I skipped a week writing this blog. Then it turned into a month. Life as a mom of two kids and three dogs got busy. Work as a freelance content marketing writer got busier. And before I knew it six months had passed without me writing on this blog. I realized that I missed my followers and missed sharing what I’ve learned the hard way with others. So I’m making a renewed commitment to post at least weekly in 2016.

But since six months is lot of time and I’ve run across many things I want to share with you, so I thought I would start with a recap post. I’ll dive into each of these more in depth in separate blog posts in 2016. But here is a recap of my thoughts over the past six months:

1. There are tons of freelance content marketing writing opportunities available. I see writers occasionally post that they can’t find work as a content marketing writer and I am always puzzled. Really perplexed. I feel very strongly that there is plenty of work out there, especially if you combine both journalism and content marketing. I am turning down work and many other writers I know as swamped as well. This is the thing – every business, every organization, everyone needs content in order to stay competitive. This means that there is an almost infinite number of clients available. The challenge is finding the ones that need your specific skills. If you can’t find work, then you need to take a step back and change your strategy because you are missing opportunities that are out there.
2. Writing in your niche is the key to making money and making clients happy. I have become more and more convinced that having multiple very specific niches is the key to making money today as a freelance content marketing writer. My income rose significantly by targeting in on a very specific tech niche (data analytics). When a writer tells me that they are struggling to find work, I almost always find after talking to them that they are not marketing themselves within a specific niche. Sometimes it’s because they don’t know what their niches are and sometimes it’s because they think that they are more marketable by saying that they can writer about anything. But I feel very strongly that having niches is the key to being successful.
3. Agencies are an even better source of work than they were a year ago. I’ve written a lot in the past few years about how to find companies who need content marketing writers. While I still recommend these strategies if you are trying to break into small or medium companies, I am finding that many (if not most) of the large companies work through agencies for content creation these days. If you are looking to get more work, I recommend marketing yourself to agencies. The key to getting work with agencies is following up since it can often take a while to get in the door. But once you are, you often can get recurring work for years.
4. Many agencies and businesses looking for a content marketing writer head to LinkedIn. I have gotten several lucrative new clients this year that found me on LinkedIn, including a bucket list job that will start in 2016. This summer, I spent a few hours and rewrote my profile and added in keywords for my niches. I immediately noticed an uptick in my profile views as well as people contacting me. I will write more about this experience and what I learned. But if you have a few minutes over this slower holiday week, I highly recommend taking a few minutes and refreshing your profile.
5. Being involved in writer’s organizations is worth every minute and every dime. I’ve blogged before about how being involved in ASJA has helped my career, but I was blown away a few weeks ago when I added up the numbers and realized that over $60K of my 2015 income can be directly attributed to my ASJA membership. I will detail how this happened in an upcoming post, but wanted to stress the importance of writers groups. I have also been a member of Freelance Success for many years and the gigs that I have gotten from the market reports and member referrals have well paid for my membership fee many times over.

So what have you learned in the last six months about freelancing and content marketing writing?