Business Freelancer
Top freelance marketing tips
Marketing matters. Even for freelancers. Especially for freelancers. Here are stuff work in my opinion when I was obviously a freelancer.
Everything is marketingWake up! No marketing = no company. This realisation will be the necessary place to start. Brand you. For freelancers, Tom Peters' book The Brand |
You 50: Reinventing Work is fundamental. You are selling yourself approximately your time and services. Everything you need to do is marketing.
The Trusted Advisor. David Maister's book (The Trusted Advisor) is filled with good marketing advice for freelance consultants and professionals.
The Trusted Advisor. David Maister's book (The Trusted Advisor) is filled with good marketing advice for freelance consultants and professionals.
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Allocate time. It's really important to create time each day to do some sort of marketing activity. It's also important to dedicate a couple of days every month (more for anyone who is starting out). There's aren't big bangs in marketing however, you can make the universe expand steadily. Getting up early can establish extra time for marketing.
Daily pitch. The daily pitch is one thing that worked effectively for me when I was obviously a journalist. I'd just email an editor that has a story idea daily. Now, I try to get hold of a customer or prospective customer every single day in one way or any other. I might try and set up a celebration, create a call, send a fascinating link etc. Sometimes, it is simply about keeping the lines of communication open. It's all about personal contact.
Daily pitch. The daily pitch is one thing that worked effectively for me when I was obviously a journalist. I'd just email an editor that has a story idea daily. Now, I try to get hold of a customer or prospective customer every single day in one way or any other. I might try and set up a celebration, create a call, send a fascinating link etc. Sometimes, it is simply about keeping the lines of communication open. It's all about personal contact.
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Keep marketing if you're busy. The biggest mistake I regularly make is to find so busy that I forget to offer myself. When you're busy, you'll need to be lining up your next deal so that you don't have any downtime. (It's just like the farmer using the leaky roof. When it's raining it's too wet to mend it and once it's dry is as good because man's house.)
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Meetings are marketing too. If possible, never ignore an invitation to a session. Sometimes, those tedious interruptions are the best marketing opportunities. Big companies love big meetings and they are generally a good approach to meet new people your existing clients.
Don't forget. If you have confidence as to what you do, there isn't any reason to fear being thought 'pushy'. Marketing isn't like selling resale cars. You are trying to arrive at people who NEED whatever you have to sell and who be customers but only if they knew you existed and can help them. I think perhaps this reluctance is really a peculiarly English phenomenon.
Think about technique. I really like Chris West and Mike Southron's Sales on A Beermat. It's short (an advantage) and it also contains really useful information about how to come up with a pitch and the way to generate start up company. One tip which can be very good for initial contacts would be to ask to get a ten minute meeting show them yourself. There aren't many individuals who can't spare 10 mins if it could possibly be useful to them.
Try something more important. When I started Articulate Marketing, I hired a PR company, started your site and ran some seminars. The blog was fun and helped a bit. The seminars were fantastic and generated many business. The PR didn't help in any way. There work just like guarantees in marketing along with the best approach is determined by evidence.
Don't forget. If you have confidence as to what you do, there isn't any reason to fear being thought 'pushy'. Marketing isn't like selling resale cars. You are trying to arrive at people who NEED whatever you have to sell and who be customers but only if they knew you existed and can help them. I think perhaps this reluctance is really a peculiarly English phenomenon.
Think about technique. I really like Chris West and Mike Southron's Sales on A Beermat. It's short (an advantage) and it also contains really useful information about how to come up with a pitch and the way to generate start up company. One tip which can be very good for initial contacts would be to ask to get a ten minute meeting show them yourself. There aren't many individuals who can't spare 10 mins if it could possibly be useful to them.
Try something more important. When I started Articulate Marketing, I hired a PR company, started your site and ran some seminars. The blog was fun and helped a bit. The seminars were fantastic and generated many business. The PR didn't help in any way. There work just like guarantees in marketing along with the best approach is determined by evidence.
