How to Make 100K+ Per Year with Freelance Digital Marketing
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Are you a freelance digital marketing specialist? Have you been looking for how to make money from it? There are many opportunities out there that can make you six figures every year if you start implementing them. And if you are not sure of where and how to start, this article will lead you by the hand until you make your first $1000 from being a freelance digital marketer.
It is on that note that we welcome you to this content where we will demystify some of the challenges freelance digital experts tend to face, especially as they pertain to getting jobs in that regard.
What Is Freelance Digital Marketing?
As we mentioned earlier, we aim to walk you through the process. To that end, we are starting from the base and working to the top. We want you to understand the concept of freelance digital marketing because that will help you understand what it means, as well as the potentialities.
Worthy of mention is that freelance digital marketing is based on the concept of “Freelancing,” which is the same as “working from home.” The idea is that you will be allowed to select and decide on the type of jobs you can handle. At the same time, you will have a flexible work schedule, which usually entails working from home or any other place you find convenient.
With that in mind, the freelance digital marketing job description implies that you can offer your digital marketing services to many individuals and brands without necessarily committing to any party. All you are doing is to offer the service to many at a go, which is better than the traditional work life where you will work for one person alone.
Freelance Digital Marketing Is the Job of the Future
It is becoming obvious that freelancing is becoming the job of the future. Now, thousands of people all over the world have been forced to rethink the traditional work-life they have been accustomed to.
Now, the focus is on how to leverage the Internet to create steady and sustainable income. Indeed, that is possible, and engaging in freelance digital marketing is one of the ways to start.
Currently, there are three sets of people that are involved in the freelance digital marketing industry. The breakdown will be given below:
Newbies
The newbies are the prospective freelance digital marketers who don’t know how the business works but are willing to give it a shot.
Also, the newbies are looking for relevant information or mentorship (as the case might be) so they could launch fully into the burgeoning freelance digital marketing industry.
Amateurs
On the other hand, some people already have the background knowledge to freelance digital marketing. They also understand the potentials in the industry and what they stand to gain by being a part of it.
However, this set of prospective freelance digital marketers is kept back by self-doubt, as well as the obstacles associated with the industry.
Professional Freelance Digital Marketers
Interestingly, there is a third party. That is the experts and professionals in the global freelance digital marketing industry.
They know what works and what doesn’t. They have also been into freelance digital marketing for many years, and their wealth of experience and continuous learning has helped them to keep growing.
No matter the category you fall into, the fact is that there are lots of potentials for you in the digital marketing industry. And by going freelance with it, you can make your first six figures online.
Freelance Digital Marketing Jobs
The first thing is to understand all there is to digital marketing on a freelance basis. The second thing to consider is the category where you fall into. And when you have considered those two, the next step is to find the jobs that relate to freelance digital marketing.
It is on that note that we present to you some of the jobs that you can take up as a freelance digital marketer, and leverage the same to build your wealth up to six figures every year.
1. Paid Ads
Advertisements are ideal methods of positioning a brand for greater opportunities. When a brand or company is continually running adverts and publicizing its services, it wouldn’t be long before the target customers will take notice.
The idea is to ensure that the target audience is always seeing the brand anytime they log into their social media handles or surf the web. One of the ideal ways of doing that is by running paid adverts or promotions. And that is where your job as a freelance digital marketer is needed.
Your job here is to ensure that the brand or company that is hiring your service can provide enough information about the audience or target market it wants to sell its products and services to.
Besides, it makes sense that you decide with the brand on the type of paid advert or promotion. This is important because if it is not considered, you might just be spending the funds without converting. The knowledge of the target market and the right advertisement channel are two important factors that will increase the potential conversion.
In terms of the channel for the adverts, two major channels have proven to be consistent with feasible results. Those are Google Ads and Facebook Adverts.
Google Ads
Google Ads aren’t new. You already know that Google is the world’s largest Search Engine. It also has a dedicated advertising channel called AdWords. It is via that medium that you can gain insights into the target audience so you create the right kind of advert that will convert.
Facebook Ads
Just like Google is dominating Search Engines, Facebook is doing the same in Social Networking.
As the world’s leading Social Network, Facebook has over 2.6 billion monthly active users. This data was sourced from Statista. That goes to show that the number of buyers that can patronize the services of the brand you are promoting will be higher.
Also, Facebook Ads empower many freelance digital marketers in many ways, using different advertising objectives. You can decide to use any of the objectives that align with the outcome that the brand you are working for wants.
The beauty of the Facebook Ads platform you can also run ads on Facebook’s other platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp.
For example, some of the advertising objectives provided by Facebook include but are not limited to:
- Conversions
- Traffic: To drive visitors to a website
- Brand Awareness: It is best to use this if the brand you are promoting is just starting a business.
- Engagement: Best if the brand you are promoting wants to communicate with the target audience via the Facebook Page.
2. Website Design
At this time that the world is going digital, it has become imperative for businesses and companies to start exploring other options of marketing.
