Inbound marketing is a pull form of marketing where freelancers can drive potential clients to them instead of they approaching the clients
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is to create a positive impact on the user through relevant and helpful content or tools. The aim is to provide a mechanism to address the problem of a potential customer. It is a pull form of marketing.
As an example, Yoast SEO is an essential WordPress plugin. It has a free and paid version. The free version of it is so good that it helps in marketing it’s paid plugin.
How Can Freelancers Use Inbound Marketing?
Hunting clients daily could be a daunting task. Freelancers experience this pain daily unless you have perfectly strategized the clients’ generation. What if freelancers can drive potential clients to them instead of approaching the clients?
So here are some of the tips for using the power of inbound marketing to generate leads and clients.
#1 Catchy Personal Tagline
You have developed a blog or a website for potential clients. No visitor will stay, read, and digest all your content in one go. They will retina scan the headlines and read only the highlights. All these happen in an 8 to 10 seconds time frame.
It means you have 8 or 10 seconds to impact a visitor and convert them into potential clients.
The difference between you and the one who is effectively using inbound marketing for lead generation is, they use catchy taglines.
They are so contagious to hit the visitor’s mind to tempt them to be wanting more.
As an example, if you blog about WooCommerce, and has a tag line as “WooCommerce expert available for hire,” it is more likely to be hired than a blog with the tag line as “WooCommerce Blogger” or “WooCommerce Expert.”
#2 Consistent Online Profiles
Freelancers don’t treat social profiles as a lead generating tool. The reason is they have a mindset of driving potential clients from freelancing sites like Upwork than from social media.
There is no denying that the freelancing sites are the main driving force. The fact is your potential client is everywhere, and you never know from which platform you may pull a real-time paying client.
Hence, along with fine-tuning an Upwork profile, one must also treat Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest profiles as necessary.
#3 Networking
Networking for freelancers is critical. Therefore, joining professional networks in your locality or even online is highly recommended.
If you haven’t thought about joining a professional niche network, then you should prioritize it now.
When you join these professional networks, it opens the door to the possibilities of finding new clients and interacting with like-minded people.
#4 Online Work Samples
Examples of your past and current work are the most compelling evidence for a potential client.
For example, a graphic designer can make sample images to post on free images sites or even on social media.
It works.
Visitors when they like a sample but aren’t looking to use the one provided for free, they are more likely to get in touch with the creator to customize it. It can not only generate leads but potential clients.
#5 Blog
I have always been advocating freelancers to nurture a blog and it is a must for inbound marketing.
Blog about your skills, experience, work samples, client feedback is the best way to turn visitors into clients.
Clients search for freelancers on marketplaces, but more so, they dive deep before hiring an expert. You can help your client find you via a blog.
Let me share an example of a potential client looking to hire a content writer.
What will be the ideal search term be?
Freelance Content Writer.
What if you can write a few contents around that topic like
- How to find an expert freelance content writer online?
- What is the typical salary of a freelance content writer in India?
- What are some of the good qualities of a freelance content writer?
- 10 Tips to Hire an Expert Content Writer
- The best way to hire a freelance content writer
- Where can you hire a freelance content writer?
So on and so forth.
#6 Word of Mouth / Referrals
Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing. Referrals are the best source of clients for me.
One can argue about referrals as a form of inbound marketing. One has to ask for references, but I still put it as the form of inbound marketing because you aren’t directly communicating with the new client but asking an existing client to send more clients your way.
I get clients on a regular interval all because I ask for referrals. Here is the complete guide on how I ask referrals clients.
#7 Personal Emails
Emailing past clients a personal message can help them remember about the services done by you in the past.
As an example, when I send New year greeting emails to my old clients, it kickstarts a conversation. In the process, I get work from them as well.