Keep an eye on pitches. I use Excel to follow pitches and opportunities. I do this because I keep my accounts in Excel too (I know, my accountant really wants to shoot me too.) But it gives me an individual page where I can see my sales pipeline, orders, be employed in progress, invoices outstanding, VAT and tax liability. It's just like a business key pad. I get away with Excel because my offer is relatively simple from your bookkeeping perspective. (In my last business, I used Sage coupled with to employ a bookkeeper and also a financial controller to express to me exactly the same information plus it was always in regards to a month after the fact. Never again.).
React fast. It's vital to react quickly to requests. A good reputation in my company comes from delivering high-quality work, on brief, on budget and even more importantly on time. However, occasionally, my clients need me to drag a rabbit away from a hat. Delivering a 2,000 word article more than a weekend can help to save a client's skin and folks remember that stuff. In practical terms, it indicates being constantly available by telephone and email, returning calls and emails promptly and occasionally working in the weekend. Importantly, it indicates seeing pretty much everything as a marketing opportunity not really a huge drag.
Automate processes. I employ a template for briefs which assists me build a good, detailed brief for my clients quickly. It saves them the need to write it plus it helps me look efficient and thorough. It's all about thinking from the process upfront and automating or streamlining just as much as possible.
Your obvious can be your talent. An editor at Wired laughed and said that if I wanted to write down about everything, I had better be the most effective writer on the planet. Better to function as go-to guy for aviation articles than the usual hack currently talking about every topic in the sunshine. As a freelancer, this really is difficult to complete everything well. Better to be described as a deep expert in a single area and cultivate a network of agencies, friends and colleagues who will fill inside gaps.
React fast. It's vital to react quickly to requests. A good reputation in my company comes from delivering high-quality work, on brief, on budget and even more importantly on time. However, occasionally, my clients need me to drag a rabbit away from a hat. Delivering a 2,000 word article more than a weekend can help to save a client's skin and folks remember that stuff. In practical terms, it indicates being constantly available by telephone and email, returning calls and emails promptly and occasionally working in the weekend. Importantly, it indicates seeing pretty much everything as a marketing opportunity not really a huge drag.
Automate processes. I employ a template for briefs which assists me build a good, detailed brief for my clients quickly. It saves them the need to write it plus it helps me look efficient and thorough. It's all about thinking from the process upfront and automating or streamlining just as much as possible.
Your obvious can be your talent. An editor at Wired laughed and said that if I wanted to write down about everything, I had better be the most effective writer on the planet. Better to function as go-to guy for aviation articles than the usual hack currently talking about every topic in the sunshine. As a freelancer, this really is difficult to complete everything well. Better to be described as a deep expert in a single area and cultivate a network of agencies, friends and colleagues who will fill inside gaps.
Seminars. I regular seminars and they're very effective approaches to bring in new business and new work. It takes some organising and you should talk about something which a) is interesting in an audience and b) helps you to display your talents without having to be too commercial. I'm pondering running the seminars again but perhaps with an increase of focus on social websites and blogging.
Blog. My blog only has generated a modest amount of work directly. However, many experts have fun. It solved the problem refine and contemplate my ideas. It also helped establish my credentials if it came to pitching several corporate blogs. It has ended up a very valuable help to search engine optimisation.
Website. My website, www.articulatemarketing.com, gets many fewer visitors than my blog but I guess folks who go there genuinely wish to know about my company. The first thing most of the people do once they get an email or maybe a pitch from your company is lookup a website. Companies without a web site (or even for that matter his or her email url of your website) seem like small beer.
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Follow-up. "Is there anything I can do in order to help?" Doesn't hurt ought to?
Add value. Setting up extranet to act like a library for deliverables as well as a way of sharing progress and deadlines with clients (I use Basecamp) is but one easy strategy to add value. In my case, getting a professional proofreader to test my paid-for work (and not my blog - I'm too cheap) all night . proper professional indemnity insurance are two various ways.
Become a specialist. Spend the time to be aware of your customer's product or service. For example, I bought and installed Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 before I wrote about this.
Upsell. Would that suits you to supersize that? There's always some additional work or value you'll be able to offer. If they here is a case study, you will want to offer a whole lot on a PowerPoint 'win card' according to the same copy?
Attach. Would you prefer fries to be able? If they demand some website copy, why don't you offer them an online site review at the same time?
