Freelance Guide to Marketing Your Way

I make zero money from this blog.

That’s on purpose. And it’s the reason why a lot of great marketing advice that’s been given to me over the years was never adopted.

I do this because I love it. I have made some very good friends on this and other blogs, and I’m happy to share what I’ve learned in the 20+ years I’ve been writing for a living. I’m not like other freelance writers who want to monetize their advice. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It simply doesn’t fit who I am or the goals I had for this blog.

The same could be said for plenty of marketing advice you see out there. Not that it’s bad advice, not that it couldn’t help someone like you increase your freelance writing income.

It just doesn’t fit you.

[bctt tweet=”Great advice can still be great and not fit you. #freelancing” username=”LoriWidmer”]

Let me give you a few examples. Over the years, I’ve been told to:

• Monetize my blog
• Sell e-books (that’s actually something I’m thinking of doing)
• Change my blog platform to get better Google juice
• Stop giving away advice and charge for it
• Sell affiliate material
• Create a paid membership site for this blog

In 12 years, I’ve only done one of those — I’ve sold an e-book.

Not that all those ideas weren’t great. It’s that they didn’t fit.

Imagine if I’d decided to make this a paid membership site. You’d have to pay to read anything useful. The pressure would be increased on me, too. I’d have to come up with plenty of content to justify charging money.

There’s just not that much original content out there. I’m sorry, if you’re paying for a members-only blog site, you’re getting someone’s spin on the same concepts. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Sometimes it takes a different perspective for that advice to sink in.

But that advice may not fit. And now that you’re paying to access that content, you feel compelled to follow it. An example:

Your members-only blog has a post teaching you how to create a brochure that gets you higher sales results. Yes, your brochure is going to rock the socks off the prospective clients when you pass them out at the next conference.

Only you don’t go to conferences. Nor do you plan to.

Could you still use that brochure info? Sure. You could create a brochure and send it to people. And you might be able to use some of the tactics to improve your web copy.

But no,  you don’t need it because it doesn’t apply to your situation. But you’re feeling a little guilty — the blog owner who takes your money every month is telling you it’s a MUST-HAVE freelancing tool.

Let’s just look at some of the things we’ve been told we must have:

• Blogs
• Websites (this one I do think we need)
• e-books to sell
• Formal business plans (good idea, but you can put that together any way that you know will work for you)
• Content mill experience (oh yes, someone pushed this on a forum once)
• Six months of savings before starting out (does anyone have this ever?)
• Be on every single social media platform

So, did you start that blog? Maybe. The larger question is this: Did you continue it?

See why great marketing advice varies? You never wanted a blog. Now, because someone said it’s a must-have, you’re saddled with a URL and three posts hanging out there in limbo.

I know writers who have no Facebook presence, others who think Twitter is a waste of time (they’re not wrong).  I know writers who write scores of e-books and others who couldn’t be bothered. What do they have in common?

They’re all successful doing their own thing.

So, what’s your thing? Do you like using the phone? Hate it? Are you great at writing emails? Do you do really well on social media? Are you excellent at getting client referrals?

Whatever it is that helps you shine, that’s the way you should be marketing. You can take any advice that feels right, and make it your own. Push beyond your limits a little, yes. But don’t ignore your instincts. And certainly don’t follow blindly any marketing advice that just doesn’t appeal to you.

What marketing tactic works for you? How did you come across it? Did you tweak it to fit you?