freelance digital marketing

freelance digital marketing You can follow the instructions in this article to learn how to work as a freelance digital marketer. It’s a comprehensive manual for individuals who are new to freelancing or wish to change careers and enter the fascinating field of digital marketing. Read more

The following topics are covered:

What is freelances digitals marketings?
What does a freelance marketing professional do?
How to become a freelance digital marketer
How much do digital marketing freelancers make?
Where can I locate the top freelance positions in digital marketing?

I began working for myself as a freelancer 15 years ago as an SEO expert and later as a digital marketing consultant. Before founding a digital marketing firm, I worked as a freelancer for a while.

I’ve learnt a lot over the years and made a lot of mistakes, so in this tutorial I’ll describe the fastest and best way to develop a freelancing business and start charging clients for digital marketing services.

So, if you’re interested in finding out how to work as a freelance digital marketer, stay reading and be willing to learn.

What is freelance digital marketing?

Marketing specialists that work for clients on a freelance basis are referred to as freelancing in digital marketing. Freelancers in digital marketing assist businesses with a variety of duties linked to digital marketing and typically work from home. See more

freelance digital marketing in the sector is a good career choice because there is a rising need for people in digital marketing.
As a freelance marketer, you may choose your own clients, set your own rates, and decide how you want to work.

If you ever decide to cease freelancing, you can use your experience and expertise to launch your own online business (which could be a digital marketing agency or any other type of online business), or you could even get a well-paying position and work as a digital marketing manager.

What does a freelance marketing professional do?

A freelance digital marketing professional, in contrast to other freelance positions, must perform multiple tasks. You need to possess the necessary skill set to provide a variety of services to customers in the field of digital marketing, which has several channels and processes.

As a freelance digital marketing, you must be able to manage billing and bookkeeping, project management, reporting, and other activities in addition to the technical ones.

These are the most frequent duties carried out by marketing freelancers to give you an idea of what the actual job entails:

keeping an eye out for fresh project opportunities on job posting websites

Job proposals are submitted to attract new clients.
meeting and corresponding with prospective and current clients
Getting back to the email
meeting other independent contractors
developing a personal website or blog
Developing your own brand
making client websites search engine friendly (SEO)
operating PPC campaigns across a variety of platforms, including Google Ads and Bing Ads
running Facebook campaign (free and paid)
making email marketing campaign designs
The process of producing content to meet the demands of numerous web marketing campaigns
developing a client’s digital marketing strategy and action plan
monthly project reports comprising
sending clients bills

There is undoubtedly a lot of work involved, which may be overwhelming at times. However, as you’ll see below, if you take the correct approach, you can develop the necessary abilities and a professional mentality to complete all of the chores on time and in a professional manner.

How to Become a Freelance Digital Marketer
These are the steps to take in order to work as a digital marketing freelancer.

1. Build the necessary skills

Possessing the required skills is one requirement for working as a freelancer.

In a “normal” workplace, you have coworkers who can assist you with a task, and oftentimes, the employer will provide you with opportunities for training and development, but this is not true while operating a freelance business.

You’ll need to take care of your training as a freelancer and develop the necessary abilities via online digital marketing classes, other internet resources, and lots of practise.

The ability to escalate difficulties to management or outsource work to other businesses is not an option for solo entrepreneurs, thus they must be able to offer solutions and resolve issues on their own.

There are a few strategies for developing talents quickly:

Working as an expert marketer’s assistant is the first and most effective strategy. If you have a basic understanding of digital marketing, there are many entry-level positions available.

Invest some time in a course to earn a certification. This will assist you in being hired as a junior member of the digital marketing industry.

Learn how a digital marketing agency operates by utilising your time spent working as a team member. Ask questions and make an effort to follow other specialists’ procedures and methods.

Remember that your objective at this stage is to learn as much as you can about how digital marketing functions rather than to pursue a career in a specific organisation.

You can leave your employment and begin a freelances digitals marketings career if you’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of projects and you feel confident that you can complete the task on your own.

Use your own properties to practise

If you decide against following this route, you can also develop the necessary abilities by using your own websites to practise digital marketing.