Gone are the days when having a physical outlet or office is the basis for running a business. Now, many companies have a presence in one or multiple web-based platforms, ranging from social media networks to websites and blogs.
It is for that reason that companies and brands that understand the changing tide would need the services of a freelance website designer to set up a website for them. With over 1.74 billion websites and 200 million of them being active as of January 2020, it is obvious that web design will surge too.
Therefore, now is the best time for you to position yourself as a website designer so you can make money from that skill. Of course, you may be battling with some self-doubt on whether you can do that. If you don’t have any skill in this regard, you might want to take a web design course on platforms like Udemy.
And when you have gotten the web design skill, the next step will be to look for freelance web design jobs on platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com. Those are freelancing platforms where you can get in touch with clients that need your web design skills in return for paying you for the job well done.
3. Funnel Builder Designer
The truth is that no business can successfully beat the competition if it doesn’t have a sales funnel. Now, thousands of business owners are looking for freelance funnel builder designers that will help them set up a highly-converting sales funnel that will help them generate leads and make more sales.
What Is a Sales Funnel?
There are two concepts here. The first is “Sales.” The other is “Funnel”. On the one hand, we are looking at how to make sales. On the other hand, we are considering the steps to make that sale.
That is basically what a Sales Funnel implies. It is a customer-focused marketing model whereby the actions of the customer or potential buyer are mirrored from the start to the finish.
Usually, what is considered the most here is on the lead generation aspect, which is collecting the details or personal information/data of the potential buyers. Afterward, the actions of the potential buyers will be continually monitored until the sale is made.
4. Content Creation
The content creation or freelance writing industry will continue to boom because of many reasons. The first reason is that many people are still interested in reading. The second reason is that all other forms of content started from somewhere and it is usually from a piece of paper. From scripting videos to editing videos, there is always a need to put down some ideas on paper.
Now, if you are considering taking to freelance writing, there are some things you need to have in mind. The global freelance writing industry is booming and it requires people with an eye for details and mastery of the industry to make six figures from it.
Having said that, here are some of the factors that you must always have in mind as far as freelance writing is concerned:
SEO
Content creation is now taking a different frontier with the dominance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The current trend is to optimize or create content in a way that “Search Engine Spiders” will pick them out and help them rank higher.
Some of the factors that will help your content to rank higher are:
- Good use of Headings
- Internal linking to existing content on the website
- Adding images and embedding YouTube videos where need be
Also, you should endeavor to write long-form content that is up to 1,800 words and above. That is the average number of words that get ranked on the first pages of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Understand the Competition
You must understand the brand that hires your freelance digital agency for content creation has many competitors. It is the primary goal of every brand to beat the competition posed by the competing brands because that is a veritable way of gaining more customers and making more sales.
In light of that, you should also aim to help the brand you are promoting to beat the competition using strategies like using relevant keywords (long-tail and short-tail) and Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) to make the content rank higher than that of the competitor’s.
Content Marketing
Two types of content are in vogue right now. The first is Content Marketing and the other is Copywriting.
On the one hand, Copywriting is expressly using words from a promotional perspective to market products and services.
On the other hand, what Content Marketing does is to provide valuable information to prospective buyers so they are sure of what they want to buy before they make the purchase.
5. Email Marketing
You will never run short of freelance digital marketing jobs if you know your way around. We are pleased to let you know that email marketing is one of such jobs you might want to consider.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a dedicated act of sending electronic mail (e-mail) messages to potential buyers or customers.
Most times, the email is a reminder of a product or service that the potential buyers/customers failed to pay for the last time. At other times, it a means of presenting awesome offers to promote new products and services.
Of course, if you are running a freelance digital agency or you are working solo, there are some things you must consider before sending out an email marketing campaign on behalf of your clients.
Here are the major ways to get started with email marketing:
Establish the Goals
Your client has a goal for the email marketing campaigns that are to be sent out to prospective customers and buyers. It could be to inform the recipients of the new products and services. It could also be to retarget them so they can complete the orders they initiated earlier.
Whichever is the case, establishing the goal and defining the purpose of the email marketing will help you to create the right kind of email campaign that will convert.
Build the Email List
You cannot send out any email on behalf of your client if you don’t have active recipients. That is the purpose of having an email list, as well as having the best autoresponders for automating the emails.
The idea is that having an email list equals having recipients of the email. Usually, these are the people that will be interested in the products and services that the brand you are promoting has to offer.
To build an email list, there are some strategies to go about that. Find some of them below:
- Ask the Potential Buyers to Subscribe: This seems the logical thing to do because the potential buyers need to confirm if they want to receive further emails and correspondences.
- Offer a Gift: If it appears that the potential buyers are not willing to part with their details, including the email address, you might want to re-strategize. The other option is to offer a gift in the form of a Lead Magnet, like a free e-book or some other gift that will require entering the email address to make the delivery.
Select the Best Campaign
With the help of your email marketing service provider, you can set up the best and highly-converting email campaigns.
Whether it is for the recipients to visit the e-commerce store of the brand you are promoting or for them to take quizzes, you have many options to use to create the best email marketing campaign.
