Is the dream of being your own boss and working from the comfort of your own home driving you to find ways to make it happen?
In this article, we are going to break down how you can take the first steps toward becoming a digital marketer freelancer.
The number of digital marketers is increasing and freelancing has become an attractive career option for many. There are no strict guidelines, so you can create your own income stream and work how you want.
Follow our guide and find answers to the following questions today:
- How will you be able to dive into digital marketing as a freelancer?
- What will you need to start your career as a freelance digital marketer?
- What are some special strategies to opt as a freelancer in digital marketing?
- How can freelance digital marketing be your best choice to grow your career?
After going through this article, you will be satisfied with everything you want to know about freelance digital marketing. So, without wandering anymore, here we go.
What is Freelance Digital Marketing?
Freelance digital marketing is about adopting online marketing strategies to achieve a business developer’s marketing goals. Helping a business grow its online presence in an online community is the main goal that freelance digital marketers have to achieve.
So, you can dive into freelance digital marketing using various channels available like SEO, SEM, Content Marketing, Ad campaigns, etc.
Do you know?
- More than 1.2 billion people earn a full-time income doing freelancing. And the number may increase up to 14% over the upcoming years.
- The average salary for a freelance digital marketer in the United States is more than $60k per year.
- More than 50.64% of the total population in the world spends their time on social media?
What Skills do you need?
You cannot reach your destination without knowing what you will need on your way. So, without knowing the right path, you cannot grow your career.
Wearing many hats, freelance digital marketing specialists deliver personalized marketing services online.
Having the right skills for digital marketing can turn the tables and make you a professional freelance digital marketer. So, here we have briefly described some of the skills that you should learn to be a freelance digital marketing specialist:
Data Collection and Data Analysis
Data analysis plays an important role if you are involved in digital marketing. You should be able to collect some necessary information from search queries, content consumed, online transactions, etc. This information after analytics is used to make better drives for data campaigns, resulting in chasing the target of the best customers.
Tip: Always use the latest and updated data.
Copywriting
Copywriting is the heart of digital marketing that you can use in content marketing. Writing converting emails, blogs, product descriptions, buying guides, affiliate articles, etc., are some examples of content marketing. To become a successful digital marketer, you need effective, engaging, and persuasive writing skills.
Tip: The best SEO tactics will rank your content and make sure to reach out maximum audience.
SEO and SEM
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are important skills in digital marketing. Using these skills, you may get higher traffic. In addition, a deep understanding of SEO tactics help you run a successful digital marketing campaign easily.
CRM
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the method of understanding customer behaviour to enhance customer experience. Understanding customer behaviour will help you to connect with customers in a better way.
Social Media Marketing
Social media has been a permanent part of our lives. And, Social media marketing is also a sub-category of digital marketing. So, being aware of social media advertising, hashtags, business pages, groups, etc., will make you ready to lend a hand in digital marketing.
Tip: Each social media platform has a different kind of audience, so use it effectively.
Design
Being quite popular, visual content has a higher conversion rate and better SEO rankings. So, learning some designing skills will provide better results in digital marketing.
Tip: Canva is one of the best tools to get ideas and develop your design skills.
Some other helpful skills are likely to be:
- Problem-Solving
- Leadership
- Management
- Agility and Flexibility
- Business Management
- Communication
Tips:
- Implementing the new developments that keep happening now and then can help you improve your digital marketing skills.
- Understanding the right tools, metrics, and strategies is much helpful to run an efficient marketing campaign.
Is Freelance Digital Marketing Right for You?
To get a better picture of what to expect being a freelance digital marketer, here are the pros and cons of working in the marketplaces. Whether it’s better than a 9 to 5 job or not, you may decide after going through this section.
The Pros:
- Free to choose clients and companies to work for.
- Flexibility lets you decide your schedule.
- Credit goes to yourself.
- Choose where to work from.
- Multiple platforms to work on, so you would have a call from a client soon.
The Cons:
- You have to learn many skills falling under Digital marketing and that needs time.
