Some may think that freelancing exists in a vacuum. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether guest blogging for a company’s LinkedIn page or email marketing through your own website, becoming a successful freelancer means becoming the most effective marketer on behalf of your own skills.
This requires determining the right marketing strategy for your small business. You may be a fully remote hire for many clients, primarily communicating with them on digital platforms. As a result, it’s important to know how to communicate well and in such a way that clients feel confident in your professional abilities.
Independent professionals who want to do well with their freelance work need to embrace digital marketing to draw in new clients. The following six steps serve as a general template for promoting your freelance business. While not exhaustive for every type of freelance work, these steps can be a great place to use as a starting point and can be modified as needed for your unique situation.
1. Build a professional social media presence
Whether you’re a graphic designer, content marketer, or freelance writer, your online portfolio should appear across all social media channels, including your LinkedIn profile. Depending on the services you offer as a freelancer, different social media sites will better help you market your freelance business. For example, if you are a graphic designer, you’ll likely find greater benefit using Instagram than LinkedIn to show clients the quality of your work.
However, it’s important to ensure you’re effectively promoting yourself on social media. This might include geo-tagging Instagram posts to attract clients or customers from certain areas or using hashtags on Twitter to attract other professionals who you can network with. Whatever you choose to do, though, the key is to post often and with quality content. Your social media marketing strategy might also include answering clients’ questions related to your area of expertise. Whatever you do to self-promote, just make sure you maintain a professional presence.
How to set up your LinkedIn profile to maximize exposure as a freelancer
Some clients use LinkedIn to double-check a potential freelancer’s work history before hiring for a project. These four quick changes below will optimize your LinkedIn profile and indicate that you’re open to new work projects.
Add your freelance work experience
When adding your job experience on LinkedIn, choose “Self-employed” or “Freelance” from the Employment Type dropdown. Then, take full advantage of all the fields offered by adding a short description of your services and a link to your Upwork Profile.
Maximize your exposure and drive people to view your Upwork profile
It is beneficial to include the phrase “Freelancer on Upwork” in addition to your area of expertise when adding your work experience. This phrasing effectively lists your freelance experience and clarifies how potential clients can find you across platforms. See the examples below for a PHP Developer on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Make the most of your LinkedIn summary
Your LinkedIn summary is your chance to hook the reader and position yourself as a solution for their business. Use this section of your profile to tell the story of your professional career and highlight your accomplishments. Make sure to include a call-to-action and link to your Upwork Profile at the end of your summary, so prospective new clients can easily take the next step to hire you.
Use a professional headshot
For LinkedIn, you’ll want a professional-looking headshot, similar to your Upwork profile picture. To take it one step further, you can add the #OpenToWork picture frame to draw more attention to your availability for freelance projects.
Maximizing non-LinkedIn social platforms for freelancer marketing
Depending on the services you offer as a freelancer, different social media sites may also help you market your freelance business. For example, if you are a graphic designer, you may benefit from using Instagram to show clients the quality of your work.
Regardless of the social media platform, it’s essential to ensure you’re marketing your freelance services effectively by utilizing all of the features available to promote yourself. These features might include geo-tagging Instagram posts to attract clients from certain areas or using hashtags on Twitter to join relevant professional conversations. Your social media marketing strategy might also involve answering clients’ questions related to your area of expertise. Whatever you choose to do, the key to these marketing channels is to post often and with quality content.
Note: If a potential client reaches out to you through LinkedIn, please abide by our ToS and let the client know that pre-contract conversations must take place through the Upwork platform. Learn more about communicating through Upwork here.
2. Blog to enhance your freelance business’s brand
We won’t lie to you. Blogging is hard, time-consuming, and probably not for everyone. It also requires understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) best practices and some innate talent in writing. But even with the best writing, you still need to get it in front of the right people. This may require you having a distribution channel, like an email newsletter, or a social media presence with followers.
But when blogging works, it can really work. The key is to make sure your posts are straightforward and accessible. For example, if you want your blog post to pop up when someone asks a question relating to your industry on Quora, you don’t want to feed the search engine another piece of white noise. Avoid shock value, but don’t be bland, either. No matter what kind of freelancing you’re doing, focus on blogging in such a way that your material is both high quality and worthy of sharing.
Even something as simple as providing guest posts on an established blog can boost your online presence and brand awareness. Blogging can also help you flesh out your professional portfolio if you don’t have enough paid work to fill it out or are just starting your freelance career. At the same time, though, work on becoming an expert in your chosen field, writing blog posts that showcase your expertise.
3. Develop your portfolio
Prospective clients may want to view your skills and past work, especially if your small business doesn’t have testimonials or referrals to benefit from just yet. You should regard your online portfolio as a requirement for obtaining new business, as this is the first place many potential clients will meet you. This is dependent on the type of work you do, as a portfolio may not always be applicable for your skill set.
As mentioned, your personal blogging and guest posting can help you flesh out your professional portfolio. Make sure that your freelance portfolio is an accurate, diverse representation of what you bring to the table as a freelancer.
4. Request reviews and referrals
Ask friends, network colleagues, and other connections to review your small business and provide referrals. In fact, word of mouth is one of the more time-honored and trustworthy ways to land freelance work.
Make sure to conduct a follow-up with any new clients referred to you. By connecting with new clients personally now, the hope is that those early referrals will turn into more freelance jobs and, potentially, for that entire new customer base you are building to serve as a startup list for email marketing in the future.
5. Take the time to tailor your pitches
Keep in mind that you need to adapt for each project and potential client. This means customizing your pitches. Successful freelancers stratify and select which pitch goes to what client and always with the attitude that potential clients may know one another.
Although small business owners should definitely spend the time to develop a template for sales pitches that feels true to their brand, prospective clients may respond negatively to feeling as though the call to action is not genuine. Creating unique pitch content for every client can quickly show why you’re the right person for the task and help you stand out from the competition.
For example, if you are pitching to a large soda company because you want to prove that your business is the one to handle their next content marketing project, you would use a very different kind of verbiage and imagery than you might if you were trying to get your local grocery store to switch to your digital marketing campaign. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “know your audience;” while it’s valid when designing pitches, of even more importance is that you “sew your approach to fit,” so to speak.
6. Seize opportunities on Upwork
If you are looking to optimize the launch of your freelance career, the easiest and best way to market yourself is by using Upwork. When you create an Upwork profile, you can build your profile right there, providing all the key information that potential clients need to know about you. With Upwork, you can also get feedback from clients and request testimonials, even from clients you worked with outside of the platform.
Are you still fine-tuning your freelance business? Upwork also offers resources on how to grow your freelance business.
Put yourself on the world’s best platform
There are as many different ways to sell yourself as a freelancer as there are small business startups every day. However, if you want to set yourself up for success, look no further than Upwork. Whether you are looking for guidance on how to build out your own freelance website or are ready to start connecting directly with paying clients, Upwork has the support you need to launch your career as a freelancer. Upwork remains the best place to find and get freelance jobs regardless of your particular skill set or industry background.
