In a world dominated by businesses competing for every imaginable facet of the world’s attention, nothing is more important to your marketing efforts than the creation and spreading of a brand. Encompassing who you are, what you do and what you have to offer, your personal brand is your business’ gateway to the world at large, beckoning customers with logos, catchy slogans and product promises that you hope will draw them in for a closer look. Knowing how important a carefully constructed and well-used personal brand is, consider attending one of these five personal branding events to visit this year [Read more…]
How to Build a Wildly Profitable Conversion Funnel On Autopilot
May 24, 2012. 1 Comment
In an interview with Bryan Eisenberg, leading conversion specialist, he noted businesses spend up to $92 to get someone to their site… and less than one dollar to convert them. Another shocking statistic: 76% of companies do *not* have any form of conversion optimization… and 48% believe they have zero control over conversion. I think that is ridiculous. Conversions are one of the few things you do control. Unlike most marketing efforts – which require third-party sites like Google or Twitter – conversion exists on your site, which puts you in 100% control of your destiny. But can you improve [Read more…]
Being a 21st Century Writer
January 10, 2011. 2 Comments
If there’s one thing lacking in the publishing and journalism industries these days, it’s certainty. The world of writing and publishing is changing day-by-day, and no longer can you be a successful writer — whether your craft is journalism or novel writing, whether you’re writing for print or digital — merely by virtue of being talented. There are entirely new skill sets required for the modern successful writer, and whatever kind of writer you are, you’re going to find that these skills are a must. You want to be a 21st Century writer? Here are three hats you must wear [Read more…]
Getting More Work from Your Existing Clients
October 7, 2010. 2 Comments
I don’t think it’s enough. Getting work is wonderful, making it is even better. Writers need to put their creative thinking, experience and skills to work to create new projects.
Social Networking for Writers
August 20, 2010. 9 Comments
Time was, all writers had to do was write. We did the cool creative end of things and left the business and marketing to other, more qualified souls. Today, writers can no longer afford to leave their fan base out in the cold. Thanks to the Internet, there are more words than ever competing for readers, so breaking through the clutter requires more than eye-catching marketing. It requires interaction. I know “marketing” is a scary word for some, but I promise the kind of marketing I’m talking about is nothing to be afraid of. You don’t have to come up [Read more…]
Set Your Work Hours in Stone
May 17, 2010. 12 Comments
Officially, one of the benefits of working as a freelance writer is that you have a more flexible schedule. It’s true, to an extent: if you need to drop everything and go deal with an emergency, there’s certainly no boss to tell you otherwise. On the other side of the coin, though, you have to be the inflexible one when it comes to your schedule — without a boss to tell you to focus on your work, it can be very tempting to slack off. Setting office hours and sticking to them is necessary if you want to keep moving [Read more…]
Rethinking Your Freelance Writing Job Strategy
March 25, 2010. 6 Comments
So you’ve been searching for freelance writing jobs for several months or more and so far haven’t yet landed a gig. Though it’s a competitive market, good writers should still not have too many problems finding work within a couple of months. There are so many opportunities available during this time, it shouldn’t be too difficult for someone with talent and good writing samples to earn a living. Still many aspiring freelance writers are frustrated because they’re not landing any lucrative gigs, or even gigs at all. If you’ve been job seeking for some time and you’re still not finding [Read more…]
3 Ways to Use Social Media to Boost Your Client Base
March 24, 2010. 3 Comments
If you’ve been following me for a while you know I believe there are no right or wrong ways to use social media, and often complain of “social media police” telling us how we should Tweet or use Facebook, However, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe we shouldn’t use social media to give our careers a boost. There may be no exact rules, but there are certainly tried and true methods for using the social networks and other social media tools to achieve success. What I like about using online tools for networking and landing clients is how they’re so [Read more…]
Freelance Writing Marketing & Promotion: How Much Is Too Much?
March 10, 2010. 8 Comments
I’ve been working on redesigning my workflow lately in an effort to improve my efficiency, boost my bottom line, maintain something approximating sanity and to provide ample opportunity to catch a number of weekday afternoon Royals games this summer. Following some good advice, I’ve been more conscious of what I do every day and I’ve made a discovery: I spend too much time on the marketing and promotion side of things.
Rewarding Your Long Term Freelance Writing Clients for Customer Loyalty
February 18, 2010. 2 Comments
I just got off the phone with my Mom. We had a very interesting discussion about customer loyalty, which provides the inspiration for this post. You see, my mom’s contract with her calling plan is ending and she doesn’t want to pay the astronomical new rate. I suggested she contact the company and ask what plans they have in place to reward existing customers for their customer loyalty. She wasn’t aware she could do this, checked it out, and indeed received a discounted rate for the new package. It occurs to me we should also be rewarding long term freelance [Read more…]
Do You Know What You’re Selling? Successfully Marketing Your Online Freelance Writing
February 17, 2010. 10 Comments
You can’t hope to successfully pitch your work at a higher rate if you can’t tell a compelling story about what it’s going to do for the client. Sure, some of the folks looking for writers already have a clear understanding of your words’ tremendous value, but most of the people out there in Buyerland aren’t necessarily at that point. They need a little education to go along with that negotiation and you should be providing it by pitching the benefits of your work.
10 Necessary Freelance Writing Multi-Tasks
November 18, 2008. 6 Comments
I write a lot of posts on things freelance writers need to do besides writing. When you think about it, we wear many different hats. Writing is a small part of what we have to do on a regular basis if we want to be successful at our jobs. Here are some of the jobs we need to do well if we hope to make it as a 1. Job Hunt Freelance writers have to take some time out each day or several times a week to hunt for new opportunities. You might do this by querying magazines or reading [Read more…]
