Landing your first freelancing assignment and being paid for it is very exciting. However, over the long term your business will only thrive if you continue to actively seek new work. For your freelancing business to succeed, you must take active responsibility for marketing. You also need to constantly be on the lookout for opportunities that fit your business model without overwhelming yourself (which we’ll talk about in part X1).
What Marketing Involves
There are many ways that freelancers can market themselves. Your level of marketing should hinge on how much time you have available to devote to freelance assignments. For some this means that they are available full time, others part time and others only on weekends. Make sure that your marketing efforts match your availability. If your availability is limited, make sure that you clearly disclose those limitations. Here are some marketing methods you can try:
Methods you can use:
Social Networking -use your social networking contacts to promote your availability. Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn, FourSquare and Twitter are all active networks that can help you land a new gig;
Personal Networking – use your personal contacts including prior business connections, friends and members of organizations that you belong to. Let them know about your skills and your availability;
Traditional Marketing – even if your business is done entirely online, this should not prevent you from exploring traditional marketing such as mailing and newspaper ads. Many local areas have newsletters that are distributed to different populations in town and are happy to promote new business owners.
What You Can Promote
Specific Skills - if you have multiple skills and you have the ability to separate one from the other, you can promote your skills individually;
Promote your portfolio - double and triple check your portfolio for accuracy and promote it heavily. You can use all of the above referenced methods for doing this;
Online Work - your website, blog (see part XII for more information) should be part of your promotion. Verify that your work is accurate and that any potential client will not find reasons to not hire you by reviewing the content of your site.
Summary
When you first start freelancing, you might discover that you are so excited about your first couple of assignments that you forget about marketing. Failing to market yourself properly can ultimately result in you running out of work and therefore having limited income for a week or longer. Don’t fall into the trap of forgetting about marketing.
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