#freelance marketer

With the recent events and the exponential growth in technology, every industry is gradually diving into the digital world. For instance, marketing turned into Digital Marketing, and choosing a career as a freelance digital marketer is indeed a good choice, The digital world is growing rapidly and has defied almost every geographical and physical limitations, giving individuals time to work effectively from any part of the world.

A great way individuals have utilized this opportunity is through Freelance digital marketing. The freelance industry is booming as several people worldwide are taking up different freelancing jobs by the minute. Freelance digital marketing turns out to be one of the fastest-growing segments of this industry as more and more individuals realize the opportunities it presents.

As the digital world continues to grow, it has become more difficult for businesses to navigate the digital space and put their businesses at the forefront, thus the need for freelance digital marketers. Companies need these freelance digital market strategists to carry out effective campaigns and other essential marketing strategies to grow. Due to the increasing demand for digital marketing services, it is safe to say that freelance digital marketing is lucrative and a great career option for you.

Would you like to become a freelance digital marketer? Or are you skeptical about what freelancing job to take on? In this article, we would be exploring the must-knows of digital marketing and how you can become a professional freelance digital marketer.

Who Is A Freelance Digital Marketer? – What You Should Know

Just as the name implies, freelance digital marketers are marketing professionals who independently offer their services to businesses and companies. That is, they work independently to provide digital marketing-related services to clients. Like every other freelancer, they work and deliver services from the comfort of their homes. They prepare and exert online marketing strategies such as social media campaigns, e-mail marketing, etc., to help businesses and companies drive sales, reach their marketing goals, and boost overall growth.

These marketing strategists usually possess a wide range of skills such as search engine optimization (SEO), copywriting, and strategy building, among many others. However, as a digital marketer, specializing in one or more skills is a great way to make the most out of this industry.

Also, freelance digital marketers who stop freelancing can create their digital marketing agency after acquiring a large client base. This way, they offer their services, skills, and experience while also creating job opportunities for other digital marketers.

How to Become a Professional Freelance Digital Marketer

Whether you would like to work independently or find a side job, freelance digital marketing is a great option and the perfect way to earn some good money.

Are you clueless about how you can begin your career as a freelance digital marker? Here, we have simplified the steps you need to become a professional and high-earning freelance digital marketer.

Build Your Skill Set

To get a gig as a freelancer, regardless of the type, you need a specific skill set to qualify you for the job, and this applies to freelance digital marketing. There’s a growing gap in the digital marketing sector, and if you can’t offer the skills to fill it up, you cannot get gigs as a freelance digital marketer.

To acquire these skills, you can take online digital marketing courses and attend online or offline training. After successfully undergoing training and taking courses, you can build your skills by working as an assistant or intern to an experienced digital marketer. With the right skills, you can work with digital marketing agencies. This way, you build your knowledge base, garner some experience, confidence, and build your portfolio before working independently. Once you have been established in digital marketing basics, it is advisable to find a preferred niche and specialize in it.

Taking courses and undergoing training shouldn’t be a one-time event. To stay ahead of other freelance digital marketers, it is important that you consistently update your skills to give yourself an edge in the freelance market.

Create Your Business Website Or Portfolio

The majority of freelancers overlook this step or do not give enough attention to this. As a professional freelance digital marketer, you need a website or portfolio to showcase your previous successful jobs to potential clients. A CV alone is not sufficient enough to get you gigs or land you the best-paying clients.

Your website or online portfolio should contain a portrait picture of you, a detailed and interesting description of your services, real customer testimonials, and your contact to sell yourself effectively and your services.

You can also link your website or online portfolio to your digital marketing blog if you have one. Ensure that your blog contains articles closely related to digital marketing.

Work On Your Personal Brand

Personal branding is as important as building a website or a blog. Building your brand is a great way to get your clients to trust you and sell yourself without necessarily “selling.” Posting and promoting your brand on social media networks and other websites is a great way to do this.

You can also build your brand by producing content or writing guest posts for popular high-traffic websites. Publishing your content on such websites helps drive traffic to your website or online portfolio, build a reputation, and increase your clientele.

Connect With Other Freelance Digital Marketers

Connecting with other freelancers is a great way to promote your brand, learn from their experiences, share ideas, get referrals, and even find new friends. You can connect with other digital marketers by following them on social media networks, interacting with their posts, and through e-mails.

Creating connections with other digital marketers in the freelancing industry is an excellent way to learn, gain new opportunities, and take your business to the next level.

Register with Freelance platforms

The fastest way to get freelance jobs is through freelancing platforms. These platforms connect tons of clients with numerous freelancers and are a great way to start your freelance digital marketing career. Today, several freelancing platforms are online; however, some prominent ones such as Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, Guru, FlexJobs, etc.

