Market Constantly: The Key to Freelance Success

Occasionally I return to popular, evergreen posts. Marketing is on my mind as I'm going to start a big marketing push in a week or so, as I close in on the deadline for my current ghostwriting project. 

            

Here's the thing. This project is a full-time endeavor right now, but I know if I don't reach out to new markets soon, sending LOIs, and touch base with former clients, I will be looking at a big gap in work early in 2014. I don't want that. I like to start the year off busy, with plenty of work "on my desk," or new assignments. Talking to freelancers a few weeks ago at ASJA Con Con, I was reminded that even the busiest market constantly. 

            

The way you market will depend on the type of work you do, which means that the strategies that work for a freelancer who writes for magazines won’t work for a copywriter whose biggest clients are corporations. You should create your own marketing plan, selecting different techniques that will vary depending on the type of work you do. In addition to those dreaded cold calls, here are ten effective techniques to use:

• Query letters. If you write for magazines, whether print or online, a powerful query is your first line of attack. Every query should open with a compelling lead, make the case for the story, show the editor how you plan to approach the topic, and describe why you’re uniquely qualified to write it. 
• LOIs. Second only to query letters in the freelancer’s arsenal is the LOI, or letter of introduction. You should have a template on hand that you can customize for potential clients, whether you’re contacting a custom publisher, a business, or a potential ghostwriting client. A template you can tweak lets you strike fast if you see a freelancing post or find out about a possible gig. The client will usually hire one of the first qualified responders, so you want to be as close to the head of the line as you can.
• Your website. You need one. Period. Your website should be designed to attract your primary target clients. If you’re writing for businesses, play up that aspect. If you freelance for magazines, include clips on your site and a list of publications you’ve worked for. At the least, your website should include: a description of the kind of work you do; a brief biography; and contact information. You may also want to list of prior projects or publications or client testimonials as well.
• Your email signature. One of the easiest yet overlooked ways to market yourself is to create an email signature that describes the work you do. Change it occasionally to highlight different aspects of your business.
• Satisfied clients. Clients who are happy with your work are one of the best ways to market yourself. Once you’ve proven yourself, ask your editor if she knows of other editors looking for freelancers. If you feel that’s too pushy, at least ask her to pass your name along to colleagues who might hire you in the future. 
• Article and book sources. I’ve interviewed hundreds of sources over the years, most of who are professionals in the health and fitness fields. I let them know that I ghostwrite and coauthor books, and have had work come through recommendations because of the way I treated a source. 
• Online job posts. Believe it or not, I’ve found good-paying work through online jobsites like craigslist. Check outhttp://craigslist.org, www.elance.com, www.online-writing-jobs.com, and www.guru.com for freelance job postings. Yes, most of the work is low-paying but there are legitimate gigs to be found if you don’t mind trawling through the dreck.
• Networking. Hate the word? Put a different spin on it. Don’t call it networking. Don’t call it anything. Just make an effort to create relationships with other humans, help them when you can, and connect. The person you connect with may not be a potential client, but he may know someone who is. The more people who know what you do, the better.
• One-on-one meetings. ASJA Con Con offered “Personal Pitch” sessions to meet potential content marketing clients this year. If you do a lot of work for businesses, it’s worth it to join your local chamber of commerce or attend other local networking events to introduce yourself to business owners.
• Social media. Unlike a website, a blog isn’t essential, but it can help you market yourself and your business. Same goes for your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. Each should contain a brief blurb about the kind of work you do, again targeting potential clients. 

Bottom line is to avoid a common marketing mistake, and one I’ve made in the past. You get busy with work and you don’t market for a while. Then after you crawl out from under your deadlines, you discover that you have to scramble to line up assignments.

That’s why you should set aside time, even if it’s just a few hours a week, to market. That may mean sending out a query or two, touching base with your regular clients, connecting with someone on LinkedIn, or checking online sites for possible gigs. Consistent marketing will make for more consistent work, and consistent money. 

Want more advice? My latest book, Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition (Kindle), includes templates of LOIs that content marketing writers and ghostwriters use, along with sample contracts, nondisclosure agreements, and bids. Don't have a Kindle? Download it here.

