Comments on: Identifying Your Ideal Writing Client

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 13:13:19 +0000

Lori, regarding the top guns … with 20/20 hindsight, I avoided going after them for far too long. I think it's a common freelancer mistake. However, with that said, I think newbie freelancers might want to make all their mistakes on smaller businesses first, build their skills, portfolio, and confidence, and then move to bigger fish.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 13:11:10 +0000

Cathy, what you said cannot be overemphasized. We are here to make our clients' jobs easier. We are doing them a valuable service. If you are marketing to large groups of people who, for whatever reason, don't understand that, you're targeting the wrong people. I've been doing a lot of prospect mailing and following up by phone recently, and on the rare occasions when I get a person and not a voice mail, they almost all say something like "thanks for reaching out" whether they have a current need or not.

By: Cathy Miller

Cathy Miller — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 12:58:43 +0000

Great tips, Lori. I learned a while ago that my ideal client is often the Director (VP in smaller companies) of Marketing. Basically, I help them shine to their bosses. They stay on track for marketing projects, hit deadlines, and get professional results.

It's strategy I learned from my corporate days when I worked as a broker/consultant in the employee benefits arena. Work with the HR Manager/Director and help her or him to shine and you have a loyal client for a long time.

By: Lori Widmer

Lori Widmer — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 12:27:44 +0000

Eileen, I thought of you as I wrote this post. Thank you for offering your perspective and advice. I'd LOVE a guest post from you once your campaign comes to a close (or at least shows you some numbers).

Great point about small businesses and who that decision maker is. I've seen the same thing. In one case, I contacted the owner, who had his son follow up. Six emails and no accepted phone calls later, I stopped contacting them. It was as I mentioned before -- leading with the "How much for this" conversation, and ignoring my reasons for why I could really help him.

When they're ready, they'll call. Or not. There are some clients who just don't want to spend any money on marketing or improving communications.

Same here. I didn't want to go after the top guns, either. But you're right -- they were the easiest ones to sell to!

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 11:58:51 +0000

I'm neck-deep in a client acquisition campaign now,and identifying quality prospects is the most important step. I'm looking at companies in my targeted industry who generate a certain range of annual revenues (at least $10 million). The databases available online through my public library's portal are invaluable in this first step. At this revenue level, my prospective companies will have at least one, if not multiple, dedicated marketing people, identifiable by their titles (VP or Director of Marketing, etc.) Not only that, but pretty much everything else falls into place, too.

You pointed out that you want to be talking to the decision maker. When I was working with small, local businesses I had to be really careful about this and make sure I wasn't spinning my wheels. Only the owner could make those decisions, but the owner was wearing about 17 hats running his business and was difficult to get to commit to or understand the need for marketing communications. At the corporate levels I now target, that's very rarely an issue; a marketing director has a budget and can spend it how he/she sees fit. 99 times out of 100, if they're talking to me, they're the decision maker; 4 times out of 5 they're willing to meet my fee requirements. But there are exceptions; recently, a promised $3000 job was abruptly cancelled, I suspect because the marketing director's boss unexpectedly told her she could only use in-house staff for the job. But that's rare.

I was too timid to go after the big fish for years, but that was foolish. I find it's actually easier, overall, to find quality prospects and close a sale for $10m-$500m companies than it was at the small local business level.