If you struggle with the freelance feast-and-famine cycle, seem to be forever looking for new clients, or don’t have enough work, here are 3 proven ways you can generate freelance leads from your content, attract (and engage with) your ideal clients, and keep your freelance client pipeline full to the brim and flowing!
1. Have an SEO-optimized freelance website (and blog with compelling content)
A freelancer website is a great asset to showcase your services and portfolio and direct potential clients so they can learn more about you, your services, packages, offers and prices, as well as your processes and ways of working.
Ideally, it should be optimized for SEO purposes so potential clients can find you via search engines. In addition to on-page technical SEO (which covers the technical side of things such as site speed, being easy to navigate and crawl, etc.), you also need to make good use of industry keywords and phrases that your ideal client would use when searching for your business or when trying to find a solution to their problems.
Good SEO-optimized content is key to getting the right traffic to your site. One of the best ways to do this, in addition to employing keyword research, is to create content that addresses the type of questions your ideal client is looking for answers to and also content around the topic cluster.
So, for example, if you have a product such as invoice software targeted to freelancers, solopreneurs and small businesses – your content can address issues specific to them.
An excellent way to provide this is via your blog.
You can also share links or even snippets of your blog posts on social media and repurpose them accordingly.
2. Set up an email newsletter
An email newsletter is a great way to communicate with people who have already shown an interest in your work (i.e. potential hot leads) and want to hear from you further.
An email newsletter doesn’t need to be expensive to set up. Many email service providers offer a free plan, and you can upgrade to something more fancy with all the bells and whistles as your list grows bigger.
You don’t have to sell in every email, but you do need to provide your subscribers with the type of content you said you would when they signed up to receive news and updates from you in the first place.
Some freelancers worry about unsubscribers, but there’s no need. It’s not personal; it usually just means that your offer or services aren’t suitable for them at this moment in time. That said, if you get a lot of unsubscribers, you might want to consider if your content is hitting the mark or wasn’t as advertised when subscribers signed up.
In any event, a smaller, engaged list of potentially ideal clients is better than a larger list with little to no engagement or interest in your product or service.
Either way, an email list is an excellent asset because you can write to your email list and get your message (and offer) to them at any time (unlike with social media, where people who follow you might only see some of your posts).
Furthermore, you don’t lose all your followers if a social media platform shuts down, limits your reach, or suddenly makes it ‘pay to play’.
3. Create a helpful lead magnet (freebie)
A lead magnet (in marketing lingo) is something (usually) free you offer to your potential clients to get them interested in you and to sign up for your email newsletter.
There are many lead magnet ideas to choose from, and ideally, the magnet should address a problem your audience has or something they find helpful.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of suggestions:
How to guide
Checklist
Template
Script
Toolkit
Recipe
Tutorial
eBook
Infographic
Video training
Email course
Webinar
PDF version of a long blog post
Free discovery call
Challenge
The list is endless. The only limit is your imagination.
Lead magnets can be extremely effective as long as their content aligns with the type of content you will be providing in your email newsletter (and which is your core offer). For example, if your lead magnet is tips on website copywriting, your email subscribers will expect more of the same thing, not Keto diet recipes.
Lead magnets don’t need to break the bank, either. You can save money on graphics by using free design tools such as Canva and other free lead magnet tools online, such as the website beacon.by.
You can add a Call To Action (CTA) at the bottom of your blog posts or have a pop-up on your website to get people to sign up for your freebie and opt-in to receive your email newsletter.
Other good places to include a link to your freebie (and newsletter) are your social media bios and email signature.
We hope this post gave you some new ideas for generating freelance leads. If you know someone who might benefit from it, please share it with them. Thank you.
