The freelance market has become exceptionally competitive. More and more people are being drawn to the lure of working from home and being their own boss. It’s not hard to see why it would appeal, right?

However, if you are to achieve success in the freelance world, you need to master the art of marketing yourself.

Freelance marketing is not just about selling yourself. It is about branding yourself. You need to make sure you drive traffic to your blog and associate yourself with a product or service.

With that being said, read on to discover more about some of the most common mistakes freelancers make when marketing themselves, so you can avoid committing the same errors.

Failing to understand your market

There is only one place to begin, and this is with your market. A lot of freelancers don’t even give much consideration to this. What are you trying to sell? Who are you trying to sell it to? These are the two pivotal questions.

Once you have asked these questions, you can then start studying your target demographic further so you can find out how to reach them. What industry do they cater to? What are their likes and dislikes? What are their spending behaviours? Only once you have built up an accurate picture of your target audience can you then begin to market effectively.

Overlooking upselling opportunities

You should always make a point of asking your clients if you can help them in any other manner. For example, if you are designing a website for a client, why not ask if they need any new flyers or if they would like their logo redesigned?  You never know what a polite question could lead to.

Taking a while to respond to requests

Marketing is not only about social media, your website, and so on, it is also about how you act as a freelancer. You know what they say –  “the early bird catches the worm” – and this is definitely the case with freelance work. This is why it is important to respond to emails as quickly as you can, even if it is a short and generic reply to let the person know you have received their email and you will get back to them as soon as possible.

Using a free website builder

It is understandable that you would be tempted by a free website builder. After all, it is free! We all want to cut our costs. However, this could be one cost too many! Free website builders create generic websites, meaning you will not be able to differentiate yourself effectively from the competition.

If that wasn’t bad enough, free website builders harm performance because so many people are using them. You could also lose your website at any moment, and there is nothing you can do about it. Instead, you need to choose a website builder with care. Check out this article: the best website builders, which is super helpful and will give you some insight into the different options that are available.

No marketing plan or consistency

Last but not least, marketing requires a plan. It requires a consistent effort. It is not something you can drop one day and pick up the next. You need to dedicate an amount of time to marketing each day, even if it is 20 minutes. You also need to have a plan like using link builders like Rhino Rank to rank your website. What are your goals? How are you going to get there? Map it out and measure it!

As you can see, there are a number of different mistakes that freelancers often make when marketing themselves.

If you have been committing any of the errors that have been discussed above, there is no need to fret. What you do need to do, though, is start putting the steps in place to rectify these issues so you can start marketing yourself more effectively online.

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