- Might have to put time without making money while getting started. (consider it as an investment)
- Unsteady income.
- Work-life balance is just ideal for beginners.
How much can a freelance Digital Marketing specialist earn?
Your earnings may vary depending on your preferences, skill level, and the time you spend at work.
Professional freelance digital marketers can earn around $50/hr, making a yearly salary of $100,000.
Categories of Digital Marketing
Content Marketing
A content marketer creates and distributes content for a target audience resulting in profitable customer action. The content should be valuable and relevant to pursue the customers. For example, blog posts, videos, infographics, case studies, podcasts, and eBooks are some examples of content marketing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
SEO means generating relevant quality traffic by optimizing your content for search engines.
It includes:
- Keywords research to use in content.
- Optimizing Web Titles.
- Engaging Meta Description.
- Building relevant backlinks.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing refers to increasing a website’s visibility in search engines by using paid methods. For example, the ads you put out there on Google AdWords and Bing Ads are results of SEM.
“Ad” at the beginning of the URL indicates paid search results that you find on top of a search.
Tip: Use SEO with SEM to get yourself in front of the audience.
PPC is a model of marketing where a fee is paid every time someone clicks on the ad that you have placed. It is similar to SEM but sometime may fall under affiliate marketing.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
SMM refers to using social media platforms to generate traffic for business campaigns. You can increase exposure and build meaningful relationships with your customers using social media. It is one of the most used methods of digital marketing.
Inbound Marketing
When content marketing, SEO, and SMM are collectively used, it is called Inbound Marketing.
Some objectives of Inbound Marketing are:
- Drawing users’ attention,
- Motivating relevant traffic to the website,
- Converting the customers.
Affiliate Marketing
A person does a partnership with other businesses to collect a commission generating traffic.
Tip: Have you seen some Affiliate Links in blogs? Those are examples of affiliate marketing.
Email Marketing
Using emails to promote products or services by sending promotional messages is the process of Email Marketing. Its purpose is to generate leads and sales.
Instant Messaging Marketing
More than 1.5 billion people globally use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat.
You can proceed with Instant Messaging Marketing in different ways at a low cost. For example, you can use them for customer support to update your users about your blog posts.
Radio Advertising
By creating a great script and using some voice talent, you can engage with your audience easily.
Tip: Old-Fashioned but one of the low-cost effective marketing methods.
Television Advertising
You must have seen ads on your T.V Screen. That is actually T.V Marketing.
Expensive but came up with some great outputs. It mostly works for FMCG products, cars, clothing brands, medicine, food, etc.
Tip: The general population spends more than 4.5 hours a day in front of the TV screen.
Tools for Freelance Digital Marketer
Hubspot
This Software can handle all of your marketing responsibilities. Using this Software, you will be benefited from using many applications in a single place like marketing software, sales software, service software, etc.
Hubspot helps you take your career to another level and especially contributes to your customer’s satisfaction.
Free + Subscription.
Omnisend
It is an easy-to-use marketing tool that saves your time, allowing you to drive your marketing and sales goals without breaking a sweat. In addition, it provides some marketing templates to help you handle all your messages.
It can be linked with other e-commerce tools and applications that you can use as a freelance digital marketer.
Manychats
What if you can automate how you interact and have conversations on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and SMS?
Trusted by many business owners, Manychats automated tool can control your sales and marketing.
It is helpful to:
- Communicate interactively.
- Capture the client’s contacts.
- Book appointments with them.
- Sell products.
- Nurture leads
- Build relationships.
Tip: Do you know? Social media has a great impact on you, your clients, and your career.
Mailchimp
It is an Automated Marketing Tool that enables you to achieve successful sales online to build your brand. You can also use it to get a closer connection to your clients through successful mailing services.
Free + Paid.
Sendinblue
You can use this marketing tool to build an automated marketing system that boosts your overall performance and productivity.
As a digital marketer, using the Sendinblue automated tool, you can engage with your customers and build relationships by having consistent and meaningful communications.
