Note from Jennifer: Now that the 4th Annual Winter Marketing Challenge is over, I want to congratulate everyone who participated, because it means they decided to take action to grow their freelance writing business. Hopefully, many of the tasks on the challenge list will become a regular part of your marketing routine. And, of course, a BIG congratulations to our randomly chosen winner Lynn Schutte, a healthcare content marketing writer, who gets a $100 Amazon gift card. To help everyone feel inspired to continue working on marketing all year long, I wanted to feature the writer who earned the most points in the marketing challenge this year, Jen A. Miller. Read on to find out how she approached the challenge and how it has already helped her business.

By Cat DiStasio

Jen A. Miller is already an experienced, established content marketing writer and she was just as surprised as I was to learn that she racked up more points than any other writer during this year’s Winter Marketing Challenge. Jen is a veteran writer with a focus on universities, hospitals, academic and research institutions, and she took the challenge head-on. I interviewed Jen about her first time participating in the marketing challenge, and she shared some strong successes and tips for other writers who are working to grow their business.

In addition to content marketing writing for clients, Jen writes a newsletter about freelancing and is the author of Running: A Love Story. Be sure to follow her on Twitter and visit her website as well.

Marketing is about telling clients what you can do.

Jen has been a full-time freelance writer for 14 years, and she’s been writing content marketing since the beginning, when it was still called “custom content.” Many new writers assume that marketing stops or gets easier after a certain amount of time in the business, but Jen knows better. Her experience – starting as an assistant press officer for Penn Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine right out of college – gives her the expertise to approach potential clients with a solid understanding of their content needs.

Content marketing clients are always looking for writers with an understanding of their industry and their audience. For Jen’s work in science writing, particularly for research publications produced by universities, she highlights a unique skill that makes her more valuable to clients. “I market myself as a science writer with a rich background of experience,” she said, “but also one who is good at getting scientists to explain their research at a level that almost anyone could understand. That’s opened a lot of doors for me.”

Always follow up on LOIs.

Until Jennifer’s suggestion, Jen hadn’t considered following up on LOIs – only on pitches. The marketing challenge cinched it for her, though. “Most of the follow ups I did during the challenge were from LOIs I sent last year (up to 25 a day!) so to do that kind of marketing was pretty easy,” she said. “I just sent an email with links to some pieces I’d had published in 2018. I also started following up a second time, which I’d never done before.”

It’s only been a few weeks, but it’s already working. She received a same-day response to a second follow up on a client she’d been chasing for over a year, and landed a $1/word assignment. And that’s just one example. “I landed an assignment from an Ivy League school’s engineering department [another contact from last year] and I [scheduled] a ‘getting to know you’ call with a major city hospital.”

When writers are hesitant to send follow up emails on LOIs, it’s often because they don’t want to be perceived as a nuisance. After seeing the results of her follow ups, Jen understands it’s quite the opposite. “I never feel like I’m bothering someone by following up,” she said. “Because if they need someone, and you’re the right person, you just made their job easier.”

Don’t overlook simple marketing tasks.

One of the marketing tasks on the challenge list is to check in with current clients and ask for more work. Jen has a great example of why this overlooked tactic can pay off big time. “I got a few assignments for an annual report for a college in New York City (who I landed last year with an LOI),” she said, “and mentioned to her that I noticed they had a medical school and did she know I also did science writing. She was shocked – she had no idea! So now we’re talking about assignments in that realm because it turns out she’s the right contact for that work too.” Recognizing opportunities and educating clients about your abilities can open all kinds of doors.

Get motivated and organized about your marketing tasks.

Jen knows that marketing is the key to turning around your business in lean times. “In 2017, I had my worst year of freelancing since the year I started,” she said. “I’d been through grief and a lot of personal issues and had just stopped marketing. When I started back up again, Jennifer did a call with me and through the talk, said I was already doing all the right things; I just needed to do more of it. Even though the beginning of 2018 was bad, it ended up being my third most profitable year ever, and I think I’ll do even better this year.”   

Jen’s experience reminds us that marketing is an ongoing effort, with results that may not surface for months or even longer. That’s the biggest reason to tackle marketing tasks on a regular basis. And that’s exactly how Jen recommends approaching it. “Put it on your to-do list,” she advises. “This week has been hellish time-wise without even throwing in that I was diagnosed with a stress fracture. And I’m super busy with work right now. But because I put ‘follow up 1, follow up 2, follow up 3, follow up 4, follow up 5’ as items on my to-do list, I did them (and that’s how I got the call scheduled with the major city hospital).”

Still skeptical? Jen leaves one last bit of parting wisdom: “Marketing is like planting seeds for future growth. It works. It just does.”