How do you find clients that can help you pay the bills? How can you find work that pays you $250 per article, instead of $10 per article? How do you reach out and find prospects? If these are your questions, then today’s your lucky day!
In this article, I’ll talk about some of the best places where you can find freelance gigs, and how you can land clients that you actually want to work with.
1. Find Trade Magazines
One of the best ways to find freelance writing gigs is through trade publications. For starters, trade publications discuss in-depth topics related to a specific industry. They’re kind of similar to magazines, but their readers are industry experts.
What makes trade publications one of the best places to find gigs, is that they’re not as glamorous as magazines. No, this isn’t a joke. Since trade magazines are not as popular, they don’t receive as many pitches. This means that there’s lesser competition. In addition, some pay $1 per word or more!
Interested? You can easily find trade publications in any industry at TradePub.
2. Send Cold Emails
The primary method that I’ve used to grow my freelance is business is cold emailing. As its name suggests, cold emailing entails contacting potential prospects via email.
Now, how do you find potential clients and their emails? First, I use LinkedIn to find companies related to my niche. Afterwards, I find the company’s Head of Marketing or Head of Content—since they’re the individuals usually in charge of freelance writers. I then use Email Hunter or Voila Norbert to find their emails. Once I’ve come up with a list of about 100 prospects, I send a query letter.
The query letter contains a short introduction about myself, my business and services.
Here’s an example:
Hi Heather,
I heard about [company] through [talk about where you found or heard about the company]
I’m Amy and I’ve been working as an ecommerce writer for the past 5 years. I’ve worked with companies such as [companies and clients] and my work has been featured in [ publications].
Do you assign work to freelance writers? I can help with writing landing page content, blog posts and guest posts. I can write copy in a fun engaging style that readers will enjoy, send you a keyword-rich headline that search engines will love, and revise the content until you’re satisfied with it.
You may learn more about my business and view samples of my work through [website]. Let me know if you are interested in my content marketing services. I think we’d work well together!
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks,
Amy Westwood
3. Find Publications in Writer’s Market
Writer’s Market features thousands of opportunities for writers. You can find a detailed list of book publishers, trade magazines, literary agents and contests, together with their contact and submission information. This way, you can expand your clientele and potentially target high paying clients.
4. Stalk Your Competition
While cold emailing works like a charm, it relies a lot on luck. How can you target clients that actually pay freelance writers? I’ve found that the answer is stalking your competition. Check out the clients of the freelance writers in your niche, and target their clients. With this method, you’re guaranteed to find more interested clients.
Overall, there are a lot of ways you can make more money with writing. All you need is the right information and you’re good to go!
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Monique Danao is a writer and content creator with an expertise in marketing and SEO. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her enjoying funky food and listening to music. Check out her website or follow her @monique_pd.
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Great article, Monique. Something that’s helped my writing is frequent trips to Books a Million and Barnes & Noble. They have hundreds of magazines on display, most of which I had never heard of. I grab a copy, read it and, if I’m able to match their style and content, write down editor’s name for an article proposal.