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Marketing Yourself - Just Do It - Here's How - UPYOUR


eoinfinnegan

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In my recent poll, the following results occurred.

  • 51% of us admitted “I do not do enough marketing”
  • 30% of us know/believe “I do not show up in search results”
  • Only 12% of us have “got an order from a client I brought to Fiverr myself”
  • Only 10% of us have “got an order from a client through social media”
  • 7% said “Our marketing is not working even though I spend time and money on it”

It is clear that we need to do more ourselves to build our business and increase our sales. If you read the forum regularly, one of the common mantras is “you should not rely solely on Fiverr”. I see it posted daily and I agree with it as I am sure you do too. The problem is - many of us still do.
This post is to help anyone who is prepared to take matters into their own hands and really focus on building their business. I have focused on two areas of marketing. One is mainly aimed at instant or short term results, the other is aimed at longer term results. My suggestion is that you do both.

Advertising

I bet a lot of people have never paid for an ad.
It is one of the most basic forms of marketing yet many small business and especially freelancers have never done it. If done properly, it is extremely effective and value for money. So how do you go about placing an ad for your services? Well, this is easiest to explain with an example so I am going to use writers/rewriters as an example.
Who do you want to sell to? Online, writers and rewriters are likely to do a lot of their work for websites/website designers/affiliate marketers. This is a target market. So where are they? Where do they hang out online? One place is the site Black Hat World (I have no affiliation with that site). A small ad on that site can cost as little as $20-30/week yet this is, as they accurately call themselves, the home of internet marketing. It is where web designers, SEO people and affiliate marketers go to find info on the best way to promote themselves. There are many other similar places which could be cheaper so look around and see what suits you.

When doing ads for your target audience, there are 4 key points to keep in mind.

Consistency: When you choose to advertise as a small business, it is important that you are consistent in what you do and specifically in two ways.

  1. Where and when you advertise is important. Being consistent builds trust and familiarity with your audience
  2. Your message: Don’t constantly change what you offer such as huge discounts now and then. Broadcast a message of value rather than “cheapness”. Sure, offering a discount is ok but give it a purpose such as Black Friday/Cyber Monday, holidays etc. The target market for most freelancers are constantly bombarded with “super discount deals” and are usually immune to them. Those who do jump at them will leave as soon as your discount ends.

Measurable: When advertising, you need to be able to track results. If you don’t then how do you know what works? This can be done in a number of ways but a very effective way is to offer an extra for mentioning where they saw you. Eg. On your ad, say “Extra 10% free when you mention www.example.site. Asking your clients how they found you is difficult and often inaccurate but not a bad idea either.

Affordable (Money): There are no guarantees with advertising. You may not get back what you invest so financially, do not throw a big budget at something new and never spend more than you can afford.

Direct: When you buy advertising space etc, it is not the time to be subtle. We are not Coca-Cola, we are simply not at a point where our advertising should be based on “giving people a good feeling” like Coke’s holiday advertising. It needs to catch attention and get your message across, it needs to be appealing to your audience and make an impact in a short space of time. Look at your service – as a general rule - if it is text based then your ad can be text based, if it is graphic/image based then you need to include graphics/images. Nobody is interested in a graphic designer who writes well or a writer who takes beautiful photos.

Relational Marketing (inc. Social Media)

This is the lifeblood of many small businesses and freelancers.
You are probably doing some of this without even realizing. While below I am focusing on the online aspect of this, you can also do this offline and often it is easier and more effective. Essentially, the aim of this is to be the person in your (online or offline) community who when people think of or ask others about eg. writers, the answer they think of or are told is “Talk to Eoin, he knows all about that stuff”. If you have ever lived in a small town, you will know who the local butcher, mechanic, painter etc is. Relational marketing is the process of becoming “THAT GUY”.

Below are 4 points that are vital to note and practice to become that guy. BE:

Consistent: Even more important here than in advertising. This method of marketing requires complete consistency. You need to do it regularly and count it as part of your workday/week. There is no point announcing yourself on a forum and then not returning for 2 months. Wherever you choose to engage, you need to commit to visiting a couple of times per week. This applies to all forms of social media including blogs and forums.
If you create a blog or site then you need to commit to updating it regularly. Your content needs to be consistent and regular. Some find it worthwhile to spend one day per month creating 4-6 blog posts and then posting them weekly – others prefer to write them each week.
Note: If you prewrite blogs, always check for current events that may connect to your post in a positive or negative way! Highlight the positive ways, remove the negative ways!