These platforms open you to several opportunities and connect you with high-paying clients if you can effectively utilize them.

Learn How to Pitch

Pitching is instrumental to your getting gigs on freelancing platforms. Writing and sending out proposals to potential clients is a key responsibility of every freelancer and determines how successful you become in your career.

Note that freelancing is a highly competitive industry, and you will require more than a boring pitch or proposal to get high-paying jobs or attract your prospective client. Therefore, learning how to write great proposals and effectively pitch your services to your clients is essential.

Set Up Your Prices

When starting as a professional freelance digital marketer, it is essential that you create your pricing model and set your prices. Whenever you get a gig on any platform, the client is likely to ask you what/how you charge, and the answer must always be readily available.

While structuring your pricing model, ensure that you put the rate per time – hourly, daily, or monthly, and rate per project into consideration. By doing this, you can effectively build a pricing model and decide your prices.

Allowing for some flexibility and negotiation of these prices is also essential, as some clients or projects may not be as straightforward.

Get Started

Once you have put the necessary things in place, it is time to get your first client and make some cool money. Although finding clients, initially, might be a hassle, you need not worry. There are many ways you can get digital marketing gigs.

How Can You Find Clients?

Freelance platforms/Job boards– There are tons of clients searching for freelance digital marketers on these platforms. So, why don’t you present yourself to them? You can send proposals on these platforms and apply for jobs posted.

Referrals – Family members and friends can recommend you to people in need of a freelance digital marketer. Let your family members, friends, and former colleagues know that you now offer digital marketing services. You can also provide free services to their businesses to help them market your services better and get testimonials to build your portfolio.

Your Blog – Blogging is an effective way to get clients. Although this may not be yielding initially, as the traffic builds in your blog, you are more likely to get jobs through it. Consistently work on your blog and post relevant content to increase your chances of getting hired.

How you treat your first client goes a long way in determining how successful your business may become. Ensure that you are clear on your terms, deliver excellent services, and deliver services on time. Doing this can help provide you with great testimonials on your website or online portfolios and give way for referrals from your client.

Conclusion

The digital marketing business is continually evolving and growing. Therefore it offers you a sustainable source of income and a great experience. However, as easy as it may sound, you will need to be consistent, hard-working, and determined to get the best out of the online marketing industry.

Before taking on jobs or gigs, ensure that you have built your skills to a reasonable extent. Although building your skills to a professional level doesn’t happen in a day, it is a pre-requisite that you take the necessary steps towards it by learning, building, and practicing.

Too many people ask what I do and I usually give a very simple answer. Many of them who are skeptical might think that I have an easy job, or that I'm just another housewife making ends meet. Well, they are not exactly wrong. I've decided to write about my career choice and a description of this choice in detail because there is so much in this choice that I cannot finish explaining all in a hangout session. Many mothers have asked me how do I do this, and wish they have the same thing going on for them. I suppose, after two years of freelancing, I owe it to many mother-friends and ex-colleagues to tell you what I now do.

In a Nutshell

In a nutshell, I'm a marketing consultant who helps businesses who need my help in any marketing activation. My clients, who are mostly Startups & SMEs, need a jack-of-all-trades expertise who can contribute in many areas within the marketing department.

A lot of people ask why would people hire me instead of hiring a full timer. The answer is simple: I'm cheaper, better and clients don't need to contribute to my EPF (retirement fund) and employment benefits. Cheaper, because I charge based on my invested hours, instead of the potentially hefty cost of keeping me onboard on a full-time basis. Better, simply because at my rates, you won't find a full-timer as experienced, nor will you find another freelancer with my set of skills.

The Work

I wish I am Liam Neeson and tell you I have a unique set of skills, but Neeson I am not. But I do have a set of skills that is rare when all of them combined. I can plan and execute both online & offline marketing activations, from organizing press conferences, running & optimizing Adwords campaigns, designing ecommerce websites, to data crunching. Some simpler yet time consuming tasks include social media management, graphic design, CRM and copywriting.

In other words, I'm a Jack-of-all-trades.

Each of my client has a set of projects, and each project is of a different nature and/or industry. In two years, I have worked on property development, education, F&B, football club, tourism, fashion, job portals and so many I have lost track.

The Structure

Unlike what most people imagine freelancers to be, I maintain the same work hours, sometimes more. Weekdays, 9am to 6pm, I am dedicated to my work the same you would do in an office. Instead of being accountable and responsible to only one immediate superior, I report to multiple clients and manage them to the best of my abilities. I don't have time to take a breather because every minute I'm thinking of a marketing strategy on a macro level, I can be doing something on a micro-level that does not need as much brain power.

