A few weeks ago, I mentioned to one of my friends that I was doing a lot of content marketing writing these days and her eyes lit up. She then explained that her boss (she works in B2B software) had mentioned that he wanted her to look into outsourcing content marketing and she didn’t know where to begin since she wasn’t even totally sure what content marketing actually was. I gave her my content marketing elevator speech and she was soon nodding in understanding. She asked for my card and said she would pass it on to her boss. When I walked away a few minutes later, I realized I had managed to help a friend look good to her boss and possibly gotten a lead for a new content marketing writing gig. Not bad for 10 minutes worth of my time on the sidelines of the soccer field.

I realized later that night that since content marketing is the current buzzword, it was very possible that there were other possible freelance content marketing projects available within my own social circle. So, for the past few weeks when someone asked me what I did for a living I began replying with “I’m a freelance writer specializing in content marketing writing.” And if a friend who already knew that I was a writer asked how my work was going, I mentioned that I was doing a lot of content marketing writing these days. Interestingly enough, I had several people ask for my card and tell me that their company was going to start doing content marketing writing as well.

While I haven’t gotten any concrete assignments from my recent experiment, I am pretty sure that I will at some point. My experience with freelance writing in general is that it is pretty much a numbers game and the more pitches/contacts/letters of introductions that you put out into the world, the higher your chances of getting work are.

I am betting that you have neighbors, friends, members of your book club, and maybe even someone you are related to whose company has a need for content marketing writing as well. My challenge to you is to let people around you know that you are doing content marketing writing. Be sure to have some spare business cards in your pocket, pool bag, or purse because I bet that at least one person will want more information about your services.

Have you gotten any projects from people that you know? Any advice for others?