5 ways to market your freelance writing services
Keep that shyness away - when it comes to your freelancing career, you need to be loud.
Freelance work is on the rise. Many professionals have decided to shift from their day job to freelancing because of the work flexibility it offers. A recent study found that 80% of freelancers worldwide are more satisfied with their way of living as full-time freelancers.
Experts believe that freelancing is here to stay. More and more people will join the gig economy. In the United States alone, over 59 million Americans did freelance work in 2020, which is a 22% increase from 2019.
Since many professionals are turning to freelance, you might have noticed that there is also an increase in competition in freelance writing. This means that you should market yourself better to land more clients. As the marketing guru Seth Godin once said, you must stand out like a purple cow.
Is marketing yourself that important?
As you rely on freelance work for your livelihood, it is imperative that you get a steady source of clients.
Freelancing is a growing space. By marketing yourself, it helps build your personal brand so that people will easily recognize you. The more people recognize your value, the more people will trust you – and honestly, consumers make more purchases with brands they trust.
Moreover, marketing yourself can help attract more clients. If you continuously promote yourself, it opens new opportunities to be seen by people who might get interested in your services.
As writing freelancers, the content that you share can help you connect with other people. Sometimes, clients will check out your articles prior to deciding if you're a good hire, so ensure your best work are easily available and accessible online.
So how can I market myself effectively?
Here are five self-promotion strategies that you can do to market your writing services:
A freelance writing portfolio
As a freelancer, you need a platform to showcase your writing samples. A writing portfolio is one of the best ways to demonstrate your writing skills. It can help you establish what niche you specialize in. Your pieces of writing will always be the first thing that potential clients will look for from you. You try creating your writing portfolio on ContentGrow for free.
Guest blogging
You could reach out and communicate with other bloggers and request to have a guest blog on their platform. It's an excellent way of getting your name to be known as a writing freelancer. You could work out a deal with the blogger, such as paying a small fee.
Putting your blog in another person's blog might sound simple, but such effort could significantly impact the visibility of your writing services. It allows you to broaden your audience reach and increase brand awareness about your writing services.
Email marketing
Email marketing has been one of the effective ways of marketing. It's an excellent way of getting more leads. Email marketing lets you personalize your message to a particular client by aligning your offer with the client's needs.
For example, you saw on a social media group that a client is looking for a writing freelancer for an insurance blog. Suppose you have experience in writing insurance articles before. In that case, you could pitch your writing services to the client, showcasing some of your insurance articles and explaining why you are fit for that writer position.
Paid advertising
If you have some funds to spare, you can consider paid advertising on social media. It will put your writing services offering in front of potential clients. One of the popular social media advertisements is boost posts.
Your post on a social media channel is being shown to users who fit your target audience or lookalike audience. If you aim to get a high volume of clients, you can allocate a small amount of money for paid advertising.
Case studies
A great way to do self-promotion is by showcasing case studies of your previous clients. It's good proof of how effective your writing skill is. You can pick an earlier project that generated the best results.
For example, you have written articles for a client's website for a year. You could discuss the topics of those articles and how they helped drive more traffic to the client's website. You could highlight how articles helped generate many inquiries about the client's products or services.
ContentGrow is a freelance writer's secret weapon for landing vetted inbound clients. The platform matches each client with niche-appropriate writers at preferred rates. Sign up to get your invite and free portfolio here.