Diversifying Client Acquisition Strategies For Freelancers
As soon as a freelancer becomes part of an agency or is no longer required, their income could become drastically affected, so diversifying client acquisition strategies is vitally important to safeguarding future income streams.
Building a personal website can help freelancers develop trust with potential clients, especially if it features testimonials and awards badges on its pages.
1. Job Boards
Job boards are a great place to find freelance work. Websites like Indeed, Glassdoor, Employ Digital and SimplyHired regularly post freelance job opportunities. These platforms allow you to search for jobs based on your skills, location, and industry, making it easier to find suitable gigs.
Create a strong profile and tailor your applications to each job posting. Highlight your relevant experience and skills to increase your chances of getting noticed. Additionally, consider setting up job alerts to get notified about new postings that match your criteria. Regularly checking job boards can help you stay updated on available opportunities and land more gigs.
2. Marketplaces Like Upwork and Freelancer
Freelance marketplaces like Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr are excellent platforms to find work. And platforms like Employ Digital aggregates jobs from all these marketplaces for ease of searching. These websites connect freelancers with clients looking for specific skills. Create a detailed profile showcasing your expertise, experience, and portfolio to attract potential clients.
Bid on projects that match your skills and interests. Make sure your proposals are tailored to each job, highlighting why you are the best fit for the project. Building a good reputation on these platforms by delivering high-quality work. And getting positive reviews can lead to more job opportunities and higher earnings over time.
3. Networking
Networking can be one of the most valuable assets any entrepreneur has when it comes to freelance work. When used effectively, networking can lead to recurring revenue for your business while helping build an influential brand and reaching professional goals.
Networking should be an active endeavor, not an idle hobby. Attend industry events and actively make connections. Building lasting professional networks will benefit both you and others. This will enable you to achieve lasting success throughout your career journey.
Diversifying your client base is also vitally important to ensuring a steady income. Create a website to offer services like content creation or search engine optimization, attracting multiple clients at the same time. Use GoCardless payment solutions to automate invoicing and payments. This ensures you get paid on time every time.
4. Referrals
Referrals are one of the best client acquisition strategies for freelancers, particularly independent businesses that don’t utilize freelance marketplaces. When combined with cold calling or cold emailing campaigns, referrals are an effective means of client acquisition that save time and effort in hunting down new clients.
Improving client referral rates is simpler than you might think. Simply make sure that you ask for recommendations at an appropriate time; asking Monday morning or Friday afternoon would probably not be successful because your client might already be focused on other tasks.
Thanking clients or customers who refer business your way is also key, whether through sending an email, letter, or even simply picking up the phone to express your appreciation. Doing this will build trust within your business while keeping good leads coming your way and encouraging repeat referrals.
5. Social media
Social media is a powerful marketing tool for freelancers. It enables interaction with potential clients and customers, promotes products and services, and provides customer support.
Diversifying your marketing efforts by targeting multiple social platforms is vitally important. Furthermore, it’s also crucial that your profiles remain up-to-date and contain changes in policies or terms of usage, in addition to keeping abreast with industry news.
As part of your social media strategy, it’s crucial that you consider the pain points of your target audience when creating content for social media posts. Doing this will allow you to build up a following and increase engagement rates.
Diversifying your client base by working across industries and geographies is essential to maintaining a steady income source in case one or more clients suffers a downturn; for instance, if you specialize in entertainment and the sector experiences something like COVID, your revenue won’t all evaporate as easily. Payment solutions like Wise and Payoneer make doing business with clients across geographically disparate locations almost effortless.
6. Content marketing
Content marketing is an excellent way to increase brand recognition and generate leads, but requires careful planning in order to be successful. First and foremost, it’s crucial that you understand your audience’s needs by conducting market research or creating target buyer personas; additionally tools like Google Analytics may also assist you with this task.
Once you’ve identified your audience, create content to address their pain points. This could involve blogging, releasing white papers or publishing case studies; also email this content directly to them – such as sending out an e-newsletter or informing them about new product features.
Be sure to track results and continuously optimize content, and continuously enhance it over time. While this process may take some time, its efforts will pay off over time. Experiment with various types of posts to see which resonate best with your audience. Drop any that don’t perform as planned while expanding those that do well and this will increase ROI over time.
7. Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an integral component of most businesses’ marketing plans; freelancers can utilize SEO techniques to gain visibility and attract clients. This may involve keyword research, optimizing image alt text, creating content around specific keywords, incorporating them into service pages or blog articles and using them when writing blog articles containing relevant keywords.
Instead of hiring an expensive SEO agency, freelancers can provide similar services at much reduced costs. Plus they may provide greater expertise & specialization than entry-level associates working for firms with higher overhead.
Rising rates can be challenging for freelancers, but adding clear value for their higher fees should make this easier. An increase in traffic numbers can demonstrate this value to potential clients and convince them that your services warrant such higher fees.
