5 Steps to Find Freelance Content Marketing Writing Clients
Today I wanted to write a back-to-basics post about how to find content marketing writing clients. A lot of new followers have joined us in the past few weeks (Welcome!), and there is so much information on this blog that it can be hard to find everything you need. So today I wanted to walk you through the steps to find freelance content marketing writing clients so you can increase your income. I encourage long-time readers to not stop reading and go play on Facebook, but take a step back and think about if you are actually following these steps or have gotten into a habit of skipping around. If you are new to the blog, be sure to click on the linked posts because each one provides extensive detail on all of the five steps, such as picking a niche and writing LOIs.
Here are the five steps to find freelance content marketing writing clients:
- Pick one of your niches. Having a niche and effectively marketing yourself as an expert in this industry is the key to landing gigs. If you market yourself as a generalist, you will most likely not land gigs. If you don’t know your niche, stop here and read my post on finding your niche before you go forward. While it is possible to get a gig in most any niche, it is typically easiest if you are in a high-demand niche where there are not as many writers. Although you should have a number of niches, when looking for new clients, focus on one niche at a time.
- Write a great letter of introduction template emphasizing your industry experience. This isn’t something to whip out while watching television, but instead think of it as your very first (and most important) writing sample your potential client will see. It is absolutely essential that you highlight one (or at the most two) niches in your LOI and write the rest of the LOI, including publications, brands, full-time jobs, and clips, to support your expertise in this industry. If you are hearing crickets from prospective clients, spend time evaluating and revising your LOI. Check out this post about creating a great LOI as well as this sample LOI if you need help getting started. Be sure to carefully think about the subject line as well and have a writer friend (or two) read it over for clarity and typos.
- Find clients who need your specific skills and experience. This is the easy part. And actually the fun part. There is an almost endless list of possible clients since every business needs content, but if you send your LOI (even if it is the greatest piece of writing ever) to people who do not need your particular industry experience, then you will not get a gig. This is another huge mistake I commonly see – writers not taking the time to carefully cull the possible clients to the ones that are going to be excited to see your email in their inboxes. I’ve written about many different ways to find clients, so check out some of these popular posts to get ideas.
- 5 Steps to Finding Brands in Your Niche
- 6 Ways to Find Content Marketing Agencies
- How to Find 100 Content Marketing Clients
- Use LinkedIn to Find Companies Creating Content (Note – many readers have landed gigs using this strategy)
- Customize your LOI and send to the right person. The first step is to figure out who is the right person at the agency or company to contact. I will be blogging in the near future about how to be a super-sleuth and find almost anyone’s email. If your email feels like a template and a mass-produced letter, you will most likely find yourself in many trash files. Take the time and make the editor feel like they are important and you are genuinely interested in working for their specific company, not just finding a gig.
- Follow up. If you do not follow up on each LOI you send out, then you are most likely leaving money on the table. Not following up is the absolute biggest mistake most writers make, in my opinion. If you do not get a response from the first email, it does not mean they do not want you. It very likely means they didn’t read your email.
If I do not hear from an agency or company within two or three weeks after I sent the LOI, I will send a follow-up email and put “second try” or “follow-up” in parentheses in the subject line. It is absolutely amazing how often I get a response from this round. If I still don’t hear anything, then I will probably try one more time in about two months. Then I move the company to my list of people to email every year.
However, if you get an email back but they do not have any current needs, you have a high chance of landing a gig in the future if you are diligent about following up. Make a note on your calendar to follow up with the editor in two or three months and then continue following up. The goal during these interactions is to establish a relationship with the editor so when they do have a project matching your skills, the editor feels like they already knows you and is not trusting the project to a stranger. I have landed gigs six to eighteen months after my first LOI by religiously following up. And in one particularly notable case, helping an editor plan his vacation. Since stalking isn’t a good thing either, consider using one of these creative ways to follow up as well.
How do you find freelance content marketing writing clients? Any tips to add?
