So, you’re off on your own! Amazing. You've launched your consultant/ freelance business and you’re looking to reach and engage more with your network, clients, and agencies. It’s a busy marketplace out there! Marketing can be tricky biz at times, especially if you’re not really sure what you’re doing.
But fear not! There are so many effective and affordable ways to help your professional freelance career stand out from the pack and attract more of your ideal network and clients.
Here are five easy marketing hacks.
1. Stand out with unique design
Canva is a great tool anybody can use to design anything from a resume that stands out to a unique profile photo. This free, online design platform provides thousands of creative templates to help you shine as a freelancer. This is great for SM posts, profile images, internal communications and much more. I suggest if you are looking to create a cover photo for Oomple or Linkedin, or maybe add your consulting logo to a template, this could be a great option to try!
What else can Canva do? Find out more.
2. Join a Freelance Marketplace
Get yourself on a freelancer marketplace such as Oomple. By signing up free, you're marketing your skillsets directly to companies that are hiring and you'll get notified as soon as a role that suits you comes up! You can also set your own rates, manage your own profile & applications, browse jobs, and much more - all in one place.
Find out more about Oomple here.
3. Automate your emails
Everyone wants to achieve great marketing results with minimal input/effort which is what makes Mailchimp’s automation features are great. Regardless of marketing goals, this campaign building software creates a platform to design and distribute tailored email messages with ease. The whole idea is to enable swift, consistent contact with the people who matter to you. If you are looking to reach a larger audience or clientele with a campaign of your business services, check out all the features MailChimp has to offer.
4. Optimize your matches on Linkedin
Yes, you knew LinkedIn would be on here as a place to market your consultant business. But did you know LinkedIn has recently released a new and exciting marketing/advertising platform that allows targeting through data collection? This is called ‘matched audiences‘. The exciting thing about matched audiences is that ad are displayed in a business setting rather than all the fluffy stuff like gossip stories and fashion ads so b2b advertising will be largely more successful. In aid of this, Matched Audiences have encompassed 3 main targeting methods: retargeting previous website visitors (website retargeting), targeting through email addresses and contact lists (contact targeting), and targeting based on the companies/networks they are a part of (account targeting). To find out more about Matched Audiences, follow this link.
5. Create Content
Great content marketing can have many fantastic benefits to your business, from heightened visibility in search engines, online profiles to directing more traffic and increasing engagement. More than this, it is so cheap and easy to do! As only a small percentage of content needs to be original, it’s as simple as grabbing 4 or 5 blogs about a topic that relates to your business or its clients. Reposting blogs or content relevant to your business will also help build your network and bring more credibility to your knowledge. Clients are seeing that you are up to date with the market trends and consistently expanding your knowledge.
6. Get Customer Feedback & Reviews
Another super simple but often neglected tactic to creating better marketing is to ask for a referral or feedback from your network, recruiters or clients. Reviews and feedback can be added to your LinkedIn profile what shows free marketing from past employees and managers. Don’t be shy to ask. People love to help and share your expertise if you are a good consultant. If you are looking for an automated way to gather feedback and review data, you can use Survey Monkey platform. It is an online survey that provides a free, customizable survey. Create a list of those in your network that you are seeking information from and send the survey and let the magic happen.
What are other easy ways to market your consulting business? Feel free to comment below and tell us what you think.