Are You Committed to Regular Marketing?
Angela over at the Fab Freelance Writing Blog has some words of wisdom to share:
If you’re a solo operator, at least 40 per cent of your working time each week needs to be spent on marketing. You need to have processes in place so that you can simply get it done without thinking too much about it. If marketing is difficult for you, it’s because you don’t have the processes in place which make it easy.
Someone told me that businesses fail because it’s a problem of marketing. Either there’s no marketing, too little marketing, or the wrong kind of marketing. In case it isn’t obvious yet, as a freelancer, attracting clients and winning contracts is a matter of constant marketing. How will people discover your skills and commitment if they don’t even know you exist? That’s why you have to get the word about yourself out there as much as possible.
I once made the mistake of waiting for clients to approach me via my personal blog. Along the way however, I realized that I should be more active in reaching out to them. This is what I do for my freelance writing and design career. Aside from subscribing to job sites‘ RSS feeds, which makes it easy to stay up-to-date on new listings, I also look for the clients themselves. Either by blog hopping or just following the links wherever they lead me.
Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to market yourself offline too. Every new acquaintance is a chance to network, a chance to get a new contract, a chance to raise my profile as a freelancer. This makes sense when you realize that the lifeblood of a freelancer is literally his ability to make himself known. Like I said, clients don’t hire people who don’t exist.
How actively do you market yourself? It should be another area where you’re consistent in.
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POSTED IN: Living as a Freelancer, Marketing Your Skills
1 opinion for Are You Committed to Regular Marketing?
Work for a Client Who Doesn’t Keep Their Word?
Apr 3, 2008 at 11:28 am
[…] asking these questions makes me realize the value of incessantly marketing your skills and looking for new contacts even more. My answer to the questions above is a resolute “no.” But only because my day […]
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