Are you looking for a job where you get to choose your own hours, work from home, be your own boss, and set your own rates? If so, you might enjoy working as a freelance marketer. Freelance marketers help other businesses gain notice. But, rather than working for any individual company, they take on several clients and help them all simultaneously. Below, we’ll highlight what it takes to get started as a freelance marketer to help you decide if this is the right job for you.
Build Up Your Skills
Before you get started as a freelance marketer, it’s essential that you have the right skills. To market someone’s business on their behalf requires knowledge about the current marketing trends and the best ways to promote certain types of businesses. If you haven’t already, now is the time to learn about things like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), video marketing, influencer marketing, and social media marketing.
These are the cornerstones of any modern marketing campaign, and you’ll be using them a lot no matter who you end up working for. Luckily, plenty of free resources online can help you get started and teach you everything you need to know.
Pick a Niche
Once you have a strong knowledge foundation, it’s time to think about who you want to work for. Rather than offering your services to any business you can find, you’re better off narrowing down and specializing in a specific niche. For example, you might decide that your niche is restaurants, in which case you’d want to start learning how local restaurants in your area currently market themselves.
Or maybe you decide that you want to do marketing for law firms. There are tons of law firms nationwide, each of which needs to market themselves to stay ahead of the competition. Whether it’s law firms, restaurants, or something else, picking a niche will help you build up a reputation in that industry. You’ll also gain experience as you go, allowing you to put your skills to better use for similar customers.
Reach Out to Local Customers
After you decide on a niche, it’s time to find your first customers. The easiest place to get started is in your local area. These small businesses are more likely to work with someone who knows the area and less likely to have a marketing team in place already. Check to see if they have a website first and if it looks like someone is already running their marketing. If you see some ways that you could improve things for that business, write up an email or visit their location.
When you get in contact with a business owner, they’ll want to know your plan of action. Create a proposal about marketing their business and what you’ll charge to do so. As these are your first clients, you may want to offer a reduced rate since you don’t have a portfolio of work yet. These first few clients are very important, so do your best to make a good impression and deliver strong results.
Try Different Marketing Strategies
As you’re building up experience, test out different marketing strategies for your clients. For example, if you primarily rely on SEO strategies to get your clients ranked in search results, consider mixing this with an online ad campaign. Or, if you’re already creating a lot of social media content, explore working with some influencers in your niche to gain more attention. By slowly testing out new strategies, you can see which ones work best for your industry and apply what you learn to future clients.
Ask for Referrals
Once you’ve spent some time providing good work for your clients, you can ask them to refer you to other businesses that might need help. Local business owners often know plenty of others who run their own businesses, and if you provide solid work, they would likely be happy to mention your name to the others. You can even consider setting up a referral program to encourage referrals and reward those who pass your name along.
Don’t Forget to Market Yourself
Finally, throughout all of this, don’t forget to market yourself. It’s too common for freelancers to spend so much time marketing for their clients that they forget to market their services. Use the knowledge you’ve gained in SEO, social media, and advertising to get more clients. The more clients you get, the more selective you can be about who you work with and how much you charge.
At the very least, you should have an active website along with a social media presence. That way, if someone learns about you from one of your clients, they have a point online to learn more about you. Creating a simple website for yourself is easy, and the costs are worth it in the long run.
Read also: Best Remote Working Apps for Freelancers
Conclusion:
Freelance Marketing has become one of the most popular freelance working niches as it pays good money since it helps businesses grow. However, being a Freelance Marketer is not as easy as people think it is. There are different factors involved in the process and you have to approach them carefully.
We have described such factors in the information given above including niche picking and asking for referrals. Understanding and applying these strategies can help you become a successful Freelance Marketer.