s a great talking point. I did this because I believe that people want to do business with other people, not another business. If you have a bland, strictly business site, it doesn’t tell anybody anything about you – so how do they know what you’re likely to be like to work with? If you can combine professionalism with your human self, it disarms people and they’re more likely to want to work with you. And that’s really important if you’re a freelancer (though I shy away from that term myself) and work alone. People have to like YOU! That’s also why my (very sporadic – bad Lucy) blog isn’t always about work stuff.
But there are some good points above, and marketing is always something I have to force myself to do. The ‘think of yourself as a business’ thing is surprisingly important; when I started doing that it was amazing how my mindset changed, and I made some risky but ultimately good decisions that really surprised me. And here endeth my novel!
Lucy Smith wants you to read Networking and vintage clothes shopping- I like ‘em both
This is exactly why blogs have comments – some fantastic points, Lucy.
The reason I occasionally have an aversion to business cards is whenever I’ve been in a situation where they’d be traditionally used, I’ve always felt as though it was a pointless exercise. Maybe someone was asking for my details because it was ‘the right thing to do’ or because they simply wanted an extra business card to add to the dozens they’ve already received, but it’s always felt far too, I don’t know, corporate?
But, that’s just my own experience and the reason why I always make the first move with a client, contacting them rather than waiting for them to contact me.
With the business-only website, I think it largely depends on both who you’re targeting and your own individual brand.
I work with a lot of small businesses and so I’ve tried to make my business website appear to be something that I’ve found a lot of small business owners want – professional but approachable. It’s plain and simple and gives just enough information.
I’ve found that, for me, this works – potential clients are attracted by the fact the website relates to a business, yet they aren’t intimidated by it, either. Once contact is made, I then go down the route of being more friendly and sociable, although this does depend on the individual.
Similarly, I’ve worked with some large corporations in the past and these companies seem to be particularly formal. We don’t exchange social niceties other than a standard “I hope you’re well” at the start of the conversation and we just get to work – they send over the brief, I complete it, send it back, make any amendments that are required and then request payment.
In these instances, I’m not sure whether displaying some of my personal life would be a faux pas or would affect my prospects, but I just don’t think it’s needed.
If you can merge both personal and business lives together – like you can, Lucy – it’s a fantastic point, as it can instantly put any potential clients at ease. For someone who’s just starting to market their writing business, however, I would personally always recommend keeping their business and personal lives separate – at least until some initial contact has been made with the client or they’ve developed their own brand.
Twitter: butterflycopy
January 6, 2011 at 19:15
It’s funny you say giving out business cards feels too corporate – I left PR because I hated the corporateness and the schmoozing, but I never feel that way any more. I guess it’s because all the chatting and business card giving is for my own benefit, not just the company I happen to work for (I’m selfish like that, hehe). The other thing with getting business cards is that it’s a nice easy way to keep track of who you’ve met – I’d be pretty liable to say I’d get in touch with someone and then forget, so I applaud you if it works!
I agree it’s a fine balance between personal and business life, sometimes I do wonder if there is too much of ‘me’ in my site, but at the same time I don’t want to be a faceless organisation because that’s just not how I like to do business…and I prefer that people see me as another human!
Lucy Smith wants you to read A new year- a new challenge