If you’ve tried cold-calling to get clients, you know it’s the most painful, soul-sucking way to advertise yourself. But it doesn’t have to be.

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It’s pretty easy to slap together a website, print up a few business cards and declare your marketing efforts complete. But the fact of the matter is that a freelancer’s marketing is never done — if we want clients after our current projects are done, we have to do the marketing necessary to bring them in.

More than a few freelancers struggle with marketing themselves, though. In part, that’s due to the fact that marketing isn’t a big concern for a beginning freelancer. Other issues, like putting together a quality portfolio, take precedence and finding work isn’t as big of a deal as one might think. Between word-of-mouth clients — friends, family and past employers who need a project completed — and low-paying jobs off of Craigslist and other job boards, most starting freelancers can at least find a few projects to work on. But as you advance and want to focus on higher paying projects, marketing becomes crucial. Rather than trying to follow any of the sample marketing plans meant to reassure big business stakeholders, though, you can cut directly to a quick and dirty marketing strategy.

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Photo by Michel Filion.

I’m one of those heretics who believes that selling is much more important than marketing. Why? Because, a few years ago, I fell into the marketing trap, and my business almost failed as a result.

What was I doing? Well, I spent a lot of time going to various networking groups, and just didn’t find that many viable clients. What I found were a lot of other people looking for (you guessed it) clients for their own businesses.

I also did a lot of direct mail marketing, and lookie-lookie! It worked wonderfully. For a while. Then I noticed that the people on my carefully crafted mailing list had become immune to my oh-so-stylishly designed and cleverly written postcards.

I might as well confess to all the time I spent on getting those postcards ju-u-ust right. Not just the Photoshop and Illustrator time, but the time spent in running them by other people. Carefully crafting that mailing list ate some hours too.

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Since we launched the FreelanceSwitch job board in 2007, it has been a big success. It is one of the most popular freelance job boards on the Internet because of its high quality and tough standards; when we moderate jobs, we ensure that they’re good for freelancers, making fair requests and paying fair pay.

I personally got my start with Envato by applying for a job writing articles for the PSDTUTS Wiki on that board, so I’m not unfairly biased – I was a user first, moderator second! Before my run-in with Envato I scored plenty of other writing work too and still often consider that $7 a month some of the best money I’ve ever spent. No joke and not an ad, but you’d be crazy not to sign up.

Currently, we have close to 150 jobs open and consistently about five or more new jobs per day come in (not to mention the million get-rich-quick schemes and so-called “revenue sharing arrangements” that you don’t get to see). We’ve made some changes to improve the experience for both job searchers and job posters:

• We’ve added search – now you can see a full listing of all open jobs based on your keywords.
• Job posters can now use a WYSIWYG editor to add formatting to their posts, such as lists, bolding or italics.
• Posters can now go back and edit their advert after the fact.
• We’re also now running job applications through a form on the site based on an email address the employer gives us to help reduce spamming.

For the occassion we’d like to give away three 1-year subscriptions to our readers. If you leave a comment on this post explaining why you’d like a subscription before Monday the 9th of March, you’ll be in the running to win. Make sure that if you have a job board account already, you use the same email address that you use for your account in the comment’s email field.

Without doubt my favourite freelancing site after FreelanceSwitch has to be the awesome FreelanceFolder – another good source of news and advice. And I’m happy to announce that as of today we’ve partnered with them to pipe through our latest jobs to their site.

If you haven’t been to FreelanceFolder before, let me recommend two great posts of theirs to get you started:

1. Why Freelancing Is Freakin’ Hard
2. Top 5 Web App Combos for Running an Online Business

Of course there are plenty more, so head over and subscribe! In the meantime, thanks to Mason Hipp and his crew for having our jobs over at their site!

Photo by Indigo Goat.

Ever wanted to know how some freelancers jump on those job postings before everyone else, and still manage to get the gig? It’s not with canned responses, I can assure you. These don’t go over well when it comes to pitching for a job. But there are techniques one can use to get their name in the hat early in the piece.

Some have questioned the point of jumping on a job quickly. Let me tell you, as someone who has advertised for and applied for many, it counts. I know a whole slew of people who employ freelancers who stop reading applications after the first 50 or 100 come in, and that can be anywhere from twenty minutes after posting the job, to twenty hours later.

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Photo by stefanlacut.