Intra-company recommendations. My biggest source of start up company is new people inside my existing clients. I don't think it hurts ought to your customers if there's anybody they know who could be able to occurs work. I find which the more work I do to get a given client, the harder connections I am able to create them. For example, I can discuss notebooks for HP but I may also link their services etc because of other projects I've done on their behalf.
Get rostered. This will be the key thing with big clients. Once you might be a rostered agency, it isn't difficult for new people inside big companies to employ you. If you possess a unique and valuable service someone will discover a way to add one to the roster of approved suppliers. Finding this type of champion and offering this sort of service may be the right method to go over it. Going using the purchasing department or being a subcontractor to a different agency is often a guaranteed approach to slash your margins. In my experience, furthermore, it constrains your ability to accomplish the kind of good work which the customer wants.
Find a flagship client. I was very lucky being hired by Microsoft to get a project ahead of time. A flagship client is as being a passport along with other companies.
Find a much better market. I used to try and do a great deal of journalism. In many ways it turned out harder versus the corporate writing I do now. For instance, I had to spend many time developing and pitching stories. Also, there was obviously a lot of those who wanted to become freelance journalists thus it didn't pay adequately. The biggest change around my life came when I decided that I didn't would like to play that game any further. Instead of free-pitching magazine editors for badly-paid articles, I switched into a different market altogether.
Stuff that does not work: In my experience a great deal of stuff doesn't help: fancy business cards, brochures, mail shots, random contacting, PR.
Blog. My blog only has generated a modest amount of work directly. However, many experts have fun. It solved the problem refine and contemplate my ideas. It also helped establish my credentials if it came to pitching several corporate blogs. It has ended up a very valuable help to search engine optimisation.
Website. My website, www.articulatemarketing.com, gets many fewer visitors than my blog but I guess folks who go there genuinely wish to know about my company. The first thing most of the people do once they get an email or maybe a pitch from your company is lookup a website. Companies without a web site (or even for that matter his or her email url of your website) seem like small beer.
New Call-to-action
Follow-up. "Is there anything I can do in order to help?" Doesn't hurt ought to?
Add value. Setting up extranet to act like a library for deliverables as well as a way of sharing progress and deadlines with clients (I use Basecamp) is but one easy strategy to add value. In my case, getting a professional proofreader to test my paid-for work (and not my blog - I'm too cheap) all night . proper professional indemnity insurance are two various ways.
Become a specialist. Spend the time to be aware of your customer's product or service. For example, I bought and installed Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 before I wrote about this.
Upsell. Would that suits you to supersize that? There's always some additional work or value you'll be able to offer. If they here is a case study, you will want to offer a whole lot on a PowerPoint 'win card' according to the same copy?
Attach. Would you prefer fries to be able? If they demand some website copy, why don't you offer them an online site review at the same time?
Intra-company recommendations. My biggest source of start up company is new people inside my existing clients. I don't think it hurts ought to your customers if there's anybody they know who could be able to occurs work. I find which the more work I do to get a given client, the harder connections I am able to create them. For example, I can discuss notebooks for HP but I may also link their services etc because of other projects I've done on their behalf.
Get rostered. This will be the key thing with big clients. Once you might be a rostered agency, it isn't difficult for new people inside big companies to employ you. If you possess a unique and valuable service someone will discover a way to add one to the roster of approved suppliers. Finding this type of champion and offering this sort of service may be the right method to go over it. Going using the purchasing department or being a subcontractor to a different agency is often a guaranteed approach to slash your margins. In my experience, furthermore, it constrains your ability to accomplish the kind of good work which the customer wants.
Find a flagship client. I was very lucky being hired by Microsoft to get a project ahead of time. A flagship client is as being a passport along with other companies.
Find a much better market. I used to try and do a great deal of journalism. In many ways it turned out harder versus the corporate writing I do now. For instance, I had to spend many time developing and pitching stories. Also, there was obviously a lot of those who wanted to become freelance journalists thus it didn't pay adequately. The biggest change around my life came when I decided that I didn't would like to play that game any further. Instead of free-pitching magazine editors for badly-paid articles, I switched into a different market altogether.
Stuff that does not work: In my experience a great deal of stuff doesn't help: fancy business cards, brochures, mail shots, random contacting, PR.
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