Knowing how to sell oneself is at the top of a freelancer’s priorities. After all, marketing and getting a good host of clients are one of the keys to surviving in the freelance business. A freelancer’s career dies when it can no longer offer services. The more you market yourself out there, the more clients that you’ll get and the more income you’ll have.
Marketing your services out in the world is easier said than done, however. Since there’s a lot of competition in the freelance business, you’ll have to do your utmost best to boost your name and skills out there. Every little thing counts.
Fret not, however, for we came up with six marketing tips to help maximize your freelance work, especially during holidays:
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1. Use the holiday to promote your services
Freelancers hold their time in their hands; it’s highly likely that a good chunk of them will be spending their holidays off work and on vacation. It’s high time for you to take advantage of that. We’re not saying that you shouldn’t get some rest, not at all. The main point here is this: since only a few freelancers are probably around, it’s a good time for you to grab this opportunity and promote yourself and your services. The lesser people available to do work, the more that clients will flock towards you when they see that you are ready to take on their job orders.
2. Take advantage of holiday-centric job orders
There are a lot of job orders that are specific to the holidays. Themed items are all the rage during the holidays. Recently too, there are more and more individuals who like their themed items to be customized. It’s better to focus on these jobs; after all, the holidays only come a few times a year. Don’t worry about remittance as services like PayPal still work during holidays. You can sign up to PayPal here.
3. Take advantage of rush jobs
Since it’s holidays, a lot of clients request for rush jobs so that their orders will make it in time before (or even on the day of) the celebrations. In some cases, unfortunate circumstances happen to lead clients scampering all over, looking for an alternative that will take rush jobs. It’s time for you to take the opportunity of that. Before diving into a rush job; however, do prepare yourself for the time frame allotted by the client and do prepare your costings.
4. Offer Special Holiday Promos
Promos are everywhere during the holidays! It’s the season where malls left and right offer crazy discounts and sales to entice shoppers here and there. You can do the same thing as well with your clients! Attract clients by providing a holiday discount, or vouchers, or include a bonus item if a client orders a bundle of your work, and so on.
I had a regular client before that I gave 50% discount because I told him it was Christmas in the Philippines but he paid me in full anyway. I was just surprised I got the Paypal payment even before I delivered the project. That’s where you build trust and good relationships with them.
5. Ask friends, relatives, former colleagues for referrals
Pro-tip: people are incredibly generous during the holidays as they are more relaxed and would most likely to help you out. The people surrounding you are more than willing to refer you to individuals they know who might need the services you offer. Other freelancers might also introduce you to clients that they know; take the jobs that they aren’t willing to do.
Some would give out bonuses or a gift as well.
6. Offer pro-bono services in your local community or favorite NGOs
One thing that freelancers dislike the most are requests to be paid by “exposure” instead of proper monetary compensation. Exposure won’t feed you sand it won’t pay the bills. You can turn that around however by offering pro-bono services to your local community, barangay, or NGO. Get the word out and display your services through those channels; the best thing that can happen is that you’ll expand your network and gain more clients.
Bonus Tip: If you don’t have a lot of customers during the holidays, make good use of the free time with cleaning up your finances. One idea is by customizing your Paypal invoice templates, adding the Checkout button on your site or setting up Recurring Payments in the Tools section.
Have any other pointers for freelancers to do during the holidays? Let us know!