***The $0.99 ebook promotion returns! My three most popular short ebooks for writers will be priced at $0.99 for a limited time, including:

Dollars and Deadlines' 10 Most Popular, Proven Ways to Make Money as a Freelance Writer

Dollars and Deadlines' Guide to Selling Your First Article

Dollars and Deadlines' 10 Essential Freelance Templates 

If you're new to freelancing, this will be the best dollar you've ever spent! 

Pump up your Content Marketing Pitches

My last few posts, I've been sharing some of the great tips I heard at ASJA Con Con. Today's focuses on the critical subject of how to make your pitch to a contenting marketing client stand out--and boost your chances of getting work from it.

1. Reach the right person. You may not be able to tell, at first glance, who the proper person to pitch at a company is. Check the company's website, and LinkedIn, looking for job titles like "marketing director" or "content strategist" to determine who that contact person is, says Jennifer Goforth Gregory.

2. Emphasize your relevant experience. Instead of describing yourself as a writer who covers business, highlight specific topics you've covered already. Companies want and need writers who already have a background in the subjects they want you to write about. Omitting those specialities may mean your letter is ignored.

3. Show that you "get" content marketing. Include a sentence that demonstrates that you understand the company's mission and brand. This sets you apart from writers who forget (or don't even realize)  that content marketing is all about building customer loyalty.

4. Always follow up. Be a "friendly stalker," says Gregory. Follow up in two to three weeks, and touch base every few months after that to stay on their radar. Too many writers send one LOI to a potential client and then drop the ball.

5. Consider internal communications. Freelancer and content marketing writer Wendy Helfenbaum says that big companies have internal communications departments that need writers to research and write profiles, human interest stories, and other pieces targeted at employees. "It's about the companies engaging their employees," she says. "You may be writing for employee newsletters, and they want stories that have nothing to do with work." The people that hire writers are sometimes hard to identify--they're like ghosts, says Helfenbaum. Look for job titles like "communications manager" or "director of communications" to locate these opportunities.

6. Use a template. My latest book, Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition (Kindle), includes templates of LOIs that Gregory and other content marketing writers and ghostwriters use, along with sample contracts, nondisclosure agreements, and bids. Don't have a Kindle? Download it here.

***The $0.99 ebook promotion returns! My three most popular short ebooks for writers will be priced at $0.99 for a limited time, including:

Dollars and Deadlines' 10 Most Popular, Proven Ways to Make Money as a Freelance Writer

Dollars and Deadlines' Guide to Selling Your First Article

Dollars and Deadlines' 10 Essential Freelance Templates 

If you're new to freelancing, this will be the best dollar you've ever spent! 

5 Smart Social Media Tips for Freelancers

I came away from last week's ASJA Con Con with pages full of notes, and great new ideas about how I can enhance my freelance business, particularly in in the content marketing arena. On one panel, social media expert and freelancer Yael Grauer offered a slew of advice for both newbie and experienced freelancers, including: 

1. When on social media, focus on sharing advice that benefits your target clients. So, if you want to do content marketing for corporations or agencies, don't post about "how to make more money working for content marketing clients" (although that would be helpful for freelancers!). Instead, post about "how to use content marketing to create loyal customers."

Get it? Think about what your potential clients want to read. So, for example, if I want to attract potential ghostwriting clients, I should post about how to hire a ghostwriter for cheap--which would be of interest for those looking for ghostwriters--and not how to make money as a ghostwriter, which would interest people like me.   

2. Create private lists on Twitter to keep up with current and potential clients. (Go to your home page on Twitter and click on Lists, four buttons below Tweets.) 

3. Take the "LinkedIn for Journalists" training on LinkedIn. It's free, and completing it gives you a free upgrade for a year, which means you can in-mail anyone on LinkedIn for free. 

4. Remember that anyone--editors, potential clients, your competitors--may be reading your social media feed. Don't post anything that doesn't positively reflect on you and your brand. 

5. Use bit.ly or goo.gl to track response to your social media posts, and use that data when creating new social media content. This is one tip I'm going to immediately put into practice, and I'll report on the results in a month or two.

