Freelance Work: 90 Tips to Find New Leads Online Fast

If you’re a freelance writer, then you know that the skill to make money online isn’t as easy as everyone may think, and one of the biggest problems every freelancer faces is getting new leads.

Imagine, you’ve completed one enormous project in time, and you have no work to accomplish afterwards—what steps should you take?

Well, we have a list of helpful ideas to help you optimize your freelance work to generate leads.

Here they are, divided into several categories:

Communicate to get more customer leads

1. Did you know that 36% of freelancers encounter clients with the assistance of their friends and relatives? Ask your family to recommend your freelance writing and appoint consultations with you if they have a possibility.
2. In the freelance world, if your client is satisfied, you ask them to help you with referrals. Don’t be introverted—referrals are a beneficial way to generate new leads.
3. When making your e-mail list to send letters with your services and contacts, spend some time to develop a message.
4. To make your regular customers return to your copywriting services, offer them discounts for getting new leads.

5. Find a freelance worker or an offline specialist for a mutually profitable partnership. For example, you can recommend a fantastic presentation designer to your clients, while he or she generates leads for you, too.
6. Offer something free to your referrals—people will recommend your writing work willingly if you give free consultations or write the first 1000 words for them with a discount.
7. Always bring your bright and appealing printed business cards with you wherever you go—it’s difficult to predict where you will meet new clients.

Take care of your e-mail list

8. Don’t lose your past customers—you can continue your partnership for very extended periods! Offer new kinds of freelance writing jobs to them, or give them discounts if they don’t come back.
9. Send messages to your e-mail list, when you’re finishing big projects, to maintain work when the project is completed.
10. The news about discounts and unique proposals are remarkable examples for a newsletter.

11. Include useful information about the freelance job you provide and links to your writing samples in the e-mail signature.
12. Determine how often you will produce newsletters for your e-mail list and what length is suitable. Some clients will notice if you were writing a monthly newsletter and then stopped for six months.
13. Collect testimonials from your leads online, so you can always use them to prove your freelance work quality.

14. When you finish a writing job for your customers, tell them about other services that you offer. It could interest them and prolong the contract, which is an excellent profit for you.
15. Use marketing tips to make your freelance editing or writing desirable to target your e-mails and achieve your primary goal—lead generation.
16. Don’t just send them sales offers; it may seem strange, but informative messages are more likely to attract customers. Tell them how to find a freelancer or how to control freelance online work—something that can interest your audience.

Go to events which are not connected with freelancers’ work

17. Visit all the important events in your city so that you can distribute your business cards at conferences, lectures or presentations, because this can increase your lead list.
18. Be enthusiastic to give lectures yourself if you’re asked to—if you have some secrets to reveal you can share your knowledge with others, and it can help your audience to upgrade their skills. Then, if they like your speech, there will be an excellent possibility that you will see fresh leads on your website.
19. Go to the meetings, universities and conferences in the sphere where your potential new leads work. If you write about cooking, visit a cookery school, or if you compose articles about space technologies, talk about your writing job at university seminars.

20. Don’t have any events to visit in your city? Organize one. Of course, it may be too expensive for a freelance journalist, but think how wonderful it could be to become a sponsor of a big event.
21. Giving out your business cards should become one of your everyday habits, but to do so, it’s necessary to communicate with people a lot. The more people know you, the more leads come to order your freelance jobs like articles or translations.
22. If you’re a student or you have kids who go to school, promote your services at the meetings and other events.
23. Get acquainted with other freelance writers, so that you can share your work when one of you has a lot of projects. You may agree with the idea that clients are not big fans of being refused, so you should recommend them another freelancer to hire instead of disappointing them with just your refusal.

24. Share some of your tips with people—write articles about the freelance job or copywriting work. It’ll help increase your chances of being invited as a public speaker to an event or meeting.
25. Rehearse the speech about the freelance services that you offer, so that you can promote yourself as a freelance worker anytime.
26. Sign up for newsletters, forums, and blogs about the events in your city, to make up a calendar that will help you to not miss something interesting.
27. Save all of your presentations, so that you can save time if you have to prepare for lectures or seminars on freelance writing.
28. Every presentation and handout should contain your contacts because if they don’t, you can lose your best leads.

Use sales elements to improve your freelance career

29. Buy an advertisement in a magazine or newspaper, but remember to make your message personal and appealing. There are a lot of writing gigs that can be found with the help of these social media instruments.
30. It’s convenient if you have a narrow area in freelance writing to get an advertisement on the sites and blogs that your clients are interested in.
31. Use Google Adwords for customers to find you when searching for freelancers and freelance job boards. It’s an economical way of customer lead generation because you only pay when people go through the link.
32. Printing a bright, persuasive sign to place on your car is another way to find sales leads.

33. Make some creative t-shirts or bags with your contact details, but be careful with the message that you place on them because it will show your skills as a freelancer.
34. If people search for freelancers, be the first freelancer they see—post your ad everywhere. Promote your freelance services on blogs and forums where your clients can search for you.
35. Online greeting cards are what you need to become a popular freelance writer—create beautiful messages for every holiday and send them to your e-mail list.
36. Cooperate with a freelance designer or freelance cartoonist to make your cards even more unique.
37. Give your best leads pens, calendars or sketchbooks with your brand mark—gifts are always a pleasure.

