Answering on Reddit: Finding Clients

The best advice I have for how to get new clients.

This was a question posted by /u/talktoeditors96 and is a perfect example of the types of questions I see online and get directly all the time.

His question:

“Hey,

I’m trying to leave the content mill life behind but I’m having some trouble. I got my freelance writing website done with writing Samples and then set out to find clients (currently with a marketing agency that pays a whopping 2 cents per word to earn cash in the meantime so needless to say, I needed a change).

My biggest problem is that i don’t know who to approach and how to find them. I’ve written for law firms while at content mills and with my current agency. So I thought I’d start there. Like I said, I don’t know where to find clients so I just Googled “law firm NYC blog” and emailed all the firms that already had blogs and offered my services (about 25 in total in my first day). Maybe the number was too small or something because I haven’t heard anything back. Not sure if I should try this method for other business types. Basically, I’m confused about how to find clients in the first place. Do I keep googling by city? How does a writer with basically no contacts start out?

All advice is appreciated.”

I have given a similar answer many times, and to me, much of this feels obvious, but it is clearly not. I love sharing knowledge and helping people, so many you’ll find something useful in this answer.

Here is my direct answer:

“Did you personalize or in any way customize your email to the 25 law firms? Did you make sure to see if they even needed a blogger or if it was constantly updated?

When I do direct marketing, I do FAR fewer than 25, but I am very specific. First of all, you want small to midsize firms or companies. Large companies will employ their bloggers in-house or have an existing employee writer. So, you want firms that are small enough to need a freelancer but big enough to pay for it.

Then, you want to customize it. Maybe something like, “Hi, my name is XY and I am a professional and experienced writer in the legal industry. I was looking on your website and the site is attractive and clean and comes up about halfway down the page in Google. I noticed your blog has not been updated for almost 90 days! Did you know that putting out relevant and timely content will boost your Google search rankings? I’m a full-time freelance and writer, and I would love to work with you! I have attached a couple of writing samples for you to see my style, and would love to jump on a phone call to discuss your needs.”

Or is yours more of a template? Are you emailing their general contact or are you doing 4 seconds of research on their “team” page to find the office manager or even managing partner in the local office. It almost ALWAYS lists their direct phone and email. Did you follow up with any of the 25?

My first 4 clients: 1 was from direct marketing with a similar email to what I wrote above. 1 was from Reddit’s ForHire sub, I responded to one. 1 was a response to a free ad I posted on Criagslist, and 1 was from LinkedIn, where I directly messaged some of my contacts who are business owners/founders/CEOs, etc.

There are tons of ways to find clients! Nowadays, 90% of my clients are referrals because I make it a very high priority to be easy to work with and very responsive. The other 10% is (maybe surprisingly) from social media. I get a lot of nibbles from Instagram, specifically. You can DM anyone on there!”

When it comes to finding clients, it is not really about the sheer volume of how many people or companies you are contacting. If you contact 100 potentials but it is a disjointed, unpersonalized, uninteresting email, you will get no responses. But if you take the time to customize and speak to a specific audience each time, you may send 5 and get several responses.

It is so very important to know your audience and write your note directly to them.

Utilize your free resources! Google has tons of answers, social media is brimming with companies needing blogs or ads or copy for their website.

Yes, finding clients can be annoying or frustrating, but it can also be easier than you think. You may have built it up in your head as being impossible, which makes it that much harder for you to do it and commit to doing it well.

Sales and marketing does not have to be scary.

You are an expert. Your skills are valuable. If YOU don’t believe that, how can you expect others to? Jack up your confidence and go get some new clients!

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