How To Leverage Email Marketing For Freelancers

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Freelancers tend rely mainly on referrals to spread the word about their services, so it is not surprising to see most of them on LinkedIn and Facebook groups trying to find work. 

Yet there's a lot of competition for good freelancing gigs on these social media platforms, meaning your pitches and posts can get buried in the customer’s newsfeed.

A more direct, easy, and cost-effective way of reaching your ideal client is to leverage the power of email marketing. 

Email marketing allows you to capture the attention of your prospects and engage with them until they decide to avail of your services. Since you can also personalize emails, it adds a welcoming touch of familiarity that goes a long way in building your relationship with customers. 

Let’s take a look at how email marketing can help you in your freelancing business and a few ways to devise your email marketing strategy. 

 

Why Is An Email Marketing Strategy Important? 

Here are all the ways email marketing can help your business: 

  • Build trust with your leads. To gain your consumers’ confidence, you have to communicate with them regularly. Email marketing offers an opportunity to create personalized, engaging content that can garner people’s attention and attract them to your services. 
  • Increase your brand awareness. Email is the most direct way to reach your customers. And sending out consistent, high-quality email content is bound to get their attention. So the next time they need your services, it’ll be easier for them to recall that they have an expert waiting for their response right in their inboxes. 
  • Get feedback. Social proof can boost your business and increase conversions. Your potential customers are more likely to believe what other customers say about your service rather than what you market. It increases the customer’s confidence in a brand. 

Customers appreciate feedback surveys delivered via email marketing because it makes them feel valued. Freelancers can also leverage email marketing to ask customers a set of questions and possibly even get some great testimonials. Feedback is essential for freelancers to know what their customers want so they can tailor their services accordingly. 

How Can You Create A Viable Marketing Strategy As A Freelancer? 

Set Your Goals

Before you make your email list and design your email campaigns, make a clear set of goals you would want to achieve with your email marketing campaign. 

  • Is your goal to increase conversions? 

  • Do you want to expand your services towards an untapped market segment? 

  • Do you want to focus on retaining your customers

  • If your goal is to increase your subscribers, are you aiming for a particular number every month? 

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you create more specific email campaigns and effectively categorize your email marketing list. 

Personalize Your Content

The best part about email marketing is that freelancers can personalize their email content for different clients. Personalizing can be as simple as mentioning your customer’s name in the subject line or sending them product recommendations based on their past interaction with your website or brand. 

You can also send dynamic email content to welcome new subscribers using a welcome email sequence and talk about your freelance services right at the end. This ensures that you get your marketing message across without sounding too salesy.

Use email software to create drip campaigns for your email list, use customized email templates and manage your bulk of emails – all in an organized manner. 

Identify Your Buyer’s Persona 

One of the best ways to improve your conversion rate as a freelancer is by pinpointing your target audiences and analyzing their needs and trends. Once you have identified your ideal target market, be more specific about who they are and create a perfect buyer’s persona.

It should include their: 

  • Demographic information. Their age, population, geographic location, etc.
  • Psychographic information. Their interactions with competitors, purchase habits, social media networks they use the most, etc. 

This customer profile can significantly impact your marketing strategy as a freelancer. You can bring in innovations like creating targeted lead magnets and personalizing emails for specific clients. 

To Conclude

If you’re going to leverage email marketing for your freelancing venture, remember to provide value to your clients, and they’ll come calling. Hopefully, this guide will serve as a starting point to help you. 

As a freelancer, you remain responsible for all your sales, marketing, and customer interactions, making it a challenge to successfully grow and manage your business. However, it can be quite rewarding to do it all on your own when things are going right.

Email marketing is an excellent DIY method to enhance the reach of your solo venture and get you the results you need to succeed.

Posted 7 May, 2021

JTRipton

Veteran Business/Technology/Lifestyle Writer

I'm JT Ripton, as the headline says, I'm a veteran business, tech and lifestyle writer. I write/have written for several publications like Entrepreneur.com, BusinessInsider.com, TheGuardian.com, GoDaddy.com, ReadWrite.com and dozens more.

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