It is great to be a freelancer as you will be your own boss and you can take up projects that you are interested in working on. However, you need to market yourself well in order build a good clientele. As a freelancer, you have to be an expert in your own field as well as marketing your skills.
Set Goals
The first step is to set clear goals as to what you want achieve as a freelancer. This will help you to measure and determine as to how you are doing and make corrections as required to achieve your goals. When you start as a freelancer, you feel that researching the market requirement is a daunting task. However, it will pay off in the end. It is a good idea to read up industry publications to know the latest trends as well as marketing tactics. If you admire any freelancer, you can find out where he/she is placing the ads or marketing himself/herself. You also need to identify your target market and develop a plan of action to reach them. You can make use of Twitter, blog or sites such as Elance to reach your target customers.
Brand Yourself
Corporations make use of branding to create an imprint about their products in customers’ minds. You can do the same thing by being consistent in the messages that you send to your prospective customers. The more effective you are in getting your messages to your target audience, the more they will think of you when they have a need for the kind of services that you offer. However, you should ensure that your brand does not overshadow your skills. You can brand your name or even a catch phrase, but ensure that it is unique and represents what you do.
Blog
One of the best ways to showcase your talents is through blogs. However, you must make sure that readers can pick out your contact information easily. You can make use of a contact form, if you do not want to avoid publishing your email address for fear of spam. You may do it as you want, but it should be easy for the visitor to contact you.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization involves not only the use of target keywords in your blog, but also application of other techniques to make sure that your blog or website comes up at the top of the search engine listings when people search for services that you provide. Search Engine Guide and Search Engine Land two resources that can help you get started in search engine optimizations.
Network
You must learn to network if you want to succeed as a freelancer. You can talk to other freelancers and get some advice as well. Some of them will lead you to people who are looking for services that you offer. Some freelancers may direct some work to you if they are busy in some projects and don’t have time to take up new ones. Networking also presents an opportunity to promote your blog. Attending freelancers’ meetings will also be helpful, but do not sell yourself too much at these events.
Summarizing, marketing is an art and it takes effort and experience master it. One technique may provide good results to some freelancers, but you need to really find out which technique works best for you.