Personal: This method works best if you are you! Think like you, post like you (appropriately!), react like you (professionally). Engage with people, ask good questions, inquire about what others do, think, believe, hope for etc. When asked, answer. Answer questions about things you know about, not about things you don’t but be interested and willing to learn. In this way, when you DO post something, people will listen as they have seen that you only answer things you know about. Nobody likes a know-it-all but everyone hates a thinks-he-knows-it-all.

Indirect: Do not directly offer your services to people on social media, blogs, forums etc. The world is full of, and sick of, people doing this. It doesn’t work and is a huge turn off. People will simply ignore you. Despite what social media companies want shareholders and advertisers want us to believe, SM is still mainly social. If you go around showing off, promoting, pushing etc, people will view you as anti-social and that is not what they are on that platform to see. Instead, you want to be the person that people are interested in enough to find out what you do, by asking or checking your profile. Then, when you have been consistent, people will seek you out when they need your advice/service. You can give some advice away freely but always charge for your services.

Knowledge based: Do you know what you are talking about? This is the subconscious question people will ask every time they see something you write or hear something you say. If you do then they will listen, if you don’t then they will laugh at you. It is that simple. It is vital to know what you are talking about, that you research any “facts” you think you know, that any stats you quote are accurate. This builds credibility and over time it builds trust which leads to reliance on you. When people rely on you, they will pay for your knowledge.
Note: Do not get drawn too deeply into arguments. It never looks good. Make your points, listen to the others’ points, be prepared to learn/accept opinions. You are not out to change the world one post at a time – some people love arguments but for the drama, not to learn.

So that’s it. Two different approaches to marketing that you can begin today to improve your sales. Yes, Advertising should be done in moderation but when you get good results, keep doing it. Relational marketing takes time and effort but the reward is much greater as it becomes easier over time. You are also much more likely to get referrals through relational marketing. What’s stopping you?
Why not commit to spending $50 on advertising this month - choose the target carefully and just go for it!
How about you decide to allocate just 1 hour per week to Relational Marketing? You can afford that I’m sure - split it into 3-4 slots of 15-20 minutes over a week and you will see results but don’t forget to come back here too or I’ll miss you!
Edit: If you are serious about using Social Media, check out This Post which is written by the only person I know of who’s Fiverr gig shows up in position 2 on Google when you search for his keyword. For my explanation as to why, Click Here

This post is one of a series of posts I am doing which are aimed at helping sellers to Up Their Game and begin to earn more from their work, gain new clients and make the most of being a freelancer. The posts will mainly be based on This Poll which is still open so if you haven’t made your voice heard, please do so as the more that vote on an issue in that poll, the more likely I am to post about that issue.
To see all posts in the series, Click Here

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On 4/27/2017 at 8:06 AM, eoinfinnegan said:

Only 12% of us have “got an order from a client a client I brought to Fiverr myself”

Just an annotation to this point - the other day a new, to me and fiverr, client told me they’d been referred to me by someone they know, and I think there might have been one or two other such cases, though I didn´t ‘hear’ it black on white, so I assume there is a dark figure, some of us might have “got…” without realising it.

Not really that relevant probably, but thought I´d mention it, for the sake of science, statistics and so on. 😉

Some nice points in there for me to consider and maybe apply, thank you, now if I only had the time would drop some other things to make the time for them… 👀 

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Only 12% of us have “got an order from a client a client I brought to Fiverr myself”

Just an annotation to this point - the other day a new, to me and fiverr, client told me they’d been referred to me by someone they know, and I think there might have been one or two other such cases, though I didn´t ‘hear’ it black on white, so I assume there is a dark figure, some of us might have “got…” without realising it.

Not really that relevant probably, but thought I´d mention it, for the sake of science, statistics and so on. 😉

Some nice points in there for me to consider and maybe apply, thank you, now if I only had the time would drop some other things to make the time for them… 👀

In my case, I get clients from social media, provide them lifetime support, they appreciate me so much that they literally advertise me for free XD

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The best advertising is client based advertising in my opinion.This week alone I got over 15 orders from client referrals alone.

