10 Essential Email Marketing Tips for Freelancers

by Chris Donald, Guest Contributor

Putting your name and work on top of the minds of your target audience and expanding your client list – isn’t that one of your main objectives as a freelancer? However, as a freelancer, you are handling all the work alone and might hardly have any time for pitching your services to a new audience. Moreover, you never want to lose that personal touch when it comes to introducing yourself and your services to a new audience. So, what’s the best way to market your services?

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​Introducing Email Marketing - one of the ‘most effective yet pocket-friendly’ and ‘wide-reaching yet personal’ marketing solutions for small agencies and freelancers. “Email marketing for freelancers, really?” you might ask. Well, according to a report:

• There will be 3.9 billion email users in 2019 (which is more than half of the global population) and by the end of 2023, we can expect to have 4.3 billion email users.
• The total number of business and consumer emails sent and received per day, in 2019, is likely to go past 293 billion, while by 2023 the number is expected to cross 347 billion.

Now that you are convinced about why freelancers need email marketing through these numbers, let’s see the ways in which email marketing helps you as a freelancer:

• Stays on minds
• Builds a personal brand online
• Speak about why the services you provide are vital
• Get feedback
• Increase visits to your blog/website

To help you cut through the noise and give your email marketing journey a good start, here are 10 awesome tips:

Identify your audience
Your first step in the journey is to find the right audience for your email campaigns; you can’t send your emails to random people. You need to build a list for your email marketing and it needs to be done organically. The best way to go about it is to place a sign-up form on your website or blog from where people can subscribe to your emails. Another way is to get people to sign up for your emails during events or conferences. Through both of these ways, you are building a list of people who are genuinely interested in the kind of services you provide.

Segment your list for relevant messaging
You may have a medley of past clients, current clients and even prospective ones on your email list. Segmenting it and sending more relevant emails can go a long way in boosting your chances of getting more work. Most email service providers allow you to upload a list and send campaigns to subscribers who meet the criteria set by you.

Create landing pages for all the services you offer
Landing pages and emails go hand in hand. A landing page is a must for directing subscribers to your services or blog or incentives you are offering in your email. Create landing pages with all the details about that particular service/offer. Landing pages not only keep prospective clients interested in your services but also increase the chances of conversion.

Use a template for a professional touch
Using a template to send your emails creates a professional impression. A good header with your logo in the right place and high-resolution images will give the template a polished look and help develop a professional picture of your brand.

Send a ‘Welcome Email’ to kick-off email marketing
As compared to other email campaigns, welcome emails boast of 4 times more open rate and 5 times more click-through rate. The welcome email best practices suggest sending a welcome email series. You can kick off with a simple yet personal welcome note followed by an email where subscribers can set their preferences followed by a third email that offers information about all your services.

Share everything from informative content to your client testimonials
Email marketing is all about slowly and gradually converting your leads into customers. The best email campaigns are the ones that share content which is intriguing, helpful, and inspirational. If you have a blog, you can always pick your best posts of the month and send a round-up of the month through a newsletter. Make sure you add a link to each of these blog posts in the email to drive traffic to your blog or website. Your clients’ success stories can go a long way in building your image as an expert. You can also share your learning from an industry event you recently attended. One essential factor that remains common in each of your emails is social sharing buttons. For past clients, you can always request feedback.

Offer an incentive to keep them hooked
You are just starting off with marketing your services. What is it that will help you engage your subscribers at this point? You guessed it right - a freebie.  Think of what you can offer your subscribers so that they feel the need to try your services. How about working on and sharing an eBook or a whitepaper that talks about the significance of your services?

Schedule your emails wisely
You have put in efforts and all the right ones in bringing the right audience to subscribe to your emails. Staying on top of their mind by keeping them engaged should be your priority. Isn’t it likely that if you do not email your subscribers on a regular basis, they may forget about you? On the other hand, they may lose interest in you if you email too often. Either way, you are wide off the mark. Create an email calendar that helps you schedule emails to maintain the right frequency.

Analyze the performance of your campaigns
Analysis of email campaigns helps you figure out what you did right and what went wrong with a particular campaign. Through analytical tools, you can know the number of emails opened, clicked, bounced, spammed, and unsubscribed. This data comes handy when you are planning your next email campaign.
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Make your emails mobile-friendly
According to Litmus, 47% emails are read on mobile devices. Now, this number is huge enough for you to consider creating emails that are optimized for mobile devices. Always choose responsive templates, which automatically resize for mobile.  

Wrapping up
Email marketing is one of the oldest and most effective marketing channels that help you stay on top of mind of the right audience. Also, it helps to build and strengthen your personal brand online. Being cost effective, it seems to be the best bet for freelancers or small agencies who work on a shoestring marketing budget.  ​

Author bio:

Chris Donald is the Director of InboxGroup, A professional email marketing agency that specializes in providing result-driven email marketing services. He has worked directly with Fortune 500 companies, retail giants, nonprofits, SMBs and government bodies in all facets of their email marketing services email audit and marketing automation programs for almost 2 decades. He enjoys sharing his distinctive thoughts and insights into email marketing best practices at his blog.

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