› Forums › The Black Freelancer Forum › Your ideal client in 1 sentence (foundational exercise for all freelancers)
Tagged: clients, Exercises, getting started, marketing
This topic contains 7 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by Anonymous 7 years, 5 months ago.
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August 18, 2015 at 10:57 AM #1075
This simple exercise is crucial to your success as a freelancer because it determines everything from how your website looks to how much you’ll charge. It might change with time and as you learn the true value you bring your clients, but at any given point, you should be able to describe who you serve.
This is something we should all keep up with, and I’ve had some changes lately myself, so I’ll go first…
I serve mid-to-large B2B niche businesses who are looking to drive business/leads by either launching, reforming, or improving their online content presences.
Check out the structure there. It includes a description of the client, what they want to do (their goals), and how I do it for them (what I sell). It may take you a while to get more specific (at first I only knew the second element and my industry), but go ahead and give it a try. If you only know that you write for publications with Black readers interested in horror…great! Any bit of information is a good start. Your turn!
- This topic was modified 9 years, 3 months ago by BlackFreelance.
- This topic was modified 9 years, 3 months ago by BlackFreelance.
August 18, 2015 at 2:55 PM #1077My ideal client would be a mid-sized niche publishing or social justice company with growing and developing content and social media needs.
August 18, 2015 at 8:46 PM #1084I feel like that is a small, but growing client pool…am I wrong?
April 5, 2016 at 1:45 PM #2448I hope so!
April 27, 2017 at 4:57 PM #4023As a newbie, I’ve had a hard time defining who my ideal client is, because I haven’t had one. I’ve written a few articles for community newspapers, but I haven’t done other types of writing. So I don’t know how to focus my work enough to fit a niche. I would prefer to work for a small or medium-sized company initially.
April 27, 2017 at 5:28 PM #4025Even that’s a great start though, Colette!
Size is a big factor in choosing clients. Are there any industries that interest you? What did you write on at the community papers?
April 27, 2017 at 5:52 PM #4026The clips I have are old, and mostly offline. I put links to my two most recent clips here. Both pieces covered a couple of protests.
I am interested in the health care industry. This is related to personal experience. I was injured in a car wreck several years ago, forcing me out of work for 5 months. I had good insurance at the time, and so my health and my finances were not negatively affected. But I often read about others who are in worse situations. I also follow many health care reporters on Twitter.
I’m also interested in government affairs, in terms of how programs are processed and funded. I worked in state government jobs where I had to track how funds from federal grants were used in local programs.
My final interests are in labor issues and housing issues. But I don’t think I can make much money writing about that stuff. Health care is big in my local area. Three of the top private sector employers are hospital systems. But I get lost in trying to translate my work experience to writing for clients.
May 31, 2017 at 6:40 PM #4224
AnonymousWhat a great site!
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