Tip: You can send more than 9,000 emails per month for free using this tool.
Free + Paid.
Active Campaign
One of the top Marketing Automated Tools that boosts your reach and helps you engage and grow your customer base.
It enables you to achieve much in marketing. Some of its main features are:
- Email marketing.
- Lead scoring.
- Contact management.
- Engagement and site tracking.
Free + Paid.
Customer.io
This automated tool helps you to convert leads into sales. It also enables you to create a strategy that makeovers how you engage with your customers. You can easily change ideas into marketing realities using this tool.
Free + Paid.
Conclusion:
You have got everything you need to know about Freelance Digital marketing. Now you should be ready to take the initiative. And, if you have all the necessary skills, don’t wait. You just have to put your info on some freelancing platforms to get started.
Do you want to learn more about freelancing platforms?
We have prepared some guides for you that you may visit to learn more about Fiverr and Upwork :
FAQs
How to Become a Professional Freelance Digital Marketer?
Steps to follow to be a digital marketing freelancer:
- Build some of the necessary skills mentioned above.
- Create your professional profile on various freelancing platforms one by one.
- Learn to write an effective proposal.
- Set your prices.
- Get your first client.
- Create a strategy to start digital marketing.
- Pick up your tools to work efficiently.
- Manage your time.
- Get some positive reviews and build your portfolio.
- Create a personal website/blog.
Best Freelancing Websites for Digital Marketers
Here are listed some of the best websites to start as a freelance digital marketer and make your career grow fast.
What type of interview questions you may bump into?
As a Freelance Digital Marketer, you have to face some interviews. So, prepare yourself in advance with these sample questions to grab your first opportunity ASAP.
- What are some of the digital marketing software you are familiar with?
- What type of platforms would you prefer for digital marketing?
- What is more effective in digital marketing? “Inbound marketing” or “Outbound marketing.”
- What was your most successful campaign?
- What is the most effective part of an ad?
- What do you do if a campaign fails?
- How can you solve the problems we face in running Facebook ads?
- How many hours a week you can work for a company?
- Have you encountered any challenges in digital marketing?
- Are you experienced in collaborative digital marketing campaigns?
- Why are you suitable for this position?
- Can you work as VA for a company?
You can do some practice to solve them efficiently by getting help from the internet.
What is Lead Generation?
A ‘lead’ is simply somebody interested in your Products/Services.
A digital marketer uses some digital marketing techniques to provide opportunities for potential customers to reach you. Those customers are simply known as generated leads.
Why Do You Need Leads as a Digital Marketing Freelancer?
It would be best if you have leads as those leads let you improve and create an understanding of:
- Your potential customers.
- Their needs and interests.
- Best time to approach them.
- How to reach out to them.
So Lead Generation allows you to effectively engage with people who want to know more about your services, products, or business.
Using Digital Marketing for Lead Generation
Digital Marketing creates a more personalized experience in Lead Generation, moving along the funnel.
The power of Digital Marketing in the Lead generation is that it allows you to:
- Track customers’ behaviour.
- Analyze customers’ interactions.
You can use such a collection of data to define your customers’ needs. Thus you can help them to understand their requirements and interests better.
What does a Digital Marketing Agency do?
A digital marketing agency specializes in each category of online marketing, as given above. So, DMA offers a wide variety of marketing services like SMM, SEO, SEM, etc., under one roof. Assuring all of your business’s marketing needs, a DMA increases your sales and revenue.
What is Digital Marketing Strategy?
A Digital Marketing strategy is a set of strategic engagements that you perform online via the most suitable channels to reach some specific business marketing goals. The main purpose of the strategy is to increase revenue and improve customer relationships statistically.
How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy?
You can follow these simple steps to create a powerful digital marketing strategy.
- Research and collect some mandatory data about your target audience.
- Define your goals.
- Generate leads.
- Encourage potential customers.
- Plan customer care services.
- Set up marketing automation.
