Self-Promotion: Simple Rules For Freelancers

What does it take to build a successful freelance career? Being talented is definitely a prerequisite. Knowing how to promote yourself and where to find clients will be even more important.

Whether you’re an introvert or a professional that regularly has to do corporate interactions with potential clients, you have to identify the right marketing tools. Freelancers will often work with clients from countries across the globe. In such instances, a preliminary meeting or consultation will be difficult to carry out. Fortunately, new technologies and communication channels have given freelancers a medley of tools that they can use to connect with potential customers.

Build Your Own Website

Sensible online presence is the heart and soul of freelance self-promotion. Building a quality website, getting it indexed in Google and uploading your portfolio will all contribute to enhanced communication and an increased number of information requests.

Putting a website together is far from a challenging task. To build a website on your own, you’ll simply need to choose the right hosting and pay for a custom domain. There are numerous free hosting platforms but your portfolio isn’t going to look as professional if you opt for one of them.

Installing a Wordpress content management system (CMS) and a theme will make things even easier. These are tools especially designed for the needs of individuals that don’t have web development skills. By looking around and testing the different CMS functionalities, you’ll get to customize your website and make it unique.

Here are some of the most important things to keep in mind when putting your website together:

• Have a content plan and upload new content regularly

• Learn the basics of SEO to get your website indexed for the right keywords in Google

• Interact with the audience frequently and get information from their comments

• Use Google Analytics to see which parts of the website are delivering the best performance

• See what competitors are doing and refine your content strategy

Harness the Power of Social Media

When it comes to B2B interactions, social media have an amazing potential.

Nearly 94 percent of B2B marketers report using LinkedIn for promotion. According to official LinkedIn statistics, the number of B2B leads generated through the platform has reached 80.33 percent of all social media marketing efforts. Twitter, Facebook and Google+ follow.

Social media give you the opportunity to connect with people from all parts of the world that are interested in a particular product or service. Building an online community and being active in specialized discussion groups will enable you to establish yourself as the authority within the specific field. Building your online reputation happens to be the most important preliminary step that will lead to effective client acquisition.

To make the most of social media, you need to have a strategy and a content plan. Some essay services could help you with that. Sharing relevant, interesting information via multiple channels is the key to maximizing your reach. Make sure that you also have a comprehensive profile and that you’re keeping track of interactions (through the Facebook Insights, for example). The more information you have about the audience, the easier it will be to do effective targeting.

Email Promotion

The good, old newsletter is still a powerful marketing tool. It can be particularly beneficial after you develop your website and enable the audience to subscribe for additional updates.

Targeted email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment (ROI) in the world of digital advertising. According to the Direct Marketing Association, every dollar spent on email marketing results in a 44-dollar return.

Being 33 percent less expensive than other inbound marketing techniques, emails generate 50 percent more sales. The secret of making email marketing work for you is building an audience and sending these people relevant information.

Tools like MailChimp give you everything that you need to make the process automated and simple. You can do effective segmentation, send different newsletters to different groups of people (current customers, prospects, people who are simply interested in industry news), you can design professional emails and you can keep track of the campaigns.

To make email marketing work for you, choose the right frequency of sending out emails. Don’t spam your audience five times per week – chances are that many people will give up on your message. It’s also very important to give subscribers access to exclusive content, even discounts that aren’t going to be available to a general audience.

Ask Your Clients for Assistance

Word of mouth promotion is still incredibly important in a digital world. This is the main reason why people you’ve already worked with can be very helpful in terms of acquiring new clients.

Ask your former customers for testimonials. Many people trust client reviews when they have to choose a service provider. Don’t exaggerate and don’t create such testimonials on your own. It’s very easy to differentiate between an authentic customer review and the one that is written by a marketer.

Display such testimonials prominently on your website and share them via your social media profiles.

Staying in contact with your former clients (via email or an instant messaging platform) is another incredibly good idea. Let them know that you’re still available for projects. Introduce them to the new services you’re starting to offer. By informing people that you’re still around, you’ll make it much easier to get repeat business.

Finally, don’t forget that happy customers are likely to recommend you to other people in need of similar services. Thus, you should work very hard on every single project. The quality of your work and your dedication will speak for themselves, making it much easier for you to benefit from the amazing power of word of mouth promotion.