From time to time, I am going to post miscellaneous freelance writing tips. They may not be full of in-depth details, but they will be quick, efficient, and helpful in your everyday career.
For today: make sure that you know your day’s work before you get started. When I began my freelance writing career I worked on projects from emails that I received from clients. As you can imagine, this got quite sloppy, and as I obtained more work, things got even worse.
Now, I always have a sticky note next to my keyboard outlining all of the jobs that I have to complete for that day. When a project gets completed I simply scratch it off the list. This is much easier than trying to remember what needs done, and hoping that I don’t forget something important.
If you are not already doing this, try it out on Monday. You will be surprised at how much easier it makes your job!
Regularly keeping in touch with past freelance writing clients is sure to increase your future earnings. The old saying “out of sight, out of mind†definitely holds true. In other words, if your past clients do not remember you they are not going to call on you when they have a new project available. This is why you need to make it part of your business to keep in touch and follow up with them every so often.
First things first, you need to remember that you should always be friendly when following up. This is in contrast to coming across as a bother, or using high pressure sales tactics. If you begin to get on your client’s nerves, they are simply going to ignore you from there on out; and that is never a good thing.
How can you keep in touch with your freelance writing clients?
1. Believe it or not, calling on the phone is a great idea. Even if you primarily use email to communicate, a phone call can take your relationship with the client to the next level. Just make sure that you keep the conversation short and sweet, and as mentioned above, don’t pressure the client into giving you more business.
2. You can send a simple, and to the point email. For most freelance writers this is the easiest way to keep in touch because it is quick and efficient. Although email is a great way to follow up, you should remember that a generic note is not nearly as good as one that has a personal touch. In other words, do not write one email and then BCC all of your clients.
3. Put together a newsletter that explains what you have been up to, etc. This is a great way to stay in touch with clients in a non-direct way. The nice thing about a newsletter is that you do not have to personalize it to each recipient. To go along with this, you can use either snail mail or email for distribution.
This is a subject that I have touched on time after time. The reason that I do so is that following up and staying in touch is a great way to take your business to the next level. Repeat business can go a long way in helping you to reach your goals. And with the proper follow up schedule in place, your chances at repeat business are a lot better.
As you may have noticed, I added an advertising page to the top of ChrisBlogging. Although this blog is not extremely popular, it does attract 100 to 200 visitors per day and boasts an RSS feed count of 125 or so. The most beneficial feature to potential advertisers is that the blog is trending upwards in terms of traffic, RSS count, page views, etc.
During the month of December I received several advertising offers, but since I did not have any prices in place, I decided to pass. At this time, I do not want to overdo ChrisBlogging with advertising. For this reason, I am only offering ads that are unobtrusive such as reviews, sidebar text links, etc. For now, you will not see any banners or 125×125 blocks. I feel that providing content is more important; after all, I am a writer!
As a bonus to regular readers, I have decided to add a special advertising deal. If you write a post touching on my advertising options and link to ChrisBlogging, you will qualify for a 50 percent discount on your first two months of advertising! This deal is good for any and every type of advertisement. All you have to do is email me your post including my link, as well as your advertising information, and payment.
If you are interested in advertising on ChrisBlogging check out the advertising page. Prices are cheap, and exposure is increasing as each month goes by.