**Thanks again to Yael (follow her at @yaelwrites), and stay tuned for more great tips, strategies, and ideas from ASJA ConCon. Want to know how to add content marketing and other ghostwriting to your freelance repertoire? Check out my new book, Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks! Make Money Writing Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition, which covers both short- and long-form ghostwriting. Download the book at Smashwords.) 

Review Goodbye, Byline and Get a Free Query or LOI Critique

Hey, readers! Thanks to all of you who have already purchased my latest book  which covers both short- and long-form ghostwriting (think content marketing, articles, blog posts, books, white papers, and more!). I'll be announcing other special offers in conjunction with my new book, Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks! Make Money Writing Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition, but here's the first one: review the book on Amazon or BN.com and I'll be delighted to give you an in-depth critique of your query or letter of introduction. Normally I charge $100/hour for this kind of consulting, so this is a great deal! 

Just post the review and then send me an email at kelly at becomebodywise dot com with the pitch you'd like feedback on, and give me a few days to get back to you! Thanks for your support! (Don't have a Kindle? Download the book at Smashwords.)  

Five Steps to Creating your Content Marketing Niche

Last week, I presented, moderated, and learned an incredible amount at ASJA's Content Connections conference in Chicago. My next series of posts (and Tweets) will share some of the valuable information I learned there. Make sure you tune in! 

Content marketing is, quite simply, where the money is. Corporations spent more than 40 billion dollars last year on content marketing and that number is likely to climb. Companies need writers who can create the content--whether in print pubs, online, in employee publications, white papers, you name it--that the companies than use to establish relationships with their customers. And if you freelance already, you probably already have the skills to get into the field--if you know what your niche should be. 

In a panel on selling yourself to potential clients, content marketing writer Jennifer Goforth Gregory gave this five-step method to determining your content marketing niche: 

1. Look at all of your recent clips. Make a list of the subjects you've covered. 

2. Review the list of subjects and create a new list of the topics you've covered at least three-five times. These topics are possible niches. 

3. Consider your background and experience. What other topics do you know about already? What expertise do you have? Add those subjects to your list of niches.

4. Now, the big question: who needs this information? Jennifer gave the example of writing about a zero-waste hotel. What kinds of readers might be interested in this kind of topic? Well, hotel owners, certainly. Restaurant owners, too, because the hotel that had become zero-waste had made many of those changes in its restaurant. Companies and businesses interested in going green, or using green technology to help them create less waste, cut costs, and attract environmentally-minded customers. Create a list of potential audiences who are interested in your topic(s). 

5. Now research the brands and companies that market to those audiences. Those companies are your potential content marketing clients. 

Is it really that easy? Sure thing, says Jennifer. The next step? Creating an LOI to introduce yourself to a potential content marketing client. That's coming next. 

**Want to know more about content marketing? Check out Jennifer's fantastic blog, which I highly recommend. And read more about it--and the other forms of ghostwriting work available today--in my latest book, Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition.  [Don't have a Kindle? Download from Smashwords. You'll find advice on creating your own niche, marketing your ghostwriting services (with LOIs and other templates), contract tips, and how to work efficiently (and make more money) as a ghostwriter of both long- and short-form writing.]

Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks, Second Edition is HERE!

Finally! After working on it for the last six months, I'm happy to announce Improvise Press' new book, Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition. The original version, published four years ago, focused on books; this expanded edition includes shorter-form ghostwriting including articles, content marketing, ghost-blogging, and more. You'll find:  

• updated rate information 
• new templates including LOIs and sample contracts
• tips on getting started in content marketing
• tips on using social media to nab ghostwriting clients 
• tips on finding ghostwriting work online
• advice on ghost-blogging
• advice on what to charge
• what to ask before you accept a ghostwriting assignment 
• common ghostwriting problems--and how to avoid them
• advice about adding ghostwriting to your freelance business

Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition is now available on Kindle for $9.99. Don't have a Kindle? Buy it from Smashwords in every other format available (including PDF) for $9.99. Get yours today! 

This is the first Improvise Press book to be offered exclusively as an e-book. If you're looking for print books, check out Improvise Press' first two releases: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer's Guide to Making More Money, Second Edition or Dollars and Deadlines: Make Money Writing Articles for Print and Online Markets.