Creatively Marketing Your One-Person Business

I am frequently asked by people (amazed that anyone can make a living as a freelance writer) how I find my clients. Whether a struggling writer themselves or another one-person business owner looking to expand, they are usually surprised when I tell them there is no one good way to market your services, but dozens of them. Trust me: I have gotten work using all of the methods discussed in this article.

As a single-person operation, you have a number of advantages. Unlike larger corporations, there won't be any miscommunication to potential clients about what you can deliver because the engineering and marketing departments weren't talking. Since you are also the one- man (or one-woman) creative department or widget department or service department, you can answer potential clients' questions knowledgeably and promptly.
Also, because the money you spend is probably your own, you are less likely to fall prey to overly costly options that don't offer a decent return.

But what is a decent return? And what realistic options do sole operators have when it comes to marketing?
Postcards are one relatively cheap source for advertising. If you can design a simple postcard yourself (saving design costs), sending out 200 postcards to potential clients will cost you just under $100. The advantage to postcards is two-fold: You don't send out an expensive media kit to uninterested people, and busy people who are interested don't have to plow through tons of literature to make a decision to contact you. (Nor do you need to buy address lists: Go to www.yellowpages.com or the web site of your local chamber of commerce, picking out businesses that are your most likely customers.)

Postcard forms are usually available at most office supply stores, and they will feed through your printer just like regular paper. For the software, you can use any of a number of packages. Most word processors have templates. For more control over the design, however, you might want to purchase good basic layout software, such as Microsoft Publisher(TM). (You can also use this software for things like laying out your web site.)