Most freelance writers who make a living from their work will tell you that they are generally doing one of two things. They are working (on a writing assignment) or looking for a job (more writing assignments). That’s the only way to keep both work and money constantly flowing so they can pay their bills on time.
One way to make it easier to keep new jobs coming in is to develop a weekly marketing plan. A good day to develop your plan for the week is Sunday night (when you are preparing for your work week) or Monday morning (before you start work). It is not difficult to develop a marketing plan for the week. The key is to do it every week.
Your weekly marketing plan should consist of a list of the following:
1. Editors and Other Contacts – These are the people you plan to call or email throughout the week. This may include an editor you want to consult with, or one you need to follow up with on an assignment or contract, or it could be an editor who requested a resume and writing samples and you need to send them to that editor this week.
2. Job boards or other job listings: These are sites you plan to check to see if there are any new job listings that interest you. If you know that certain websites post new writing jobs on Tuesday, write that down in your plan for Tuesday. If you don’t have a list of online job boards, plan to spend an hour or so in the next week looking for some. Also, subscribe to ezines for writers (including job postings) if you don’t already subscribe to at least a few.
3. Promotional Activities: You need to constantly promote yourself and your writing to be an active writer. If you have a website or blog, updating it every week is part of this promotion. If you don’t have a website or blog to promote your writing, then you need to create one, so “start website” or “create blog” would fall into this category of your marketing plan.
Writing press releases about your business or for a new book you are publishing, or getting contracts with schools or other organizations that want to hire you as a speaker, are other activities that fall into this category. Writing free articles for article directories could also be listed here, as these articles will help promote you and your writing services.
4. Networking Activities: This category is a bit different from networking or promotional activities. If you belong to any community organizations or writing groups, write down how you plan to use these groups to network this week. You can plan to join a writers’ listserv and then introduce yourself to everyone on the list this week, or you can attend your local trade association meeting to tell other business owners in your area about your writing services. Just make sure you have at least a few plans to network with other writers and/or companies each week.
You can make your weekly marketing plan as general or as detailed as you like. But once you’ve written all your marketing plans for the week, you’ll know how much time you should have available to work on your current writing assignments. In general, working writers weave their marketing activities into their writing activities every day. But some writers prefer to do all their marketing on Mondays, so they have the rest of the week to work on assignments. This is a good plan, but if you’ve applied for multiple writing assignments, you might get a response from an editor during the week and you’ll need to follow up with them right away instead of waiting until next Monday when you try to get most done. of your marketing activities. In a case like this, it helps to be flexible.
One of the great benefits of consistently developing a weekly marketing plan is that you will start receiving more and more job offers. In fact, sometimes you’ll get offers for jobs you haven’t even applied for. Editors will simply find your website or blog and call or email you to see if you’re available for an assignment. When this happens, you will realize how important a weekly marketing plan can be.
So, no matter what day of the week it is right now, if you don’t have a marketing plan for this week, get to work developing one. You’ll be glad you did.