For sure, it can be a great way to get clients. However, not every client can be a referrer. The main problem is that it is unreliable and mainly relies on other people. The point of this post was to give people ideas for things they can do themselves to gain clients.

I am curious as to what “Lifetime Support” from a writer is though?

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Great post. Just to add to your Relational Marketing section - let us add specific sites/methods that offer good opportunities for this type of marketing.

From my experience, these websites are worth investing your time in:
Quora, your personal blog, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Udemy, Medium.

Note that each of these have a different type of content that is more popular natively. So you can use one idea and format it to fit each platform. Example: you write a blog post and post it on your blog then you use that same information and reformat it into a ‘listy’ post for Quora, shorten it for Medium, turn it into a video for YouTube, make an infographic out of it for Pinterest, smaller graphic for Instagram, short course for Udemy and so on…

A benefit of doing this is that the potential for exposure is much much higher than e.g. merely posting something on your blog, and you don’t have to pay anything.

Edit: Also - forgot to add - the point of spreading yourself across many platforms is that they all are designed to reach different audiences. For example, Pinterest is more popular among women so if you have, let’s say, a gig about women’s fashion, Pinterest would be the place to go to reach those women. On the other hand, you can go to Medium for people who are more into reading and writing and offer your book cover design services there. Each platform has its ups and downs so studying and making use of that seems to be beneficial in the long run.

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For sure, it can be a great way to get clients. However, not every client can be a referrer. The main problem is that it is unreliable and mainly relies on other people. The point of this post was to give people ideas for things they can do themselves to gain clients.

I am curious as to what “Lifetime Support” from a writer is though?

Lifetime support is basically managing their blogs for them 😃

So basically, every order they make I handle everything, this causes buyers to choose my $20 package for 500 words and I get more referrals. Since these are buyers I brought over from social media they are way more reliable.

As for my product listing gig, I provide support if they face any issues in their listing down the line (like wanting to make variations, change title, keywords…etc)

Basically, be super nice to one buyer so they bring you more buyers.

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Great post. Just to add to your Relational Marketing section - let us add specific sites/methods that offer good opportunities for this type of marketing.

From my experience, these websites are worth investing your time in:

Quora, your personal blog, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Udemy, Medium.

Note that each of these have a different type of content that is more popular natively. So you can use one idea and format it to fit each platform. Example: you write a blog post and post it on your blog then you use that same information and reformat it into a ‘listy’ post for Quora, shorten it for Medium, turn it into a video for YouTube, make an infographic out of it for Pinterest, smaller graphic for Instagram, short course for Udemy and so on…

A benefit of doing this is that the potential for exposure is much much higher than e.g. merely posting something on your blog, and you don’t have to pay anything.

Edit: Also - forgot to add - the point of spreading yourself across many platforms is that they all are designed to reach different audiences. For example, Pinterest is more popular among women so if you have, let’s say, a gig about women’s fashion, Pinterest would be the place to go to reach those women. On the other hand, you can go to Medium for people who are more into reading and writing and offer your book cover design services there. Each platform has its ups and downs so studying and making use of that seems to be beneficial in the long run.

Absolutely, your examples and method are great and really effective.

For those who are more time conscious, it can be an idea to use “snippets” - small parts of your blog - on different sites. A quote with a link to the full post can draw people to your blog and perhaps then to other posts you have written. This works well with Quora, Twitter, Facebook and could be adapted to creating images such as putting your quote on a relevant image to share on the image focused sites.

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Lifetime support is basically managing their blogs for them 😃

So basically, every order they make I handle everything, this causes buyers to choose my $20 package for 500 words and I get more referrals. Since these are buyers I brought over from social media they are way more reliable.

As for my product listing gig, I provide support if they face any issues in their listing down the line (like wanting to make variations, change title, keywords…etc)

Basically, be super nice to one buyer so they bring you more buyers.

I understand. It is a fine line though, if you are doing free work in the hope of getting referrals you can also end up doing a lot of work for no money. It is a great method when done well though.

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I understand. It is a fine line though, if you are doing free work in the hope of getting referrals you can also end up doing a lot of work for no money. It is a great method when done well though.

Also - forgot to add - the point of spreading yourself across many platforms is that they all are designed to reach different audiences. For example, Pinterest is more popular among women so if you have, let’s say, a gig about women’s fashion, Pinterest would be the place to go to reach those women. On the other hand, you can go to Medium for people who are more into reading and writing and offer your book cover design services there. Each platform has its ups and downs so studying and making use of that seems to be beneficial in the long run.

