Being a freelance writer isn’t easy when you have to spend a significant amount of time and energy scrambling for gigs. Unless you write for the same blogs on a regular basis, maintaining a steady flow of writing gigs can be a challenge. You can only reply to so many Craigslist posts before wondering if anyone ever checks their email.
If getting gigs is a struggle, you may want to consider creating a few simple PowerPoint presentations to market your services. A convincing PowerPoint presentation can generate more leads than sending email queries to random blogs and newspapers.
Here’s how to get started:
1. Think of PowerPoint as a marketing tool
A PowerPoint presentation can be an effective lead generation tool. You’ve probably seen businesses publish webinars made in PowerPoint. Business owners frequently use PowerPoint to create webinars because it’s easy to learn and a strong presentation will generate leads.
PowerPoint presentations don’t have to be boring like the ones you had to sit through in high school or college. There are plenty of fun effects you can create while maintaining a professional presentation. For instance, with the motion background feature, you can create cool animations like flaming text and make other images dance and move inside of words. This effect, when used sparingly, looks impressive and can grab attention.
Although PowerPoint presentations have the potential to generate leads, strategic planning is required. The entire process begins with attracting high-quality, targeted leads.
2. Create a presentation that specifically targets ideal leads
Marketing Expert Neil Patel points out that to generate leads, you need to focus on boosting your conversion rate. Whether you’re conducting a webinar or just creating a quick presentation, you can boost your conversion rate by:
- Identifying your audience. Who is your ideal client? What industries do you most enjoy writing for? Identify the businesses and industries you want to write for and then identify the type of business owners you want to do business with. For example, you might want to only write for well-established businesses to avoid late payments and other organizational problems.
- Setting up a landing page with targeted messaging. You’ll need a separate landing page for each type of business you want to target. For instance, say you want to write for lawyers, chiropractors, and dentists. You’ll need three separate presentations, each on a separate landing page with a specific message targeting each group. Targeted messages will get you more leads.
- Leveraging your current audience. Unless you’re just starting out, you probably have some kind of audience on social media. If you don’t, it’s a good idea to start building your following. If you have an audience and you’re not already writing for them, start marketing your services to your audience. They may not be your target, but if they share your social media posts with their network, you might get some leads.
- Using paid advertisements to reach new audiences. Landing pages are great, but if you want people to watch your presentation, you need to market those pages through PPC ads. Facebook, Bing, and Google all offer PPC ads and it’s worth running an ad campaign on each platform since you’ll reach different people.
Once you’ve got PowerPoint presentations marketing your services to your preferred industries, you’ll need to track your leads and refine your ad campaign as needed. If you’ve never run your own PPC ad campaign, check out these 15 PPC pro tips from Search Engine Land published by an experienced PPC ad copywriter.
3. Use PowerPoint to create your YouTube video intros
Do you have a YouTube channel that needs a cool intro but you don’t know how to make one? The good news is you can use PowerPoint to create an animated introduction that will make your channel look and feel more professional. This is the perfect solution if you use your channel to market your writing services.
To learn how it’s done, check out this quick 5-minute video describing how to create an animated video introduction using PowerPoint. It’s extremely simple and your end result will look like it was created by a professional.
4. Keep your presentation simple and relatable
Using PowerPoint to sell your services requires simplicity, even while grabbing your viewer’s attention. Your potential leads will decide whether to stay or leave within the first few seconds of your video. You need to grab their attention authentically rather than with loud noises and random, crazy imagery.
Monster.com recommends sticking to simple designs, emphasizing one point per slide, and using text sparingly. You’ll want to narrate your presentation, so you won’t need much text to start with.
Regardless of how and where you market your presentations, make sure they end with a persuasive call to action. Invite your audience to contact you for a free consultation to talk about their needs. Get your audience excited about contacting you.
Most of all, stay on top of your stats and be ready to edit your presentation when it’s not converting. You’ll get more high-quality leads when you routinely fine-tune your marketing strategy.
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