This is distinct from step two below, which involves creating a business website to promote your freelance services. This section focuses on building websites so that you may test and play around with various digital marketing strategies.

For instance, you need to have a website that sells goods or services in order to understand how to utilise Google Ads to direct targeted traffic to a website. You need a sizable list of email subscribers if you want to understand how to use email marketing to generate sales.

It will take some time to go through this process, especially if you’re new to digital marketing, but it’s the only way to gain the expertise and confidence you need to later provide this as a service to your clients.

2. Create a website for your business

As you work to develop your digital marketing skills, you must establish a website for your freelance firm.

Many independent contractors either skip or don’t pay enough attention to this crucial phase.

The hub of your business is your website. It serves as your resume, a description of your services, and a way for customers to get in touch with you. It ought to be user-friendly, polished, and SEO-optimized.

Personal or Business Website?

At this step, you must choose whether your website will be personal (ex. alexchris.com) or business-oriented.

Making it personal will make it simpler to advertise in the beginning because your name will serve as your brand, but it won’t work if you decide to convert your freelance firm into a digital marketing agency later on.

Therefore, take some time to consider the future before making a final choice. What goals do you have for the upcoming five years?

Consider the possibility that, as your freelance business expands, you’ll need to hire staff because you won’t be able to complete all the work on your own.

Additionally, a business-focused website rather than a personal brand would make it simpler if you ever wanted to form a business partnership or sell your company.

3. Launch a blog for digital marketing.

Whatever you choose, you certainly must start blogging right immediately, even before taking on clients.
Establish a blog for your digital marketing efforts and begin writing articles that explain to potential clients how you can help them with their digital marketing.
Without needing to “sell” yourself or your services, content is an incredibly effective approach to “close” new clients.

I’ve had the chance to work with hundreds of clients over the past 15 years as a freelancer or agency, and 99% of them hired me after reading an article on my blog.

You can save a tonne of time by using blogging instead of job portals to find clients and can do away with the requirement to sell your services via paid advertisements.

Try to discuss themes that are directly linked to the freelance services you provide while creating material for your blog.

The key to leveraging your blogs to generate leads is to demonstrate to potential clients that you are aware of the challenges and difficulties they have when managing digital marketing initiatives.

It becomes simpler for them to trust you as a potential solution supplier when you go into detail about this.

Additionally, after your blog’s readership reaches a respectable level, you may use the content for affiliate marketing and earn money by recommending goods to your audience or, eventually, by selling your own items, like I do with my comprehensive digital marketing course.

4. Create a personal brand

You should promote your

personal brand on other websites and social media platforms in addition to posting posts to your blog.

Regardless of the freelance format you choose, you must perform this (business or personal).

Your personal brand as a freelancer will bring customers to your door even if you want to work under a business name.

As a freelancer, there are primarily two approaches to develop your brand:

The first strategy is to get your content about your freelance services published on popular websites. In the area of digital marketing, this is referred to as guest posting.

There are many advantages to posting your content on well-known websites, including:

Links to your website are beneficial for your off-page SEO work and search engine rankings.
Traffic to your website – Large websites receive thousands of visitors each day, some of which may visit your website if they enjoy the content.

Reputation – Your guest articles will appear when potential customers conduct a Google search for your name, which is beneficial for your reputation.
Establish your reputation as an authority – Reputable industry websites have tough requirements for guest posters, and those who finally made it are seen as the “experts” on a particular subject.

The problematic issue is that, especially if you’re a newbie, it’s difficult to get published on the “major” websites. You must first demonstrate your knowledge of digital marketing, and one method to do this is by keeping a live digital marketing blog (as explained above).

Utilizing social network power is the second technique to develop your personal brand. Make personal profiles on professional social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to engage with other marketers.

Make sure your profile accurately represents who you are and what you do in order to boost the likelihood that others will follow you. You should also post pertinent content related to digital marketing on your sites.

5. Make connections with other freelancers

Making no connections with other freelance marketers and digital marketing experts was one of the mistakes I made early in my business. I spent most of my time creating content for my website and releasing it, neglecting to set aside enough time to develop “genuine” relationships with my coworkers.

I don’t mean making friends on social media when I talk about connections; instead, I mean beginning a “genuine” dialogue by email or even over Skype.