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I understand. It is a fine line though, if you are doing free work in the hope of getting referrals you can also end up doing a lot of work for no money. It is a great method when done well though.

There’s really no free work (not up till now though). the oldest client I’ve tried this with was 6 months ago and he still makes an order with me as well as referring me to his friends and on facebook groups. The only instance anyone has actually used the support was when they were having some issues from amazon but it was mostly advice.

In either case, the best method to get client referrals is be nice, be very nice,

P.S

Anyone that wants to do comic strips or art needs to get themselves a Tumblr. That site is like a goldmine after you hit 1K followers. A friend of mine bags in around $4000 a month taking patreon request through his Tumblr, it’s insane how much people are willing to pay for ero-fanfics.

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There’s really no free work (not up till now though). the oldest client I’ve tried this with was 6 months ago and he still makes an order with me as well as referring me to his friends and on facebook groups. The only instance anyone has actually used the support was when they were having some issues from amazon but it was mostly advice.

In either case, the best method to get client referrals is be nice, be very nice,

P.S

Anyone that wants to do comic strips or art needs to get themselves a Tumblr. That site is like a goldmine after you hit 1K followers. A friend of mine bags in around $4000 a month taking patreon request through his Tumblr, it’s insane how much people are willing to pay for ero-fanfics.

A friend of mine bags in around $4000 a month taking patreon request through his Tumblr, it’s insane how much people are willing to pay for ero-fanfics.

I think that may be more due to the content than the platform it’s marketed on. 🙂

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Something to add - make sure your profile contains a way to find what you sell. Sounds simple right? I forgot in one case.😖 

On 4/28/2017 at 1:04 AM, eoinfinnegan said:

Do not get drawn too deeply into arguments. It never looks good. Make your points, listen to the others’ points, be prepared to learn/accept opinions. You are not out to change the world one post at a time – some people love arguments but for the drama, not to learn.

It seems to be really easy to forget that here.🙂 

On 4/28/2017 at 1:08 AM, thecreativeguys said:

People are turned off when they see a comment:

“Check our my gig on Fiverr for $5 here”

They seem to respond to “click here” followed by a link better than the “check out my Gig” message. 🙂 

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A friend of mine bags in around $4000 a month taking patreon request through his Tumblr, it’s insane how much people are willing to pay for ero-fanfics.

I think that may be more due to the content than the platform it’s marketed on. 🙂

I’m sorry to say that kind of content can only be sold through Tumblr 😉

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People are turned off when they see a comment:

“Check our my gig on Fiverr for $5 here”

They seem to respond to “click here” followed by a link better than the “check out my Gig” message. 🙂

Honestly, I never include links to my gigs. I include my Fiverr profile link in my SM profile and if people want to, they find it or ask.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great write-up. Some questions for you, and these are ones that I myself also struggle to understand and correctly execute:

  • How do sellers communicate value to buyers?
  • How do buyers perceive value?
  • How can sellers increase their buyers’ perception of value?

The way I’ve been approaching these questions has been to try and see myself through the eyes of my buyers and to write for their perspective, not mine. For MANY professionals who have to sell their products, programs, or services, the #1 challenge which must be overcome in order for anything else to happen in the sales process is to establish value. If the salesperson can’t establish value, then nothing else matters because the buyer will never pay for the offered product, program, or service.

A friend who talks business with me on occasion asked me such a question - How do you establish value? - and to be honest I had a hard time answering because I thought I had it all nailed down. I mut be doing something right because my sales are quite good, but pressed to say exactly what I was doing, it was difficult to say so with precision.

So, as another entry in the UPYOUR series, would you be interested in discussing how sellers can communicate value? Surely this is a lot to do with offering products, programs, and services that align with buyer’s needs and desires, but how can sellers make the best presentation in the limited space available to help buyers perceive value?

2096719320_ValueEquationGraphic20copy.jpg.b2d14ca8391d764addd20ca4194e1e51.jpg

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Great write-up. Some questions for you, and these are ones that I myself also struggle to understand and correctly execute:

  • How do sellers communicate value to buyers?
  • How do buyers perceive value?
  • How can sellers increase their buyers’ perception of value?

