Qualifications To Be A Freelancer. What Do I Need?

Publishing Date :

7 October, 2022

Read time:

4 Minutes

Qualifications To Be A Freelancer

If you’re looking for some flexibility in your work schedule, a freelance marketing career may be for you! See the basic qualifications to be a freelancer cover before you start.

A whopping 28% of Americans now freelance full-time, up 17% from 2014.
Why the sudden increase? Nowadays, more and more businesses employ freelancers for affordable marketing solutions. As a result, freelancers can work while maintaining flexibility in their work schedules.

And with the rise of technology and social media ever increasing, digital marketing is one of the most popular industries for freelancers. It’s fun and relatively easy to learn, and almost any business can benefit from its services. But you may be wondering—what qualifications do I need to get into freelance marketing?

While that may seem like a daunting question, have no fear. This guide provides a comprehensive breakdown of everything you need to know about freelance digital marketing, including the skills needed and how to be successful.

What Does a Freelancer Do?

If you’ve thought about freelancing but didn’t think it would be profitable, you’re in for a surprise. Top earners in freelance marketing can expect anywhere from $80,000 to $120,00 a year.

But what services do freelance marketers provide that make their work so profitable? Simply put, a freelance digital marketer provides digital services to businesses that ultimately help them grow traffic, increase revenue, and drive sales.
These services mainly involve leveraging and using digital channels to reach customers, promote products and services, and increase brand awareness.
Freelance marketers can perform various activities, such as paid advertising, video marketing, promoting videos, online content optimization using SEO (search engine optimization), and more.

Top Skills for Freelance Marketing

When you apply for work as a freelance marketer, most businesses will put you through some sort of vetting process to ensure you have what it takes to succeed. Below is a breakdown of the primary skills you need to work as a freelance digital marketer.

Content Writing

At the heart of every successful marketing campaign or promotional tactic is engaging, informative, and compelling content. Great content has the power to hook consumers in, and make them want to know more.
Even if you don’t end up specializing in content marketing, having solid copywriting skills and knowing how to hook audiences in is an incredibly valuable skill. Knowing how to write well enables you to make suggestions for a business’s website content, edit their promotion copy, and more.

SEO

Probably one of the most important skills for a freelance marketer to have is a basic understanding of SEO. Whether you’re publishing blog posts, long form articles, or even videos on Youtube, employing SEO makes it easier for your target audience to find your content.

For example, by possessing basic knowledge of SEO tactics, you could optimize a business’s digital content in order to help it rank better on Google. The better it ranks, the more eyes you get on your content.

Email Marketing

Almost every business can benefit from having a winning email marketing strategy. Email marketing is when you notify customers on your email list about new products, services, and upcoming sales.
You can also use email marketing as a way to educate consumers on your brand, and if done right, email marketing can help your audience stay engaged between purchases.

By knowing different strategies to employ for email marketing, you can help a business build a dedicated audience within its email channel. This can lead to more sales, better audience engagement, and more brand exposure.

Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics is a crucial skill for freelance marketers to have no matter what kind of services you’re providing. If you don’t know how to collect and analyze marketing data, then you’ll never be able to know businesses the value you’re providing with your services.

But by understanding how to measure, track, and analyze different aspects of marketing, you can show businesses the exact impact your services are making on their bottom line.

Paid Media

Paid media in online digital marketing refers to any marketing that you pay for, like Facebook and Google ads and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Why is this a valuable skill for businesses?

By having someone on their team who knows how to utilize paid media, a business is able to get more eyes on their brand in channels that their audience already spends a lot of their time in. That way, you’re able to help a business reach audiences that may have never found or head about you on their own.

Business Skills

Perhaps most important of all, a freelance marketer should be business savvy. As a freelancer, finding work, getting your name out there, and market your abilities is entirely up to you.
Business skills include negotiation, problem-solving, financial management, project planning, and more. And if you end up becoming more successful and growing your freelance business, you may find it necessary to bring on more staff. In that case, you’ll also need good recruitment and people management skills.

Tips for Success

Want to know how to be successful as a freelance marketer? Read the below tips.

Decide on a Specialty

Once you’ve decided to begin work as a freelance marketer, it’s best to decide on one single area to specialize or focus on. Because marketing is such a large field, businesses usually seek a marketer to help them solve a specific problem.

Choose a niche based on your strengths and interests. Maybe you decide to specialize in all things SEO, or maybe you’re a data person, and marketing analytics suits you. By knowing which area of digital marketing you want to specialize in, you’re making it easy for the hiring manager to put you in a role that will help their business.

Develop your Skillset

Spend time developing the skills listed above. You can take online courses or classes, or simply pursue your own research and try out different marketing strategies and methods yourself.
The better you are at these essential marketing skills, the more value you’ll be able to provide to businesses.

Create a Website

To advertise your services and attract clients, creating a website to showcase your work is always a good idea. This can be a landing page where potential clients come to learn more about you and what you can do for their business.
It’s also a great way to network, plus you can plug your website into your LinkedIn profile and resume.

You may also consider starting a blog in which you publish content that’ll attract clients. You can write about the latest trends in the field or document marketing strategies you’ve had success with.

Build a Portfolio

Just like creating a website, it’s also a great idea to build a professional portfolio. This serves as a tangible example of the work you’ve done for clients, which entices businesses to work with you.
If you don’t have clients yet, you can still add to a portfolio by completing mock projects that you would do for clients. Research a marketing problem that’s happening with a local business or large company, and come up with your solutions for solving it.
Also, include customer reviews of your work and projects in your portfolio. Once you’ve built positive relationships with clients and businesses, your portfolio is a great way to show this off.

Set your Rate

Once you begin attracting clients, they’ll want to know how much you charge. You can structure your pricing based on an hourly basis, project basis, monthly basis, or a combination of any of those.
Remember to approach freelance marketing the same way you would with running a business. The goal is to make a worthwhile profit for the time spent on projects.

Be Consistent

Clients won’t want to work with you if you consistently overpromise, miss deadlines, and are overall inconsistent. To be successful as a freelance marketer, you’ll want to manage your time well so clients can count on you to deliver projects on time.
That’s the best way to also retain clients and ensure they don’t seek business elsewhere.

Find Work as a Freelancer

Hopefully, you’ve realized you don’t need a college degree or years of experience to work as a freelance marketer. Suppose you know how to leverage critical marketing skills like content writing, SEO, marketing analytics, business essentials, and paid media. In that case, you have the tools necessary to help a business grow.
If you’re looking to get hired as a freelance marketer ASAP, apply online at Betterly.com. Or, if you’re a business owner needing a marketing expert, visit Betterly’s site to hire one today.
Either way, Betterly will help you solve your marketing needs in no time!

Qualifications To Be A Freelancer