Are you a freelancer in need of quality clients? You’re wondering how to reach new clients and what sort of advertising tools are the right fit for you? Thinking of starting a newsletter in order to reel in new customers and keep the current ones? You’re not sure whether email marketing is a smart move for you?
As a freelancer, you’re personally responsible for the job you’re doing, as well as every other aspect of your business. Of course, the single most important feature of every successful freelancer are quality customers. Sometimes, it’s hard to reach new clients, and other times you’re just overwhelmed with how many you have.
To balance out your work and achieve a constant stream of income, you must use a marketing method: social networks, blogs, surveys, search engines… you name it. Despite the abundance of newer tools to get the job done, many still swear by the good old tried-and-true method: email advertising.
With email marketing, you can segment the audience and create a positive business environment, which will entice future clients to place trust in you and your services. The benefits of promotional newsletters are plenty, and in this article we’ll cover the main 8 reasons why you should use newsletters as a freelancer:
- Precision customer targeting
While other forms of advertising enable you to target your key customer base with precision, email marketing takes this a step further. Subscribers who have elected to receive your newsletter are by default already interested in your goods or services. In addition, you can you have the ability to personalize emails by mentioning the potential client’s name. Even though it might seem like a minor factor, a personal touch goes a long way when reaching out to people. You are looking at much better results with this method, when compared to other marketing tools.
- In-depth marketing campaign analysis
Despite internet trends constantly changing at a breakneck pace, email still has its user base. Email communication isn’t likely to go away any time soon. Of course, emails have a defined structure: headline, body text, appearance (design), calls to action, etc. You can (and are encouraged to) highly personalize these “building blocks” in your newsletter campaign. Tracking and analyzing the post-campaign data can give you insight into your target audience and your newsletter performance. The collected data will also prove extremely valuable when making improvements for your next email marketing campaign.
- Client education
Newsletter campaigns are a great way to educate your target market about what you do and how you do it. This is an interesting fact that many experts agree on: clients are usually not well-informed of the services that the IT sector provides for them. In other words, they don’t have a clue about the benefits they could be getting (by hiring you). Newsletters are a great tool to bridge this knowledge gap. Educate clients, and in the future they’ll be able to better recognize and seize market opportunities.
- Encouraging your existing clients to new collaborations
Keeping your client-base shouldn’t be difficult if you have delivered them a quality service or product. Nevertheless, many freelancers fail to realize that you must keep in contact with your current clients. They’re busy people, and if you don’t engage them regularly they’ll simply forget you exist. It’s necessary to “touch base” with your client-base, past and present. Make them feel the need to work with you again. To this end, email marketing is a versatile tool for fostering new business relationships with existing and former clients.
- Building your own brand
A brand can’t be built overnight. It’s a task that demands continuous work and effort. Keep at it and through time, your services – and yourself – will become a brand. Newsletters are an excellent instrument to create, build and maintain the image you’re trying to market. On a weekly basis, you can unobtrusively promote yourself, treating your audience with just enough info and know-how from your field of expertise. Over time, people will realize that you know what you’re talking about and their trust in you will increase.
- Advertise sales and other client benefits
Sooner or later, you will likely form a promotional period where you’ll be offering your services and products at a discounted rate. These occasional price reductions are very attractive to end-customers. Newsletters are a great channel to promote your sales and client benefits. Even better, you can personalize discounts on a client-by-client basis.
- Show what others think of your work
People’s recommendations are an effective buying trigger regardless of the product. Prospective clients want to make sure that your other customers are happy and that they trust your business. To boost your “reputation”, mention previously-received client feedback in your newsletters, or offer a brief overview of your latest projects. In short, show your subscribers the quality of the work you do and your happy customers.
- Achieve big results with small investments
Generally speaking, newsletters are still one of the best promotional practices. If the email has been thoughtfully composed and if it brings certain value to its subscribers – there is a high probability that a great number of users will open and read the newsletter to the end. Also, a smart and inventive call to action will capture your users’ interests. Interested users will click on your links, and finally, they’ll be more ready to start a business relationship with you. Typically, to create an attractive newsletter takes less than an hour of your time weekly, but could bring you lots of good clients.
Conclusion
Email marketing is a smart promotional tool for freelancers. With just a bit of your time, you can reap great, positive results. When we say results, we mean prospective clients and valuable projects thanks to which you’ll be able to work care-free. And the best thing about it is that you won’t have to worry if your balance sheet at the end of the month will be in the red. So, if you’re set to become a successful freelancer, invest a small part of your time it in email marketing – results will follow sooner or later.