Anyone who works for themselves or runs their own business can tell you the online marketplace is more competitive than ever. Freelancers usually have to do all their marketing on top of their daily workload, and trying to stay fresh and relevant can start to feel like a job all on its own.
In addition, traditional means of advertising have been giving diminishing returns for a while now. So if they want to continue to get eyeballs on their work, freelancers may have to change how they market themselves to get a share of that special attention.
Here are a few ways to expand your marketing efforts without breaking the bank buying ad space.
High-Quality Blog Posts
While social media has largely eclipsed the role of blogs in 2022, there's still plenty of demand for regular, high-quality, shareable content. It's a time-trusted way of spreading the word about your services, sharing your expertise, and building a rapport with readers. Moreover, a blog doesn't have to be updated daily — one high-quality post a week is probably better than several mediocre and forgettable posts a week.
Contests
A contest is a great way to get people involved with your brand. It doesn't have to be anything complicated or expensive — it could be something as simple as a photo contest, caption contest, or a voting contest. The important thing to remember with contests is they should be relatively easy to understand and participate in, easily shareable and promotable with hashtags or bonuses for sharing, and it's ideal if no one walks away entirely empty-handed (even if it's just a link to an already-existing ebook).
Video Tutorials
People love learning new things, and the Internet has provided more ways to learn than ever before. Some freelancers even promote themselves by selling or giving away entire courses on their subject of choice — but you don't have to go that far. Putting a video tutorial up on YouTube can be a great way to engage with your audience, share your expertise, and point people to your product or service without seeming like you're going for the hard sell.
Website Optimization
For many businesses, especially freelance businesses, your website is still the beating heart of your brand. If your website is slow or features a clunky or outmoded interface, all those things can be a big turn-off to visitors. Make it a casual policy to regularly give your website and blog a facelift, and consider technical improvements like SEO plugins, faster hosting, or other low-cost ways to boost your website's performance.
Ebooks
Much like video tutorials, ebooks are a great way to share your expertise with others and garner some name recognition and turn that expertise into passive income. You can also offer free ebooks to spread the word about your business or do a combination of both selling and giving away. Ebooks are a low-cost investment and sometimes don't require original content (some bloggers repurpose their blog posts into ebooks).
Social Media Marketing
With over 4 billion active social media users, social media represents a huge potential audience. Many businesses have turned to social media as their marketing vector of choice, making it their primary means of communicating with their customers. As we touched on before, short videos, contests, and other shareable content are a great way to engage with an audience, and social media is the best platform for sharing this type of content. Audiences especially like something with both utility and entertainment value, like creating a visual timeline with a tool like Google Slides.
Superior Customer Service
While not a direct marketing tactic per se, one of the ways you can differentiate yourself from the competition is by providing top-notch customer service to your existing customers. Customers will never forget a business that goes above and beyond, whether it's constantly being willing to communicate with customers or seeing to their needs as soon as possible. This doesn't have to be super work-intensive, either — setting up some automation can help take a little of the pressure off you. For instance, you could set up a help desk software tool to help you auto-respond to texts, letting them know just when a human being will be back in touch with them. There are a number of free and low-cost software options out there and a host of alternative tools that can make customer service easier for both you and your clients.
Work With Influencers
Finally, another way you can market yourself is to get involved with others in your field. Whether it's starting a collaborative project, mutual promotions, or just talking each other up, working with existing influencers can benefit both parties.