38. Spend some personal time on the internet to use web directories for promoting your freelance services.
39. When taking writing gigs for websites or magazines, ask your employer for an advertisement—offer a discount for them to use instead.
40. Always add examples of your writing to your portfolio—examples of your work always matter to your future leads.
41. Make cold calls to your potential leads with the help of your e-mail list—if it’s large enough, you have a great possibility to find a new client.

Develop your freelance career to become a better writer

42. Complete courses to improve your writing skills and get a certificate, which you can place on your website.
43. Create your own course and publish it on YouTube—it’s a widespread way to increase your popularity.
44. Write a book on topics similar to How to find a freelancer or Freelance writing work online.
45. Sell electronic copies of your book, so that you can make money online even when your projects are over.
46. Give an interview to a local magazine or newspaper. It could help to increase your popularity.
47. Go on a radio program to share your experience about your work as a freelancer with the whole city.

48. If you’re a bilingual speaker, try to work as a freelance translator—the more tasks you can accomplish, the more clients you have.
49. Write “How to” articles for freelance websites. These websites often search for content, and you can offer your help.
50. Write articles for your blog once a week—it’s enough to have regular visitors.
51. Share useful information for freelance journalists on your website, such as new freelancer tools and apps.
52. Take part in writing competitions that are not challenging to find, and post their results on your blog or website.
53. Don’t just write as an online freelance journalist—there are a lot of tasks to be found in offline magazines.

Use social media and forums for lead generation

54. Use Twitter’s search bar to find new leads, entering hashtags to search for your targeted leads.
55. Find some interesting chats in Twitter connected with your area of freelance work.
56. Retweet your past clients’ content or share some articles yourself, so that you can keep the relationship, and, simultaneously, make it easier for others to find you.
57. Socialize—Twitter is a place where everyone can ask a question or discuss someone’s tweet, so don’t be shy and write more.

58. Find fresh leads in Facebook groups, but don’t annoy them with sales letters—just talk with them.
59. Join several groups where your potential leads communicate and take part in conversations.
60. Share your practical tips on Facebook and repost your past clients’ content from time to time.
61. Spend your time helping people with freelance writing online. If you can do it well, people will see your professionalism.
62. Become an admin of your own freelance writing group on the internet—if your group is successful, then you’ll have a lot of fresh leads because people already trust you.
63. Create adverts on Facebook—these campaigns improve lead generation through careful targeting.
64. Join forums to find new clients and partners, and, simultaneously, answer questions to help people.

65. Create a unique signature for your account to get fresh leads every time you post a message.
66. Quote your articles about freelance writing if they’re related to the topic, so that you can lead clients to your website.
67. Check freelance websites every day to attract fresh leads and keep up-to-date with new tendencies in the work field.
68. Check offline job boards to know when writers are needed—many freelancers only work with offline job boards.
69. Upgrade your profiles on job boards to show your writing skills and talents to large audiences of potential leads.
70. Let people see your writing samples on freelance websites without pulling them to your site.

Volunteer your freelance writing services

71. Sometimes you can write posts for other websites to promote your services, especially for famous companies.
72. Writing for charity events can get you the best leads. Just find some events and offer your help.
73. Give free consultations about freelance writing—or a small discount – to attract new leads.
74. Ask your local stores to display your brochures, and do some freelance editing for them in return.

75. Give speeches, lectures and seminars in particular universities for free—don’t ignore students while promoting your job.
76. If you’re a freelance translator, post translations of interesting articles with your contact details.
77. Rework some old articles for your past clients to encourage them to return or send new leads.
78. Write guest blog posts from time to time for your partners’ and competitors’ websites, and let them write on yours.
79. Subscribe to blogs and newsletters where people ask for free help, and take conversations with them seriously.

Develop your freelance website

80. Starting a blog is essential for a freelance writer. You can create it on your website – naturally, such a tactic increases the number of testimonials on the website.
81. If you don’t know how to create a website for freelancing, exchange your services with a designing company.
82. Repost all of your blog posts, tutorials, reviews and articles on Twitter and Facebook to get the best leads from their audiences.
83. Post your awards and certificates on your website, so that everyone can see why you’re better than any other writer.
84. Giving discount codes in your blog posts or newsletter to generate leads is an excellent strategy.
85. Develop tutorials for freelance writers to improve their skills or for clients to learn how to find freelancers.

86. Make reports about different job boards, so that everyone can check your site when searching for advice.
87. Search optimize your pages so that your freelance website can get to the top of the popular search engines.
88. Rewrite your old posts to improve them—it’s much easier than composing new articles. Moreover, it’s your chance to show a new methodology of writing and professionalism.
89. Carefully create your portfolio, and try not to add every piece of text that you’ve written—only the best ones.
90. Collect links to your best clients’ websites so that you can show your work not only in your portfolio.

These freelance writing ideas will greatly benefit you and can get new leads for you in no time.

If you’re experiencing a lack of clients, you don’t have to be disappointed in freelance work—in fact, there’s no one to blame at all.

Just apply these CoolClub tips, and you’ll get the best leads!