There are numerous reasons why you should continue to do this.

First, you can discuss your thoughts and experiences with experts who share your interests.

Second, you may market your content and personal brand by using your connections.

Third, you can send and receive recommendations.

Fourth, you can collaborate with them to deliver services you are unable to while maintaining your relationship with the client.

Fifth, working as a freelancer in digital marketing may be isolating, so it helps to have a confidante who is knowledgeable about the challenges faced by the industry and can offer guidance.

6. Choose your specialty

The processes involved in digital marketing are numerous, and a freelancer’s time is limited. It’s better to specialise than to try to offer a comprehensive variety of digital marketing services right away because you can get lost.

Instead than attempting to juggle multiple hats at once, it is preferable to become an expert in a few niches.

You can broaden your offers as you gain more knowledge and customers. Additionally, you’ll discover the simpler and more lucrative offerings so you may modify your procedures suitably.

You can focus on a variety of aspects of digital marketing, including:

SEO expert
A content marketing expert
PPC professional
email marketing expert
specialist in social media marketing
a pro at digital marketing (person of all trades)

The same as previously, you learn the theory by following a course or reading reputable online resources, then you use the various tactics on your own websites to become an expert in a certain field of digital marketing.

Try to create a strategy and a checklist while you are still in the “learning phase” so that you will be prepared to use the same tactics on a client website.

7. Discover how to draught a service proposal.

Writing and submitting a proposal for services to potential clients is a part of your job duties as a freelancer in web marketing.

Making some advance preparations is strongly advised because this can be a time-consuming and difficult task, especially at first.

Making a few templates (in Google Docs) that addressed the most typical circumstances worked for me.

After carefully studying relevant job advertisements in the various job portals, I developed the templates.

There are several similar elements in a services proposal for any kind of digital marketing job. The introduction, portfolio, description of your services, and pricing are all standard across the board.

Spend some time working through this practise and making a few templates to use for your initial projects. You can then refine them as you go.

For the customer onboarding process, you may also develop a number of templates if you want to go one step further.

For instance, when you agree to work with a customer, you might need to sign a contract (so it’s a good idea to have this ready), access their website (Google Ads and Facebook accounts, for example), and construct a Google Form and email template with instructions.

It’s impossible to know everything right away, but if you don’t try to “standardise” any of your procedures, you can find yourself wasting time on things that aren’t paid for, which could have a long-term detrimental effect on your organisation.

8. Set your prices

Making a decision about your pricing strategy and setting your fees is the next step on your path to being a freelance digital marketing professional.

One of the first inquiries you’ll receive from clients is “How much do you charge?” thus it’s preferable to be prepared with a response.

There are various ways to set up your pricing model, including:

Each hour

As a project

Each month

A mix of the aforementioned

Clients will have varying needs, thus they anticipate some flexibility from freelancers in terms of price structures (and rates).

Make decisions regarding your hourly pricing, the types of projects you wish to work on, and the minimum monthly fee for your services.

You should treat freelancing the same way you would a legitimate business; I’ll go over this in more detail in the part after this one.

This means that occasionally your rates must be lower than market prices in order to increase your portfolio. Additionally, there may be times when you must offer discounts to current clients or for “bulk” orders.

9. Register your business entity

You’ll reach a point in your work that you’ll never forget as soon as your first project as a professional freelancer is complete, and this is none other than the time to get paid.

This may seem apparent to the majority of freelancers, but with everything else you have to accomplish, you might forget the fundamentals.

You’ll need the following in order to get paid for your freelance work:

a checking account

an account with a payment processor, such as PayPal, 2Checkout, or Stripe.

A system for processing invoices (which doesn’t have to be accounting software; a Google Docs invoice will serve)

an established business (for tax purposes)

A business pact with a client

Keep in mind that you are a freelancer operating from your home and not a “brick and mortar” company. To receive payments, you still need to have a legal entity.

If you don’t start doing this right away, you’ll run into issues with the tax authorities in your country when your income increases, so better start doing this right away.

