Marketing your services via your website, networking, and with pitch emails is both crucial and here to stay. But with new technology and new outlets appearing every day, there are all kinds of opportunities to market yourself in new and creative ways. Let’s explore a few…
Today’s question comes from Troy Y., who asks, “I’m doing the website thing like you say to and I’m pitching myself in all of the ways you recommend. But is there anything else I can do to get my name out there?”
As I’ve said before and I’m sure I’ll say thousands of times more, you absolutely must have an online portfolio, you must be willing to network (in some way or another—and contracting does count), and you must be willing to proactively seek and pitch for work.
When you’re ready to extend yourself beyond these tried and true marketing methods, though, a little creativity can go a long way.
A great way to generate a list of potential leads is to set up a giveaway via a site like Promosimple.com. Create or find a prize that would be especially appealing to your target audience of prospects, then use the giveaway to collect their email addresses and even garner follows on your social media accounts (that are associated with your business, of course).
A good prize might be a home page rewrite for a business owner’s website or a three-email welcome series for their newsletter subscribers. Yes, this does involve giving away some services, but the people who enter a giveaway with a prize like this will be those who are actively looking to improve their marketing—which means they’re perfect prospects! You may be able to convert your winner to other paid work, as well.
Promosimple provides good marketing advice and ways to maximize your number of entrants on their blog, so it’s worth taking a look at that, too. They offer a free account or a few levels of paid accounts that give you a few more features and customizations.
One of the best ways to establish both your expertise and your trustworthiness is to teach, and to teach live. You could market yourself by creating a webinar for small business owners and/or solopreneurs and teach them one small part of all that you have to offer.
For example, you could teach them how to create a marketing plan for a campaign of some sort, including emails, landing pages on their websites, direct mail, etc. You could also offer a webinar about how to hire marketing professionals (including copywriters!) and what to look for. Then, at the end, you could offer a free, limited-time offer of a half-hour copywriting consultation with you.
Along those same lines, assuming that you have a Facebook page set up for your copywriting business (and if you don’t, you should), you can experiment with doing Facebook live videos to offer marketing or copywriting tips.
Remember that you never want to make copywriting seem easy or try to teach everything you know about copywriting—they have no reason to hire you if you do!
Instead, you should offer little teasers that help establish your expertise and leaving them wanting more from you.
These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg; there are plenty more ways to market yourself with a bit of creativity. Just stay focused on your audience, their needs, and your goals, and be willing to experiment. You never know what will catch on, and what will make you irresistible to clients.
Your turn! What creative methods for marketing have you seen or tried? Let us know in the comments below!
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