How to Find Freelance Work as an Article Writer

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To find freelance work as an article writer, look no further than your favorite search engine. However, there are some tricks of the trade to find the best paying jobs. This article will tell you what they are.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Computer
Internet Service

Step1

Target an Industry

Practically every industry is a good market for this type of writing, However, one of the quickest ways to find freelance work as an article writer is to target a specific industry.

Whether you market to web design firms, PR agencies, internet marketing firms or advertising agencies, targeting an industry will make marketing to them much easier.

Every industry has its own lingo and customs. When you’re making contact, it will be that much easier to put together a cohesive marketing plan if you’re speaking to one industry. This way, all you have to do is tweak your marketing message to appeal to the individual firm, not a whole industry.

One of the best ways to decide which industry to target is to take into account volume. You want your marketing base to be large enough so that you never run out of prospects.

Step2

Create a Marketing Calendar

The reason creating a marketing calendar is important when you are trying to find freelance work as an article writer, is so that you can get on a consistent schedule.

Marketing for freelance writing work is a numbers game. And, with unlimited prospects to contact, it can be easy to get disorganized and/or too busy to market. A marketing calendar helps with both of these.

When I first started to solicit internet marketing firms for SEO content writing jobs, my marketing calendar was as simple as the following. I created it in a Word document.

Name of Company

URL

Email Address

Date Contacted

Step3

Create a Sales Message

As article marketing is, for the most part, an online marketing strategy, all contact to potential clients will be via email. A short note introducing your service to clients is all that’s needed.

When I first started, my initial email contact was similar to the following:

Dear “Insert Company Name” Team:

I'm contacting you to offer my services as an SEO content provider. You may view writing samples, services offered and my rate card at mywebsiteaddress.com.

Professional Profile: One to three short sentences about your professional background here.

Education: List your education here; include all degrees and any special training you might have.

How I Can Be of Service to You: A one or two line statement about how you can help them would go here. .

Contact: Your contact information.

Step4

Locate Individual Firms

Now that you know which industry you’re going to target, you can track your marketing efforts and you have a sales message created, it’s time to start looking for prospects.

Let’s say, for example, that you have decided to target web design firms. Go to your favorite internet browser and type in “web design firm.” A list of prospects will pop up.

Visit each one, page by page and search for the contact information. Sometimes you will find a name. However, most of the time, you will only find an email address and/or a contact form that has to be filled out.

Copy all pertinent information into your contact file. You can contact companies as you find them, or locate all the information first, then go back and send an email.

I contact companies as I find them because this prevents me having to go back to a site.

Step5

Rinse and Repeat

Your marketing calendar will come in really handy here. It will allow you to track how many companies you’re contacting. Just continue to contact companies until you have a full roster of clients.

By using your marketing calendar, you will also start to see a pattern develop as to how many companies you have to contact before a writing gig comes in. For example, you may notice that for every 30 emails you send out, you get three queries from companies and land one assignment.

This will allow you to maximize your time and income. For example, if you notice that for every 30 emails you get a job and the average order is $250. If you wanted to make $4,000 a month, then you need to cultivate 16 regular clients (16 clients x $250 = $4,000).

To find freelance work as an article writer is not difficult and it can be very lucrative.