I keep myself very productive and every minute is accounted for, with the help of Toggl, a time management app. Of course, being at home with a baby/toddler means that I'll step away from my computer once in a while but that does not take me away from my work. I use every mobile app available to get work done and have long mastered feeding and/or putting my child to sleep while working. (Still an exclusive direct-latch breastfeeding mom! #win)

There is still work stress, just as you would in any type of work. There are still heavy attachments to projects I run, and every mistake on my judgement can have upsetting repercussions, reflected on numbers, be it engagement or pure sales.

The Life

Instead of spending time on the road, waking up early to get preparations done, I wake up a little later, most times just in time to make breakfast and work. While that sounds nice enough, imagine juggling work and a toddler all day. I no longer go to the washroom alone and I'm always explaining myself to someone who may not understand me.

So, while I save time in the road, I'm more tired at the end of the day. I'd imagine that if you've spent a full day at work, you'll feel energised once again to see your child after work, and would like to spend some quality time with him/her. Me? I'm spent at the end of the day, craving for quality bathroom time. Unfortunately, there is really no break until my daughter decides to sleep. If I'm lucky, that's 10pm.

Juggling, takes on a whole new meaning when my body discovers new muscles it never knew it had. I was ambidextrous as a kid, and I've come to pick it up again when managing more than three tasks at once. Breastfeeding, typing out an email and blasting out a post from my phone all at once.

Unlike most home-based employees who never step out, I have regular meetings with clients, both teleconferences and face-to-face meetings. There are deadlines and targets to achieve, and I play a good amount of significant roles in a number of businesses. I cannot be a bottleneck and cannot allow myself to be one even if I have good reasons to, for example my daughter is sick and I haven't slept in two days.

I am also thankful for help from my husband who also works from home (not a freelancer), my mother who sometimes stays with us, and my mother-in-law who is always ready to help. While I am the primary care giver of my child, they have been there to relief me, and they are the very reason of how I've survived this far.

Pros & Cons

The Pros are many, here are the top 3 for me:

- In a short two years, I've come to know more than ever. I am most likely the first to sense a new marketing trend, from better landing page features, colour with the most engagement, to new Google upgrades. I have also accummulated a pretty impressive portfolio (I think!) in just two years based in industry, scope and performance.

- I've never missed a milestone with my child, ie. First words, first step, first dance, etc. I can always choose to drop everything and egg her on!

- I've learned so much in these two years that I've rolled out many of these learnings into different industries and cities - at the same time witnessing how different the outcomes due to language, culture, audience expectations and local competition.

Cons are plenty too! But here are my top 3:

- As a freelancer, I don't usually get to run strategic-level projects or lead the company on a specific direction. I might not see the whole picture the way full timers do, or that I refrain from doing so for a number of office politics reasons.

- Most freelancers like me, are hired to tackle the most difficult and tedious marketing tasks. Unlike when employed as a full-timer in a managerial role, you will have assistants or help to complete the minute items, I am there to do both planning and execution, independently and without help.

- No maternity leave. This is probably what bothers me the most. The loss of income aside while dealing with incoming post-natal depression, I might need to source for new clients if my "original" clients replace me with another during my downtime.

Conclusion

There are still more pros and cons; but I know that I'm in a uniquely blessed position. I am grateful for clients who have decided to stick with me, given that I have a set of rules myself, and grateful that I'm enjoying my daughter's new quirks almost everyday.

I won't say it's easy, heck I'd say it's the hardest thing I have to do so far. But it is so rewarding, in so many ways.

Many ask if I'll ever go back to a full-time role. My answer is 95% No. 5% if Godfather makes me an offer I can't refuse. Lol.

So that's it! That's pretty much all I have to tell. If you want to start some freelancing work, do try out Workana.com, who is also one of my favourite clients who truly appreciate the value of freelancers.

I’m starting the believe in the saying ‘good things will happen when you least expect it’ more and more lately. 2018 has started on such a high note. I’ve just finished a Professional Writing module as a part of my final year of Creative Writing and have come out with a first overall, which I’m ecstatic about! As much as I love fiction, I also love learning skills which can contribute to having…

Megamound Investment Limited Employment Opportunities in Lagos Nigeria Dec 2015

Megamound Investment Limited Employment Opportunities in Lagos Nigeria Dec 2015

  Job vacancy:  Facility Manager, Freelance Marketer, Chartered Accountant, Legal Office, Front Desk Officer, Quantity Surveyor, Admin Officer, Account Officer

Job Description: Today Work Lagos Nigeria

Megamound Investment Limited (Megamound) was registered at the Corporate Affairs Commission in 1992 with…