For many Canadians trying to answer the question of how to make money from home, freelance writing has been the solution. But to launch a successful career as a freelance writer, it is important to find and maintain a strong client base. If you are just starting out, how do you find clients?
Determine your niche
Before you start looking for clients, it is important to determine what clients you are looking for.
Do you prefer specific kinds of writing, such as technical writing, blog posts, or website copy?
Consider if there are any specific industries you would like to work within. When you determine this, you will be able to be more strategic in your research for finding prospective clients and determining whether you should reach out to them.
Create a portfolio
A portfolio is a key piece of sales material for any freelance writer. This allows you to present your capabilities to prospective clients and acts as an extension of your resume, showcasing your skills in action.
Portfolios are often grown and nurtured over time. When you complete any freelance writing assignments, take some time to tag the assignment based on different categories, such as what kind of assignment it was (i.e. a blog post) and what industry it was for. That way, you can easily find and pull those assignments when building future portfolios. However, remember that depending on your contracts with your clients, you may need to redact certain information in these pieces before sharing them.
Another way freelance writers can use their portfolio is to customize it for the clients they are trying to land. They can do this by taking some time to research clients they would like to work for, creating sample blog posts, webpage copy, or emails based on their offering and brand, and including those within their portfolio. You can also reference past projects you have completed for other clients with similar profiles.
Try blogging and publishing your work
For freelance writers with no past projects, it can seem impossible to build a portfolio. This is why many prospective freelance writers launch their blogs and submit articles to publications as ghost or guest writers, to help build their portfolio and showcase their writing abilities.
Use social media
Being a freelance writer is not just a job; it’s a business, so it is important to spend time defining your brand, services, and capabilities, and then share them using channels like social media.
Not only can this help you reach prospective clients through advertising your skills online, but it can also help to keep your current client base engaged with you.
Social media is also a great way for you to showcase different formats of your writing skills. For example, you could write a new blog post and then share it in different formats through your social media channels; this would allow you to show prospective clients your long-format writing skills and short-format writing skills.
Join freelancing platforms
One factor to consider with freelance writing is the need to find and maintain clients in addition to completing writing assignments.
For many who want to focus on making money online in Canada, this is a tricky balance to find, which is why they choose to utilize freelancing platforms. Many out there are focused on freelance writing, and writing for platforms like Words of Worth Canada take the need to find clients completely off the writer’s hands, allowing them to focus on making money.
Use LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social media platform with a built-in job board and can help facilitate networking opportunities for freelance writers.
To utilize LinkedIn to find freelance writing clients, take some time to update your profile. Make sure to be clear about what kinds of clients you are looking for and how they can contact you, and include links to your public portfolio and any blogs or social media channels you run, so that people can easily see examples of your work.
You should then look for LinkedIn groups to join – not only for fellow freelance writers, but also for your target clients. Joining these groups and posting and engaging within them will make it easier to build your network and, in turn, can make it easier for you to find people looking for freelance writers.
By following the steps outlined in this article, freelance writers who are ready to make money from home in Canada will be closer to landing their first of many clients. It does take time, but by taking the necessary steps early on to build a strong foundation, freelancers will be more likely to have more consistent long-term success in finding clients.