The way I’ve been approaching these questions has been to try and see myself through the eyes of my buyers and to write for their perspective, not mine. For MANY professionals who have to sell their products, programs, or services, the #1 challenge which must be overcome in order for anything else to happen in the sales process is to establish value. If the salesperson can’t establish value, then nothing else matters because the buyer will never pay for the offered product, program, or service.

A friend who talks business with me on occasion asked me such a question - How do you establish value? - and to be honest I had a hard time answering because I thought I had it all nailed down. I mut be doing something right because my sales are quite good, but pressed to say exactly what I was doing, it was difficult to say so with precision.

So, as another entry in the UPYOUR series, would you be interested in discussing how sellers can communicate value? Surely this is a lot to do with offering products, programs, and services that align with buyer’s needs and desires, but how can sellers make the best presentation in the limited space available to help buyers perceive value?

7c3cc27971a85b8bdae0ebe445855c29f73647f6.jpg

These are excellent questions and ones which are often not answered. Often the advice sellers get is “focus on quality/value” etc but without anything specific. The thing is, value is extremely subjective and the perception of value is different for different people. Even when it comes to the same service, what we do for one client may have no value (or even be negative) to another.

I think in a sense, this is the answer to why you are doing well -

try and see myself through the eyes of my buyers and to write for their perspective, not mine

Asking yourself what a buyer needs, wants and values is an important part of the process. Some value lots of communication whereas others value the ability of a seller to just take instructions and then deliver the goods. Polar opposites in terms of how you approach them but equally valid.

I could write a lot about this off the top of my head but I think it would be a valuable addition to the series so I will work on a proper post in the coming days.

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These are excellent questions and ones which are often not answered. Often the advice sellers get is “focus on quality/value” etc but without anything specific. The thing is, value is extremely subjective and the perception of value is different for different people. Even when it comes to the same service, what we do for one client may have no value (or even be negative) to another.

I think in a sense, this is the answer to why you are doing well -

try and see myself through the eyes of my buyers and to write for their perspective, not mine

Asking yourself what a buyer needs, wants and values is an important part of the process. Some value lots of communication whereas others value the ability of a seller to just take instructions and then deliver the goods. Polar opposites in terms of how you approach them but equally valid.

I could write a lot about this off the top of my head but I think it would be a valuable addition to the series so I will work on a proper post in the coming days.

Some value lots of communication whereas others value the ability of a seller to just take instructions and then deliver the goods.

That can be used to better address the kind of buyers the seller wants to work with, I guess (if the seller prefers to attract a certain type of buyers). Someone who wants to discuss everything before the order is placed can emphasize the communication, while someone who prefers the buyer to just place the order can emphasize his/her ability to take the instructions and deliver.

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Some value lots of communication whereas others value the ability of a seller to just take instructions and then deliver the goods.

That can be used to better address the kind of buyers the seller wants to work with, I guess (if the seller prefers to attract a certain type of buyers). Someone who wants to discuss everything before the order is placed can emphasize the communication, while someone who prefers the buyer to just place the order can emphasize his/her ability to take the instructions and deliver.

That is exactly it.

Some need some hand holding or friendliness, others just want to order and get on with life.

Literally happened in the past 2 days:

One client who sent me a one sentence inquiry, I sent them back a large answer. The next response was send me an offer for the Premium gig.

Another client, he and I are at the point where we are sharing videos of our fave places for holidaying in our country is. He is in the US, I am here and he is loving the communication - I am too actually - but there is no way I am going to send a video to the first client!

Both bought the premium gig and both have been extremely happy with the service with ongoing potential!

Different strokes for different folks.

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  • 2 months later...

This has been really helpful. For my niche in transcription and subtitling of videos, what better way would be to market my skill. I can’t pay for ads because I’m in a country where foreign transactions are difficult and I just joined twitter and Instagram yesterday. How would I be able to get clients outside Fiverr for my niche without passing for a scam? I anticipate replies. Thank you.

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  • 2 months later...

The best advertising is client based advertising in my opinion.This week alone I got over 15 orders from client referrals alone.

The best advertising is client based advertising in my opinion.This week alone I got over 15 orders from client

Hi Bro , Please I wanna Do Advertise for My gig But i didn’t know the right way for doing it . so please what’s this method you just said in the comment . sorry i didn’t understood it well .

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