Therefore, be sure to reserve one or two hours per day in your calendar for blogging. Don’t forget that it’s the best investment you can make for your company.

run a batch of jobs. Instead than attempting to complete several jobs on the same day, it is simpler to complete them in batches. Setting out days on your calendar for particular chores is a useful strategy. For instance, Monday is customer A’s day, Tuesday is client B’s day, and so on.

Schedule training time. You are in charge of your own training and growth, as was already mentioned, so devote time to expanding your knowledge and keeping up with developments in the field of digital marketing.

Set aside time to unwind and rest. There are no set working hours for freelancers. You can put in long hours at work when you’re passionate about your job (and actually enjoying it).

Nevertheless, you should schedule some downtime. It doesn’t have to be something formal (like a leave of absence), just some time during the day to unwind so you can concentrate on your work and prevent job burnout.

14. Plan your next steps

As your experience and customers grow, you will reach a point when you must make certain judgments.

You must choose whether to carry on as you are, employ others to assist you with particular duties, or transition from a freelancer to a digital marketing agency.

Continue working as a freelance marketer – It is OK to carry on working independently as a freelancer. You are free to define your own schedule, ground rules, and tasks to complete. You can continue doing this for years as long as your job is profitable and you have adequate money.

Make a tiny team – The majority of prosperous freelancers don’t handle all the work by themselves. You’ll require assistance from other individuals because it is impossible to do large undertakings alone. While the clients are still speaking with you, you will be employing other employees to carry out the work in the background.

Finding trustworthy personnel and being cautious not to spend more time than necessary on management activities are the tough parts. You don’t want to spend time on activities that won’t boost your income.

Create a digital marketing agency: This is the route I took to launch my own online marketing company. A made the decision to change from being a freelancer in digital marketing to working for an agency. Alternative two is less “formal” than this. You’ll begin devoting more of your time to managing your company’s operations and employing the best employees rather than working for clients.

The drawback of choosing this option over working alone as a freelancer is that you’ll need to identify and land new clients to cover the salary and expenses. You no longer have time to take care of yourself; instead, you must take care of your employees and continually look for methods to expand your firm.

How much do digital marketing freelancers make?

This is the most frequently asked query from people new to digital marketing and those considering changing careers.

It depends, is the answer.

Digital marketing specialists in a company might anticipate yearly salaries between $44K and $90K, depending on years of experience. Your profits will be determined by your hourly rate because independent contractors do not have a predetermined compensation structure.

Now, how much you can charge per hour relies on your qualifications and expertise, the nature of the work, the profit the customer stands to get from it, and the amount the client is ready to pay you.

The final point is crucial and something you should comprehend right now. It’s not always the case that you’ll be paid at your normal rate for a job. The client may establish a maximum hourly fee during discussions, and it is up to you to accept or reject it.

You can decline it if you have a sizable clientele and a long waiting list, but if you’re short on leads, you might need to accept less money than you would normally charge to stay in business.

What are the best freelance gigs available in digital marketing?

.One of the quickest methods to acquire a work as a freelancer is through job portals, at least until you’ve established your blog and reputation to the point that clients would approach you and request your services.

By keeping an eye on the job postings on these websites, you can apply for hundreds of positions in digital marketing:

LinkedIn Jobs
sPeoplePerHour
sFiverr

Here are some pointers to assist you with the application process:

Plan ahead by visiting the websites mentioned above and looking through several job listings that you believe would be a good fit. Make a note of their specifications and attempt to produce a few sample templates that you might use to submit your application. Compared to trying to do this for every job application, this will save you a tonne of time.

Send in your application as soon as possible. Typically, 50–60 applications can be received within a few hours for a job ad. When looking for services, people could not choose from the entire list but instead choose the first match. Therefore, it’s crucial that you submit your application as soon as you can.

Personalize your application – Even if you’ll have your templates prepared, make an effort to tailor each one to the criteria of the particular position. Employers are unlikely to consider a response if they are aware that it is a template-based response.

Read the specifications thoroughly. Employers can utilize particular questions in job advertisement as a tactic to aid in the screening process. Candidates who fail to respond to their inquiries are not given consyourideration. Therefore, before submitting your application, ensure that it addresses all of their queries and worries. Click here

How to Become a Freelance Digital Marketing Professional (Complete Guide for Beginners)