My April client search: What I'm doing and why
Here are the strategies and mindset shifts I'm adopting to find more work in April.
So far, my April is off to a good start — as of April 3, I’ve already met my minimum goal for booked work, and I may even hit my stretch goal. However, I did notice one big red flag — two of my clients are accounting for a large percentage of my total income. This has happened slowly over the past few months. I lost a couple of steady but lower-paying clients, while a couple of other clients have had their content needs expanded. Which is great, but it does put me in a vulnerable position if they decide to pull back in Q2.
So my goal for the month is to find two to three new mid-tier clients — clients that need recurring work and pay between $1,000 to $2,000 per month. This will help stabilize my income, so I’m not so heavily dependent on one-time spikes.
I thought it would be interesting to outline my plans for finding new work in April and how I’m prioritizing each. There are four main strategies I’ll be focusing on — following up with existing clients, reaching out to warm leads, targeted cold outreach, and applying to job postings that look like a good fit.
1. Following up with existing clients
There are two ways I’ll be approaching my existing clients — the first thing I’ll do is look through any existing clients who haven’t assigned me any work, let them know I have availability, and ask if there’s anything they need help with. This almost always results in at least one or two new assignments.
But as I finish work for my current clients and turn it in, I’ll also let them know I have the bandwidth for more assignments in April and to please let me know if they need help with anything else. This often results in additional articles.
2. Reach out to warm leads
Next, I’ll make a list of everyone I’ve ever worked with or talked to about potential freelance work. These could be editors I haven’t talked to in a while, potential clients I had a call with that never went anywhere, clients I worked with who moved on to other companies, etc. The point is that this person already knows me, so they’re more likely to convert at a higher rate than cold emails.
3. Targeted cold outreach
I also have a list of 15-20 companies I plan to cold email. These are companies in my niche with an active blog or that are actively producing content somehow. I also like to look for companies that have active content or marketing job postings, which indicates they clearly invest in content.
For me, this looks like fintech or financial services companies and companies offering home equity solutions. I also plan to look into content agencies — this can be slightly less reliable, but these companies always tend to need reliable writers and understand how to work with freelancers. I’ll email most of those companies within the first week or two, and then spend the rest of the month following up.
You may notice my cold email list is pretty small. That’s because I like to keep my outreach narrow and focused. I think a common belief around cold emailing is that you have to contact hundreds of companies just to get a response, but that’s never been my experience. Keeping my list small helps me focus on companies that are likely to hire me, and then I focus my energy on following up with them.
4. Apply to job postings that look like a good fit
Finally, it’s still possible to find freelance work from LinkedIn job postings. I don’t spend a lot of time on this, but I do browse through job postings, and I’ll apply to anything that seems like it could be a good fit. The key is, you have to apply early — if you wait even a day or two, your message will likely get buried among the hundreds of other freelancers who already applied.
I recommend that you track job postings through All Things Freelance Writing or Freelance Opportunities! Both are newsletters that give you access to daily job postings, so you have a better opportunity to actually land work.
Some final thoughts
As you’re coming up with your own freelance marketing plan, it’s important to have a specific goal you’re working toward. For example, I always have a minimum income goal and a stretch goal. And I try to be specific in the kinds of clients I’m looking for. Having a specific goal gives me something to focus on, and it keeps me more engaged with my marketing plan throughout the month.
I also think it’s important to hold your marketing plan lightly and treat it like it’s an experiment. There’s a reason I named my Substack newsletter The Freelance Income Lab — because finding work as a freelance writer takes experimentation.
You may stumble onto a strategy that works well for a long time, and then it suddenly stops working. You may have to try different strategies to see what produces results. Sometimes strategies that didn’t work in the past will start working again.
And for me, treating it like an experiment helps me avoid becoming negative if something isn’t working. If you’re counting on a specific strategy to work and it doesn’t, it’s easy to throw up your hands and say, “I knew it. No one’s hiring. It’s so hard to be a freelance writer right now.” Whereas treating it like an experiment means you’re already acknowledging that it may not work. So instead of getting frustrated, you can shift and try something else.
If you have no marketing plan to speak of or don’t know what your freelance writing goals should be, I want you to know that’s completely normal, and it’s exactly the kind of thing we can work through together. I offer two Freelance Income Audits weekly, where we review your business and map out a clear path forward. If that sounds helpful, you can sign up for your spot or shoot me an email.