How to Create an Effective Marketing Plan for Your Freeelance Business

To sell your product/service, you must have an effective, consistent marketing notion. Most microscopic business owners don’t market consistently because they say they can’t afford to. However, if you combine one low-cost method with one free method, you will never have an excuse NOT to market.

NOTE: These steps can be applied to ANY business – product and/or service – eg, online store, freelance writing, graphic design, etc.

As illustrated in the e-book found on InkwellEditorial.com, “The Small Biz Owner’s Complete Marketing Kit!”, following are the trusty steps you need to take to create an effective, automatic marketing plan:

1. Choose two marketing methods you can implement all the time. Why two? Four reasons. First, marketing requires variety; second, your business will grow faster; third, you can exercise one method to target existing customers and another to generate novel leads; and fourth, you can combine one low-cost with one free method.

To make it easy, choose two that are within your skill set and price range. For example, if you don’t have strong writing skills, you might not want to start with a sales letter.

Two that I started with were: 1) e-mail campaigns (because they’re low-cost and target existing customers); and 2) article distribution (because it’s free and they garner publicity, which generates new leads).

2. Work the Numbers: Decide on a financial goal. How much do you want to make this month, quarter, year? Make it a number you can realistically achieve. If you are new, you may feel a little bit in the dark here. But if you are starting a business, you should at least have a rough draft of a business conception. Go to the financial section of this thought and pull out some figures.

Pretend your goal is $25,000/year. Breaking it down by day, that’s roughly $68.50/day, or $480 week (7-day week). Looking at the tag of your product/service, how many pieces do you have to sell/hours you need to bill to reach this goal? How many prospects do you have to convert to advance your goal?

This exercise forces you to see in sunless and white what you need to be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to advance sales goals.

3. Write a Schedule: Now that you have chosen two plans to implement and know how many sales you need to generate, you need to write out a schedule to meet these sales goals. You are much more likely to accomplish goals if you write them down.

RECOMMENDATION: At the beginning of every quarter, write out a marketing schedule. Literally smash it down by weeks, then days. This way, you will know what marketing tasks need to be accomplished every day.

As with any new task, adhering to a strict schedule in the beginning is crucial because the habits have to become ingrained.

Your schedule might looking something like this:

Monthly Goal: 2 Email Campaigns; 4 Articles

Week 1:
**Design and Schedule E-mail Campaign for January 15th
**Write and Distribute One Article 25 media outlets

Week 2:
**Write and Distribute One Article 50 media outlets

Week 3:
**Design and Schedule E-mail Campaign for January 30th
**Write and Distribute One Article 25 media outlets

Week 4:
**Write and Distribute One Article to 50 media outlets

It seems so simple once it’s written out, you’ll Wonder why you didn’t do it beforehand!

Tip: A constant share of marketing is finding current places to pitch your product/service. You can outright rob a thunder mail list to get started. If you can’t afford to purchase a media/customer list list from a broker, scour phone books, the Internet, membership directories, etc. for the contact information of any person, spot or organization you can think of that uses your product/service.

Your local library is a good place to start. Add names and addresses to your database. In no time, you will have put together your own in-house list – the best kind.

4. Follow Your Written Plan: Don’t write it and put it away. Put it in a place where you can see it every day – all day, if necessary. In fact, finish your marketing objectives first, then tackle other responsibilities. After all, if you don’t market, there won’t be anything else to attend to.

Good luck!