As a freelance writer, your marketing plan will play a key role in your success. If you expect to earn a good income and have enough work to keep things steady, you need to market your services on a regular basis. That being said, I hear the same complaint time after time: my marketing techniques are not working. Believe it or not, there may be one easy fix for this. Do you know what it is?
Time is something that you need when it comes to marketing your freelance writing services. In other words, you cannot expect immediate results. There are times when I send query letters, forget about them, and then receive a call from an editor six months later. Marketing does not always yield immediate results.
There is no way of saying how long it will take for your marketing plan to take over and show results. As noted above, you may have to wait for several months to hear back from a potential buyer. But of course, I have sent cold emails and received a positive response within an hour. It all depends on who you are getting in touch with, as well as a little bit of luck.
Just because your marketing plan is not taking off right away does not mean that it won’t do so in the future. Time will tell if you need to tweak your plan, or if it is fine the way it is. Just remember, you need to market your services no matter how you do so or how long it takes for things to swing in your favor. The biggest mistake that you can make is abandoning your marketing plan and schedule because you have not garnered immediate results. Give it some time, and then change your plan accordingly.Â
Freelance writers need to concentrate on the clients and work that is in front of them at the time. That being said, you should never stop marketing. And when it comes to marketing, you need to know who you are trying to get in touch with and which markets you want to break into. With all of this in mind, I urge you to chase your dream projects on a regular basis.
Ask yourself this question: what is my dream freelance writing project? Although I have many answers to this question, one would be to write for Sports Illustrated. Is this a project that I chase day in and day out? Of course not. That being said, I like to think that I am working towards this goal by building my sports writing portfolio and making connections in the industry.
What makes a project a dream project? In my situation, Sports Illustrated has been one of my favorite magazines since I was little. For this reason, I would love to see one of my stories appear in the publication. Of course, the amount of money that they pay writers is also something that is quite appealing.
Listen up: your dream project is not going to be one that is easy to attain. In fact, it will probably take a lot of time and hard work to reach your goal. But remember, it is important to have goals to strive for over the long haul. This does not mean that you should give up on other goals, but you should always have one “big goal†that can be called your dream project.
You can have one dream project, or many. No matter what, make sure that you know what this project is and that you chase it when possible. I may never write for Sports Illustrated, but it is something that I think about a lot. Hopefully I am taking the right steps toward making this happen.Â
Do you know where your freelance writing career is headed? Just like the rest of us, the answer is probably no. After all, it is impossible to know exactly what the future will bring. That being said, you do need to have some idea of what you want to happen in the future. This way, you can do whatever it takes to steer your career in the right direction.
Here are three questions to ponder if you are having a difficult time deciding where you want your career to go:
1. What areas do you want to expand into? For instance, you may be a freelance writer specializing in web copy. This is good for now, but in the future you may decide that you want to get involved with feature articles for print magazines. You should have expansion goals so that you are always increasing your workload and capabilities.
2. Do you want to keep your freelance writing business the same size? Or do you want to grow as big as possible? This is an important question to ask. As one person, you can only do so much. If you want to increase your output, you have two options: work more hours or hire others. I like the size of my freelance writing business and have no desire to work more hours or hire others on a regular basis. That being said, others are interested in growing their business day in and day out. Do you?
3. Are you interested in additional streams of income? If you want to make more money your answer should be yes. As a freelance writer, you can look for additional income streams within your career or by branching into parallel fields such as blogging, creating niche sites, etc.
You will never know for sure where your freelance writing career is headed until you get there. But this does not mean that you should keep your eyes closed and hope for the best. Ask yourself the three questions above so that you can more or less control the direction of your career.Â
