Small Business Marketing Does Not Work for Freelancers

Walk in to any book store and you’ll see a whole shelf of books on marketing, many of which target small business owners and entrepreneurs.

There aren’t many that are written specifically for freelancers, though, but I’ve read quite a few of the small business books based on the idea that freelancing is just another kind of small business. But when it comes to marketing, freelancing isn’t entirely identical to any other type of small business.

1. Starting Freelancers Tend To Bootstrap

Many small business owners take out loans or have other sources of money that enable them to put money into marketing from the day they open their doors. While some freelancers have savings or some sort of capital to get them started, they’re far more likely to start with little more than a computer. That means that freelancers usually take a different approach to marketing. Where a widget store will purchase a significant amount of advertising right off the bat, a freelancer will be more likely to focus on networking, content marketing and other techniques with lower costs but higher time commitments.

2. Freelancers Don’t Want To Work More Hours

A small business selling a product wants to move more units of that product, and its marketing is planned with that goal in mind. But a freelancer is looking more at quality over quantity: there is a limit to the number of hours a freelancer can really work in a day. Instead of trying to work a 24-hour day, most freelancers find it more realistic to focus on landing projects at higher rates. These very different goals are not always reachable with identical marketing efforts: a store may just need to reach more people to increase its income, while a freelancer might focus on reaching the right people.

3. Freelancers Delegate Less

While I don’t have numbers at hand, most freelancers don’t seem to plan to hire an employee or bring in a consultant as a matter of course. In contrast, many small business owners seem to have hiring help to take over the day-to-day duties of their businesses as a central goal. That means that marketing typically happens only after any paying work on hand gets done � it still gets done, but it isn’t always a priority. Freelancers have to pick and choose marketing projects that will fit into an existing schedule. It’s certainly not impossible, but a freelancer’s approach to marketing still looks quite different from a small business owner’s. None of these three issues are universal, of course, but they do mean that following a small business’ guide to marketing isn’t going to be the easiest approach for most freelancers.

Marketing From a Freelance Point of View

Marketing books can provide a freelancer with a starting point, but they shouldn’t be taken as gospel. Instead, it makes sense to pick and choose marketing tactics that will work not only with your budget, but also the time you have available and your goals in terms of work. Will an ad let you reach a prospective client who you actually want to work with? What about writing a blog? Not every approach is going to help you move your business forward � some work only when a brute force approach is taken, throwing time and money at a marketing campaign to create a result.

Don’t stop reading marketing books, blogs and other resources, though. You never know when you’ll find an idea that really works with the freelance business you’ve built.