Having a killer online portfolio is obviously invaluable to freelancers. The portfolio will show the quality of your work and get potential clients excited about what you can do for them. A great portfolio will sell you and your abilities–you just have to get people to see it.

Publishing a blog at your portfolio site can accomplish many of the same things, it just takes a different approach to get the results. Much like the portfolio, the blog will demonstrate your expertise, only it will do so by sharing knowledge instead of by displaying your work. Potential clients that have read the posts on your blog are likely to feel more comfortable with you and appreciate your experience and your abilities more than they would if they had never seen your blog.

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Photo by taiyofj.

I was recently involved with a web magazine that used the Freelance Switch job board to advertise for a few positions. The quality of applicants was fantastic, compared with those some other sources referred.

The positions were ideal for freelancers who wanted some of their work to be regular, without having a ‘job’ and losing the benefits of a freelance career. They involved doing some writing and self-editing two or three times a week, taking up maybe an hour at a time.

We got far more submissions than we had jobs to fill, of course, and I spent most of the week going through applications and sorting the best from the rest.

It wasn’t a particularly fun experience—writing and editing is what I do best—but I did learn a lot about why some freelancers aren’t getting the jobs they apply for. Here are some tips on landing them—a list based on the things that applicants at our magazine impressed us with and annoyed us with. Consider this practical feedback!

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Photo by Silvia di Natale.

Brought to you by Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor and the Creative Freelancer Conference (August 27-29, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago). Find out more at: www.CreativeFreelancerConference.com

1. Look Closely and You’ll Find Your Market. When building your market, don’t start from scratch if you can avoid it. The foundation of your business should be rooted strongly in something you know well and in which you already have some expertise. Even if you’re just starting out, you’ve got a history. Past employment experience, a recent pro bono or side project, or even a hobby can be used as a diving board.

If you’re making the transition from corporate work, it’s important to build on that investment, even if you are sick of the field you are coming from. It will be much easier to leverage the relationships and the knowledge you already have than trying to do everything at once. Starting a business and approaching a new market simultaneously is double the work. Once you have a business underway, then you can move toward new markets.

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Photo by Khedara.

Okay, admit it: Business has been slow. And you’re wondering how you can turn things around.

A quick Internet search will reveal an abundance of business turnaround advice. Quite often, you’ll find a checklist of things to do. But, trouble is, some of those to-dos won’t show results for years. I’m referring to things like joining and getting active in business organizations, speaking to groups, seeking publicity, and cultivating others for referrals.

In addition to the not-so-helpful checklists, there’s the Perfectionist Trap. You know you’ve been snared when you’re spending hours, if not days, on creating the ultimate advertisement, postcard, flyer, website, or anything else that you think will improve your business.

I know the Perfectionist Trap very well. And I’ve learned is that it’s a luxury I can’t afford. It takes too much time away from finding new clients.

But what kind of new clients? If you’re feeling as desperate as I was a year ago, you may be tempted to open the phone book to the letter “A” and start dialing the first business name you see. And Martha’s Voice of Experience is here to say,“Not so fast! You have some planning to do first.”

I’m going to take you through a five-step process that I’m using to turn my business around. We’ll do some planning in the first step, and then we’ll take action. Continue Reading

Image by carrotcreative.

Twitter is some kind a strange marriage between a blogging platform and an instant messaging client.

You post updates that are made public (known as “tweets”) and people are able to respond to you directly, should they feel the need to comment. Keeping the platform “micro” is the 140 character limit on anything you post.

Posting can also be done in a variety of ways: through the Twitter web site, through integration with some IM clients like Google Talk, by text messaging a number from your cell phone or through a desktop client like Twirl.

Like almost every web-based service these days, it has a social aspect as well. You can make a list of people to “follow” so you’re given a list of all their updates.

Now, like many, when Twitter first hit the scene I raised an eyebrow and said “Why?” At first it seemed to be people posting instant updates and updating the world on how fast the line at the grocery store was moving.

But as I’ve slowly adopted the service, as a freelancer writer, I’m beginning to find more and more uses for it. Continue Reading

Image by 'Playingwithbrushes.

It goes without saying that in the process of doing business, mistakes will be made — especially in the beginning. Small mistakes and stumbles happen, but there are a few that beginners make that can put a freelance career on the rocks before it has even started.

Although the items on this list may seem like common sense behaviors to avoid, they’re all things that people have done. Don’t do them! Continue Reading