Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business
Development Help
6 Ways to
Increase Your Freelance Writing Income Following are six things you can do ensure that freelance writing jobs flow your way -- now and right on into the busy fall season. Specific Actions You Can Take to Increase Your Freelance Writing Income During the Summer & Beyond
1. Review Pricing:
One of the best ways to increase your income as a freelance writer is to review
what you charge. Many freelance writers overlook this is an income booster
because they’re afraid of losing clients. All businesses raise prices – as a freelance writer, you ‘re no different. 2. Review Client Roster: Piggybacking on this last point, review your client roster to see if the client base you have is moving you closer to your financial and business goals, or further away. For example, as an SEO writer, one of my goals is to narrow my client list to clients who outsource a certain dollar amount of content needs per month. My goal is to move away from what I call “hit and miss clients” to clients who have ongoing content needs.
This will help to: (i)
predict my income more; (ii) stabilize my working schedule; and (iii) streamline
my service offerings. When you cater to a particular type of client, you are
better able to service their exact web content needs. 3. Add New Services: If you’ve been meaning to expand your freelance writing service offerings, but literally haven’t had the breathing room to get it posted on your site, then summer is the perfect time to do so. How to Make More Money with a Lower-Priced Service For example, I recently added Meta Tag Writing to my list of SEO writing services. It’s been a big boost to my bottom line, as clients have really taken to the service. The good thing about this has been that, even though meta tag writing pays less per project that some of my other SEO writing services, the projects are quicker and easier to complete, which means I make more per job than with some of my higher priced services. Now, which freelance writing service do you think I’ll be marketing to clients heavily throughout the summer and into the fall? 4. Reconnect with Old Clients: This is something most freelance writers – ie, small business owners in general – don’t do enough of. I know I’m guilty of it. We get so busy focusing on bringing in new business, that we forget to reconnect with old clients. And, what better time to reconnect with them than when you’ve added a new service? I did this with some of my old clients when I added Meta Tag Writing to my list of SEO writing services.
Your old clients
already know you, and if you believe the 80/20 rule of marketing, then this is
one of the easiest ways to increase your freelance writing income, especially
during the slow summer months. “While the rule is not an absolute, one should use it as a guide and reference point to ask whether or not they are truly focusing on the 20% (the Vital Few), or the 80% (The trivial many). True progress results from a consistent focus on the 20% most critical objectives.” [Source: Learn more about the Pareto Principle] 5. Market for New Clients: This is the flip side of the tip just above. One of the reasons many freelance writers fail to make a consistent living is that they don’t market for new work consistently. They get so bogged down with existing projects then one day they look up and – boom – work has dried up. While staying in touch with existing clients is vital for long-term success as a freelance writer, marketing for new clients should always be on the agenda. Would You Send Out 2 Emails a Day If It Meant Making $30,000 a Year? It can be as simple as sending out two email queries a day to a new firm. That’s 40 per month (M-F); 480 per year. With even a 2% return, that’s almost 10 new clients a year that you will have picked up. Depending on your price points, if these new clients spent as little as $2,000 a year with you (a measly $167/month), that’s an extra $30,000/year added to your bottom line. This is the difference between being able to stay at home and work as a freelance writer, doing what you love – and having to go out and get a J-O-B. Think you can find the time to send out two email queries a day based on these numbers? FYI, when I first started SEO writing, I was sending out as many as 25 emails a day. I landed gigs within the first few days. Now, I’m down to sending out between 5-10/week. Now that it’s summer and things are slow, I’m back up to trying to do 10 per day. Most days I don’t make it, but I try to make it up on the weekends. 6. Back-end Procedures: Unorganized or unimplemented back-end office procedures can increase or decrease your income as a freelance writer. How? I’ll share my own sad tale as an example. I’ve been meaning to get my website redesigned for at least two years. I finally bit the bullet and started the procedure in May. Not having this done has prevented me from placing ads for my ebooks, accepting ads on the site (for which I’ve been approached on numerous occasions over the last year, and moving forward with publishing more ebooks. While it’s taking much longer than I anticipated, I know that it’s an investment in my business that’s going to pay off big once it’s finally done. Is Your Freelance Writing Business Losing Money? How to Tell So, if you don’t have an accounting system set up, a marketing plan in place, a list of freelancers to outsource to when you get too busy – all of these are back-end office procedures that can cost you money. Once fall rolls around, it’s going to get hectic again. Use the slow summer months to position your freelance writing business to handle the gigs as they come in. The work will flow so much better – and you’ll see that reflected in your bottom line. Yes, indeed, summertime is a great time to start a freelance writing career – if you heed the advice listed here.
Sincerely,
Freelance Success Stories:
There are freelancers who make very good livings at what they love. Inkwell
Editorial's newsletter features these successful professionals who put to rest
the phrase, "starving freelancer."
Read the first issue
here and
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