Create the First Campaign
With the email campaign template and other important tools ready, the next step is to send the first emails.
Have in mind that you may have to segment the recipients if you have different emails for different audiences.
Measure the Results
At the end of the email campaign, measure the results to see how it performed. Some of the ways to measure the results of the email campaign include:
- Delivery Rates: This is the number of persons that received the email campaign within the time you send it out.
- Open Rates: This is all about the number of email campaign recipients that opened the email to read the content.
- Click-Through Rates: Also called CTR, Click Through Rates signifies the number of clicks on the links in the email campaign. For example, if the brand you are promoting wanted the recipients of the email to visit their e-commerce store, the CTR will show the number of recipients that did so.
- Bounce Rates: Some email campaign recipients might visit the web store but wouldn’t take the needed action, such as buying the product for which the campaign was sent. It is for that reason that the Bounce Rate will help you measure the number of persons that didn’t make a purchase or took the needed action.
6. Chatbot Development
Technology has simplified the way we do things. Now, potential and returning customers of a brand can initiate and complete their purchase without necessarily having to get in touch with the owner of the business. That is where Chatbots come in to help.
A chatbot is a software application that is used for conducting an online chat conversation using text-to-speech and texts. That simplifies the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) process in that there may be no need for a live human agent.
You can build chatbots on platforms like ManyChat or ChatFuel.
These platforms leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to simulate such conversations using a natural language. Most Chatbots are used through websites, mobile applications, and Instant Messaging (IM) applications.
There is no doubt that your job as a freelance digital marketer will be needed in this case. You will among many other things include:
- Programming the Chatbot to answer specific questions
- Ask the potential buyers and returning customers specific questions so the right response and service will be provided.
If you are considering taking Chatbot development as one of the freelance digital marketing projects you can handle, here are some of the things you can program the software to do:
- Quickly greet customers anytime they make a first visit to the website of the brand you are working for.
- Schedule calls and chats for the customers with the clients that hired you.
- Gather the personal information/data from the leads and first-time visitors to your clients’ websites.
7. Video Creation and Editor
In the world of marketing, there are steps to selecting the best strategy to market products and services. The same also plays out when looking for how to rank on Search Engines.
The general rule is that videos are preferred over any other content marketing strategy. When that isn’t feasible, images will come next followed by articles.
Therefore, there is a huge space for videos to fit in as far as digital marketing is concerned. And going by Hubspot’s State of Video Marketing New Data, it is obvious that 72% of people prefer watching a video to learn about a product or service instead of reading articles.
To that end, there is a market share for you as a digital marketing video creation and editing specialist. With the combo skills of shooting and editing videos, we are sure that you will always have more clients than you can attend to.
Besides, you needn’t have a photo studio to kick off a career as video creation and editing specialist. You can always work with the 4K cinematic video tools that your potential clients tend to provide you with.
Also, you need to master some of the important aspects of video creation. Some of these are:
- Vlogging: Shooting videos that will be published on the Internet on personal blogs and video platforms like YouTube.
- Testimonial Videos: You may be hired to take videos of buyers who are satisfied with the services that your clients offered to them.
- Marketing Trailers: If your clients have new products to publicize ahead of the launch, they will hire you to shoot and editing marketing trailers/short videos of such products.
How to Find Freelance Digital Marketing Projects
If you are convinced that offering your digital skills on a freelance basis is what you can do, it makes sense that you begin to look for the relevant projects that will pay you handsomely.
The most important step towards that is to search for those jobs on digital marketing freelancing websites, such as Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, and Guru.com.
How to Market Yourself as a Freelancer
It is one thing to have digital skills that you want to put out there for the money. It is another thing to market yourself or promote those skills.
If you are not sure of the best way of marketing yourself as a freelance digital marketer, here are some tips to inspire you:
1. Find a Niche
The first step you want to take is to consider the type of digital marketing skill you can offer. The goal is for you to find out the areas where you can do better.
Finding a niche is the same thing as deciding on the type of freelance digital marketing job you can do. It could be Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Facebook and Google Ads, Email Marketing, or Video Editing.
2. Locate Your Potential Clients
The next big idea is to find out where your potential clients hang out and visit them there. It could be on digital marketing freelancing websites like Upwork and Fiverr.
If you don’t want to take a route, you might want to check Google for the websites of the businesses that are in the niche of your digital marketing skills so you can pitch your services to them.
3. Have a Good Working Attitude
Having a good working attitude isn’t all about how you communicate with your clients, though that’s great.
It is more of how you fix your rates and meet the deadlines. If you have a flexible and affordable rate, especially at the onset and you can meet the set deadlines, it wouldn’t be long before you win the trust of your clients. That, in turn, means getting more jobs and higher pays in the long run.
Final Words
Freelance digital marketing is charting the way for the next generation working system, and those that join now will reap the rewards going forward.
If you are a freelance digital marketing specialist, we are sure that this article has given you the needed heads-up that you need to launch your freelance digital agency and scale it to a six-figure per year brand.
July 13, 2020
July 17, 2020