Can you promote your freelance services with no budget? Learn how to find clients as a freelancer with these low-cost marketing strategies.
Marketing is essential for getting freelance clients. Learn how to find clients as a freelancer with these low-budget marketing strategies and creative marketing tips for small businesses.
A notable fact about the freelance lifestyle is that freelancers spend a great deal of time marketing their services to potential clients and the rest completing freelance projects for clients. But finding clients as a freelancer doesn’t have to be expensive.
If you want to know how to get clients for freelancing services and do your freelancer marketing with no budget, you must come up with a low-price marketing strategy to learn how to promote your freelance services.
Marketing your freelance business with these zero-budget marketing ideas will help you reach new target audiences and present your freelance services to existing customers while growing your freelance business.
If you’ve been struggling in your efforts to get clients as a freelance web developer or freelance brand consultant, these freelancer marketing tips and tricks will help you get clients quickly.
Whether you want to know how to get graphic design clients or Fiverr business clients for your freelance brand strategist services, these marketing tips for startups will have freelance clients lining up for your freelance services.
Use these low-cost marketing strategies to learn how to get clients for content writing or freelance digital marketing services on the best freelance marketing websites.
These low budget high impact marketing campaigns include low-cost marketing ideas for small businesses and no-budget marketing advice for small businesses to help you launch your freelance business without any money.
10 Low-Cost Marketing Strategies To Promote Your Freelance Services
Learn how to find clients as a freelancer with these creative branding tips for small businesses. These low-cost marketing tips and tricks will help you promote your freelance services and find freelance clients quickly and effectively.
1. Re-use old content
One of the tricks of the top freelancers is using recycled content in an article or blog for a new marketing platform. It can help you save time in research to create new content to send to customers, clients and potential customers.
Here are a few ideas to help you recycle content:
- Turn an article into an e-book
- Turn a blog into a podcast
- Use points in a listicle into a one-pager
- Use a listicle for a PowerPoint presentation
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2. Self-promotion
When some of us hear the word self-promotion we think of television or radio station advertisements that are costly.
Self-promotion is free, and it is something that most entrepreneurs do every day whether they start a conversation with someone at the grocery store and mention their business or meeting new people at a networking event.
The key to self-promotion is to be personal, ask questions, use listening skills and build a rapport with people. Here is a list of marketing techniques to use:
- Be Social
In a casual or professional environment, you can start a conversation with like-minded people. Ask people about personal interests, their line of work, and their extracurricular activities.
In return, people will be interested in learning about you which gives an opportunity to speak about your freelance business.
- Follow-Up
After you meet new people, send an email or call them after a week. You can meet them at a coffee shop to discuss your services. A phone call to find out if they had a chance to look at your website is helpful.
- Use Social Media
You don’t need an education or years of experience to successfully communicate with social media users.
All it takes is creativity in sharing your blogs, capturing moments of you working with clients in photo’s or posting YouTube videos of trending news topics.
It is important to find the social media platforms that prospective clients use the most.
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3. Start a blog
One of the best ways to direct traffic to your site is by writing regular blogs on topics that will help readers solve a personal or business problem.
For example, if you are a freelance human resource recruiter, starting a blog to help organizations with employee engagement tips to lower high employee turnover rates can potentially attract new clients.
Think of a blog as an online conversation with customers. The readers that appreciate your advice can help share it with other businesses, which is free exposure for your company.
4. Co-marketing with competitors
Jim Henson once said, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” In business, working together with a more experienced freelancer in your industry can improve marketing outreach.
It can reduce the cost of spending money on expensive advertising if the competitor has an established and larger audience. An example of co-marketing is spending 50% of the cost to set up a booth with a competitor at a seminar.
Another example is writing a paragraph to add to a competitor’s email marketing campaign with a link to your website that will be sent to their customers. The competitor in most cases will ask for a percentage of revenue.
5. Be active in the freelance community
If you are in graphic design and are invited to do a presentation at a community event, bring marketing materials that include business cards, brochures, and a one-pager of what you offer.
Another idea is to attend seminars that potential customers will attend. For example, if you are a consultant for retail businesses, attend business events that present information on the retail industry. There’s a chance that you’ll be one of the few consultants in the room to meet new clients.
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6. Start a podcast
Starting a podcast is an effective way to connect with potential clients in your industry. You can interview clients to share their customer success stories after working with you. In your podcast, you could also discuss changes in the economy or technology that has an impact on your business.
You can promote your podcast using social media and add a link to your website. It will present you as a subject matter expert, strengthening a prospect’s confidence that you thoroughly understand your products or services.
7. Price comparisons
On your freelancer website, you can write about the benefits people can gain from using your services over a large organization. A respectful way of doing this is to add a bullet list that includes the following:
- Pricing
- Services
- Products
- The turnaround time to complete work
The idea in price comparisons is to not write negative comments about competitors. It is a way of highlighting each section to show what you can offer in a better way compared to a large company.
8. Live stream videos
A marketing technique that can gain online attention is to film a live stream video of you completing an assignment. It can be a video of you at an industry event interviewing public speakers to offer tips for customers.
If you’re an independent realtor, live-streaming a video on-site at a new real estate development project in the neighbourhood can attract people to contact you to learn about the opportunity. Think outside the box and create the kind of video content that your competition is not posting online.
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9. Upskill & get certified
As a freelancer, you may not have plans to complete a Bachelors or Masters degree. However, online learning programs offer certifications for you to gain new technical or education-related skills. You can even get free certification in digital marketing if you know where to look.
Most certification programs are inexpensive and depending on your tax situation, you can deduct education from your taxes. It’s always advisable to speak with an accountant for more information about your specific financial circumstances.
10. Personalise your marketing
Personalised marketing is a simple task of using the personal information of customers to surprise them by thanking them in a creative way. You can use low-cost promotional products, such as thank-you notes or low-cost gifts as a personalised marketing strategy to help long-time customers remember you.
A ‘Happy New Year’ email personalised with your client’s name or an unexpected gift card that’s mailed to a customer for their birthday is also a great way to make an impression. A freelancer’s business plan needs a low-cost, low-budget marketing strategy.
A few questions to ask yourself before you get started are:
- How can I add value to my customers?
- What are the customer demographics?
- What marketing strategies are trending this year?
- Can I use more transparency to connect with new audiences?
The more information you know about what stimulates the interest of your customers, the easier it will be to use low-cost marketing strategies that will help you increase business revenue.
Marketing a small business is an art unto itself. It is the first and most critical step to gaining new leads and customers and is the cornerstone for success. Effective marketing can mean the difference between your freelance business just getting by or thriving.
These low-cost marketing tips for small businesses will help you learn powerfully proven, and inexpensive marketing tips and tricks to promote your freelance services and grow your client roster.
About the author:
Priya Florence Shah is the Group Editor at SHEROES and author of Devi2Diva, an emotional self-care book for women.
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More articles on freelancing for beginners:
- 21 best freelance jobs online for beginners
- 10 online jobs for students to earn money at home
- Top freelancing sites & best freelance websites for beginners
- How to become a top freelancer in India
- 10 tips to write a freelancer resume that wins clients
- 10 ways to keep clients happy in your freelance business
- 7 ways for freelancers to stay motivated when working from home
- How to become an Upwork freelancer and get Upwork jobs
- 6 benefits of networking events for freelancers
