When you first start to think about going freelance, you won’t always be aware of what it really involves. Sure, if you speak to any freelancers that you know, they’ll tell you all about their pitching troubles and how hard it can be to land a commission. And this might be the only negative thing or con that you’re aware of. For a lot of people, that’s a good thing. Because you won’t be s worried about getting set up. But when you do, you’ll quickly realize just how much work you have to put into this to make it work. You’ve essentially got your own small business on your hands! And as with any business, you need to market it. Yet, how can you handle and harness PR as a freelancer? Let’s take a look.
- Harness Your Own Brand
The very first thing that you need to do here, so make sure that you’re always harnessing your own brand. And this means creating a personal brand for yourself. So work out how you want to be seen. Even hire a designer to create assets for you. When you have a personal brand in place, you can then publicize it.
- Set A Budget
And then, you need a budget. Sure, you can get some PR for free, but if you’re serious about getting exposure, you may need a budget for this. So think about how you can allocate the right amount. This could be adjusting your budget, saving up money, or even looking into invoice factoring for small businesses options too. Because you may need to pay for a team, for freebies to give out, or even for an event! So you need to work out how much you want to spend.
- Reach Out
The next thing that you need to do here, is make sure that you’re reaching out and actually asking for the publicity! If you are not contacting editors or you’re not asking to submit a post about yourself or your company, then you will not get the feature. Something that can help you here, is networking. Because if you’re worried that don’t know anyone, then put yourself out there and make the connections.
- Hire An Expert
It may even be the case that you need to bring in an expert. This could be a PR firm, a consultant, or a member of staff. If you’re not getting the exposure that you’re looking for, then you may find that actually investing in an expert can help your freelance name out there.
- Keep Spinning Stories
Finally, you’re going to want to make sure that you have a constant stream of stories or ideas to put out into the world. If you want to be able to be mentioned in the media, be talked about on social media, or you want to get links back to your site, then you need to make sure that you’re pushing stories out there. So keep talking. Keep networking, sending ideas to outlets as well as formal press releases, and make sure that there is actually something for people to talk about too!