Maintaining Marketing Momentum

One of the big challenges in starting and maintaining a freelance editing business is the need to continue pushing forward even when you’re not getting a lot of results. This means marketing when you don’t really feel like it and pushing through self-doubt to keep going, even when you’re not yet seeing much a return on your investment.

But success in freelancing is usually built on persistence: you just keep showing up and waving at people and eventually someone hires you and then someone else hires you and now look at you! You’re fully booked!

Here are some ways to make the process a little easier.

Gamify Your Marketing

One of the reasons marketing isn’t much fun is because . . . it isn’t much fun. We think of it as a boring slog that we wouldn’t do if we didn’t have to. But if you can turn it into a game, you’ll look forward to it a little more.

Once you know what your daily and weekly marketing tasks are (writing blog posts, engaging on social media, etc.), you can give yourself points for accomplishing each one. You get to assign point values, so you can choose to give more difficult or time-intensive tasks more points. Each day or week you try to score a minimum number of points. Next day or week you try to beat those points.

Another idea is to keep a printed calendar on the wall. Every day you do a minimum number of marketing tasks, you mark that day with a big smiley face. Days you don’t do marketing? A fat red X. Over time, you’ll find yourself not wanting to break the streak of smiley faces.

Reward Yourself

I’m a big fan of rewards for hard work, so whenever I meet my marketing goals over the course of a week, I give myself a little accolade. This is usually something intangible like a moment of congratulations to myself, but occasionally it’s something like a few hours off from work to read a book, or a new journal, depending on how much motivation I need to give myself.

Testing 1, 2, 3

I love to test things out and you should, too. There’s no point in persisting with a marketing effort that isn’t working. Give any specific task 30 days. See what happens. Are you gaining any momentum? Getting any kind of reaction? When I first started posting about Club Ed on LinkedIn, I didn’t get much attention. But after 30 days, I could see that more and more people were reading and responding to my posts.

But when I tried Pinterest? Not a glimmer of interest from anyone. So, I retired from Pinterest and now the only social media marketing I do for Club Ed is on LinkedIn.

Get a Little Help from Your Friends/Give a Little Help to Your Friends

I wouldn’t have had the career I’ve had without my friends and colleagues who have helped with advice, referrals, and support. (And I’ve tried to give back the way they’ve given to me.) I have a core group of colleagues I’ve known for at least twenty years, and that network has been invaluable to me. It’s never too early (or too late) to start building your own network.

One of the best ways to keep your momentum up is to do tasks with a friend. I have a weekly coworking session set up with a friend where we power through those tasks we would otherwise keep putting off.

You can join (or make) an accountability group or find an accountability partner to help keep each other on track.

And you can (and should!) share your successes and your challenges with your friends and colleagues. They’ll root for you as you move forward in your career.