Freelance Marketing: Your Guide to Getting Started and Finding Success

So, you’re freelancing, and you want to figure out how to market more effectively? You’ve spent some time learning your industry and figuring out what you’re good at. You know there’s more you can be doing to develop your marketing plan, but you’re not sure where to start. Do you focus on just doing your job, or do you stop and take the time to improve your freelance digital marketing plan? Here’s the answer: You take the time to get organized before you keep going. This comprehensive guide to freelance digital marketing will walk you through how to get and stay organized as a freelance marketer, plus offer tips on tools you can use to speed up your workflow.

Get Started With Your Downloadable Freelance Marketing Templates

Freelance marketing can be challenging, especially when you're getting started. Make things easier on yourself with these simple templates:

• Marketing Calendars: Organize all your email, social media, and content projects with three calendar templates.
• 101 Time Management Strategies (PDF): Massive list of tips to make the most of your limited time.
• Freelance Proposal Template: Craft comprehensive client proposals that help you land more business.
• Marketing Checklist Template: Plan and organize workflows for every project with this basic Excel template.

How Staying Organized Can Optimize Your Freelance Digital Marketing Efforts

Let’s face it – even the most diligent freelancer will occasionally struggle with staying organized. As work piles up during peak seasons, it can be easy to drop the ball on your freelance digital marketing efforts. Backlogs of blogs and newsletters start stacking up, routine tasks get pushed aside to deal with client work, and deadlines are ultimately missed. Staying organized is the key to optimizing your freelance marketing plan. It can eliminate duplicate work, reduce mistakes and errors, and maximize your ability to market more consistently. Bonus – being organized should make you breathe more easily.

Establishing Your Workspace

The most important thing you can do before putting together your freelance digital marketing plan is to set up your workspace. It doesn’t matter if you have a dedicated home office or you work off your dining room table, you need a workspace that is efficient. Consider these elements of a workspace and where you want to put them:

• Desk or another work surface
• Laptop, monitor, keyboard, and mouse
• Desk or wall calendar (if you use one, and you should)
• Printer or scanner, if necessary
• Other office items

While some freelance marketers can get away with having only a laptop, many freelancers benefit from having an extended workspace where they can spread out and get work done. Source: Zapier You’ll also want to consider your digital workspace. Think about what tools and websites you routinely use. Put together a bookmark folder or quick access toolbar so you can access those things more quickly.

Setting Your Schedule

We all know that one of the perks of being a freelancer is that you mostly get to set your own schedule. But to really make the most of your freelance digital marketing plan, you really need to SET a schedule that holds you accountable for your workday. Ask yourself these questions when setting your schedule:

• How early or late will my clients need me to be available?
• How much quality work can I get done in an hour?
• Are there tasks and deadlines due routinely?
• How many hours do I want to work each week?

It can be tempting to take on as much work as possible to pay the bills, but burnout is a real thing that impacts freelancers. And an overloaded schedule can lead to poor quality work. Pro tip: Start by adding your deadlines and routine tasks to your calendar, then fill out your marketing schedule from there. This will give you an idea of where you have flexibility in your schedule.

Selecting Tools and Software

One way to get and stay organized is by using tools and software. Whether you focus your marketing efforts on one channel or take a multichannel approach to digital marketing, there are tools available to help streamline your processes and procedures. Common categories of tools and software that freelancers might benefit from include:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) tools
• Content management tools
• Drag-and-drop email editors
• Email automation tools
• Analytical tools
• Social media management tools

Smart Insights It’s important to take advantage of analytical tools – they can help you narrow down your target market, optimize your keywords and topics, and provide direction for future marketing efforts. You also don’t want to pass up on the trusty ole calendar. You can use a wall or desk calendar, or you can use a web-based calendar. It doesn’t matter – just use one and keep it open daily.

Developing a Plan to Market Yourself

For people in the freelance digital marketing space, your marketing job is two-fold. Not only do you need to be able to market other people’s businesses or services, but you need to be able to market yourself so you can get their business. Here are some basic things you absolutely need in order to market yourself:

• Website: This is pretty much non-negotiable. You need a platform to promote your portfolio, list your services, and onboard new clients. Your website IS your business.
• Email address: There’s no getting around this. To sign up for most freelance digital marketing tools, you’re going to need an email address that you check regularly.
• Social media presence: The reality is that digital marketing includes social media and knowing how to manage social media accounts can be a boon to your freelance marketing efforts.

Of course, there are other things you can use to market yourself – business cards, placing ads online, or signing up for freelance websites. However, you won’t have domain over your product. Pro tip: Spend time developing a website that speaks to your experience and expertise. Your website is where you can hype yourself with no judgment.

Organizing Processes into Checklists

Automating your workflow is one of the best ways to optimize your freelance digital marketing plan. This is where some of those freelance digital marketing tools come in – you can use them to set up a workflow that speeds up your marketing efforts. Look at some of the tools offered by CoSchedule that can help streamline your processes:

• Task templates: With this feature, you can create a template for a specific task (thing blog posts or newsletters) so you can easily assign the task in the future without spending a lot of extra time.
• Advanced workflows: Using internally-set triggers, you can create complex workflows that move your projects through the pipeline, with internal controls on who needs to review the work.
• Blog management: Through all stages of the content creation process, you can use blog management tools to speed up the publishing process.

Using a combination of tools (plus your handy calendar), you can make your digital marketing plan more efficient. This frees up time for you to focus on other marketing efforts. Bonus: Most tools, like CoSchedule, offer various integrations with other tools and software. You can use these to further optimize your marketing strategy.

Other Ways You Can Stay Organized as a Freelance Marketer

While setting up your workspace and selecting the best freelance digital marketing tools for your business will go a long way in getting you organized, there are other ways you can stay (or get) organized as a freelance marketer.

Streamline New Client Onboarding

If you want to make sure that your new clients have an excellent experience – and you don’t forget anything – put a plan in place for how you’ll handle new customers. Set up a request form on your website that asks a few basic questions up front, then follow up with an email or phone call that dives deeper into what your new client needs. It’s good practice to put together a script for interacting with new clients. It doesn’t have to be formal but knowing what questions to ask is critical to getting the job done correctly.

Establish Regular Billing Cycles

Having your finances in order is critical to staying organized as a freelance marketer. If a new client is going to have routine work, consider setting up a scheduled billing cycle for them. Think about allowing them to pay you every month – or maybe bi-weekly – so you can reduce the time spent on accounting and increase the time spent on doing your best work. Conversely, it’s a good idea to set up your expenses to align with your billing cycles. Unexpected expenses can wreak havoc on the freelancer’s budget.

How You Can Optimize Your Freelance Digital Marketing Plan Today

Freelancing is a great gig, but it only works if you’re organized and efficient. Use these three key tips to get started on optimizing your freelance digital marketing plan today:

• Set up your website – even if you just use it for a portfolio right now, your website is your key to driving traffic and growth.
• Sign up for marketing tools – these tools can be the difference between a streamlined marketing plan and a haphazard attempt at a marketing plan.
• Schedule your time wisely – don’t fall into the trap of thinking you don’t have a schedule. Make sure you have enough time to get your priorities taken care of.

With a little bit of diligence and research, you can put together an effective freelance digital marketing plan today and start seeing the results of your efforts quickly.