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Jennifer,
This is a great reminder on how to find clients. I can’t wait to read your super sleuthing ways to find emails.
In a future post, could you do a vocabulary lesson? I’ve found content marketing has it’s own language and I’m not sure what some of it means. Off the top of my head there’s “curated content,” “verticals,” “inbound,” etc.
Thank you.
Heather
Great idea! I will do that! The terminology comes naturally to me.
Great idea for a post, Heather! Here are a few more suggestions for your content marketing glossary, Jennifer . . . these confused me when I was first getting started (and still do sometimes, haha):
click-throughs
lead gen(eration)
lead nurturing
influencers
sponsored content
SEO keywords
Meta description
Awesome list! I will add them. Hopefully a jargon list written to writers will be helpful. I will try to post this in the next few weeks. I love it when readers post ideas so PLEASE continue to do that.
Great post, Jennifer, with solid advice! Sending targeted LOIs is SO much more profitable than responding to dozens of job board ads (especially ones that don’t really fit my niches).
And thanks for the reminder about following up. One writer I was influenced by a lot early on said she never bothers to follow up; she just moves on if she hears crickets. So that’s what I was doing for a long time, but I’ve since found that following up can be very worthwhile—and if you’ve already done the research to write a targeted LOI to someone, it makes time-saving sense to follow up with them because you won’t have to do that research again just to send a quick follow-up email.
Loving your blog! Thanks for sharing with us.
Thank you for the kind words. Yeah, I’ve honestly never understood people who say that if someone doesn’t respond on the first try it means that they aren’t interested. In today’s world that is not what it means. It could mean the email went to Spam or they saw it on their phone then it got buried or they are just so busy that they didn’t open it.
Yeah, I get a pretty good new client rate on follow ups. I honestly don’t see why someone wouldn’t bother to follow up. I really think it’s leaving money on the table. Its good to hear that you’ve had a good response with following up.
I second your tip about following up. Most of my successes have come through follow-ups!
Having said that, though, I did find your process interesting, Jennifer. I usually only do one follow-up, unless I get a “yes, we’re definitely interested” response, then I do more. I never thought about moving the non-responders to a “follow up once a year” pile. Interesting. Have you had luck with any of those?
Yes, I have had one success that way. But I’ve only done it a few times.
But logically I think it makes complete since and I’m sure it will work if done consistently. I think that this is especially true that you should follow up with a nonresponding agency because after a whole year they could be a completely different agency with different clients and even a new person in charge. Agencies hire writers based on their current clients. So if they are focusing on financial clients when you send your letter and you are a technology writer then they might not respond. But let’s say that when you follow up a year later, they have just landed a huge FinTech company and need technology writers. So you are just exactly what they are looking for. They MAY think to go back through their pile of emails, but probably not. Because a year ago FinTech wasn’t a thing and they never thought that they could need you.
You say you only follow up with those that say that they are definitely interested, what about those that say “We don’t need writers right now, but will keep your stuff on file”? You should ABSOLUTELY follow up with that group. Anyone that responds at all other than to say “we aren’t interested” (which I”ve never had) should be followed up every 2 to 3 months. I have gotten at least 20K in work from following up from that group, which isn’t overly interested but responds.
I agree with you that client follow ups are hugely important. As you said, the people that don’t reply back, doesn’t mean they haven’t read your email.
Most times your email is read than put onto a “to sort out later” pile. Sending reminder emails is a great way to get it out of that pile and to get a “now” response.
I prefer to follow up 1 week after I’ve initially sent the first email, than 2 weeks after that, than once a month for the next year or so.
This seems to work well for me, but perhaps it’s a tad aggressive?
I think that whatever feels right and works for you is fine. That is wonderful that you get results from it. I think that the right decision really is different for each person because of their personality and their industry. If something is authentic and matches the writer, then it typically works. That’s why I try to present everything as “this is how I do” because different things work for different people.
Very good point about the to follow up late pile.