We live in an age where marketers have access to an incredible amount of information and resources. From tech to specialists in all the different marketing disciplines, there is no area of marketing where there isn’t a specialist to help with even the toughest projects.
In 2020, we witnessed a jump in marketing professionals deciding to embrace their entrepreneurial side and try their hand at freelancing. Before 2020, freelancers were not as commonplace as they are today. Sure, there were the solo copywriters and designers, but finding a freelance creative director or digital marketer wasn’t really a thing.
Now, nearly three years later, there’s a freelancer out there who specializes in almost any marketing field, waiting to help you on your next big marketing project. In this blog, we’re going to dive into how to find the right freelancer for your business.
Understand exactly what you need.
This tip might seem like it’s common sense, but you would be surprised at how many marketers go through the motions of hiring multiple freelancers only to let them go because they weren’t specialized enough or needed too much training.
Freelancers are not full-time employees. They manage themselves, and will juggle your needs with multiple clients. The more experience they have in your industry, the less handholding they will need in the long run. Understanding exactly what you need boils down to three key factors:
Your bandwidth: If you don’t have the time to train a potential freelancer, you automatically know that you will need to invest more money into someone with experience and someone who specializes in your particular need.
Communication and location: Are you someone who needs access to your freelancer everyday during business hours while the project is ongoing? If you answered yes to this question, then hiring someone outside of your time-zone or country is not going to be a good idea, no matter how inexpensive or experienced that freelancer is.
Freelancers run their own business. They are not going to be as hands-on as an in-house employee. This means that you can’t demand for them to be available when you want them to be.
Your budget: How much are you willing to spend on a freelancer? This will either open doors for you and your project, or may force you to reign in your expectations. We’ll dive into paying freelancers in a later section.
Where to find freelancers.
Scouring Linkedin, browsing through Upwork, posting a job on Fiverr, posting to that Facebook group…
There are so many ways to find great freelancers that it can feel overwhelming. Some marketers may take a blanket approach and copy paste that job listing on all of the available platforms. While this is an effective way to fill up your inbox and guarantee that you’ll have plenty of options, it’s also a great way to overwhelm yourself.
Instead of casting a wide net, figure out exactly what you want out of a freelancer. There are important factors to consider like location, niche, experience level, and hourly rates. Even if you list your requirements in that job listing, you’re still likely to be bombarded with emails and messages from people who don’t fit your criteria.
Here are some great places to find a freelancer depending on their specialty:
Creatives: For designers or most creatives, the best place to find great talent is going to be on social media–anywhere but Facebook. Try posting a TikTok where you talk about your project and exactly what you are looking for. People can’t directly message you on that platform unless you follow each other, so you won’t have to worry about being bombarded with unsolicited messages.
Another great platform for finding creatives are in the different freelance marketplaces and freelance platforms. The one rule here is that you need to know exactly what you are looking for so that you can filter your search. After you find the candidates that you are interested in, go ahead and create your job listing. Message your pool of candidates and ask them to apply for the job that you posted. This will prevent your inbox from being bombarded.
Marketing professionals: Creatives are no longer the only freelancers. Now, there are freelance developers, project managers, data specialists, digital marketers, and even freelance CMOs! For businesses who are looking for a short term solution to a marketing need, a great place to start is Linkedin.
Everyone who is anyone in the marketing field has a Linkedin profile. For more specialized marketing services, this is your best bet. Linkedin offers filters to search for potential candidates and you can see what that freelancer has most recently worked on; most freelancers share their work on the platform because this is also where most of their clients live.
Copywriters: While most would consider copywriters creatives, they bridge the gap between marketing professionals and creatives. To find the perfect freelance copywriter for your business, you can easily find them both in the marketplaces and on Linkedin.
Take a varied approach but most importantly, take your time and understand exactly what you are looking for out of a freelancer before posting that job description.
Experience is an investment.
There is a common misconception that freelancers are inexpensive. While this may be true of offshore freelancers or professionals with less experience, if you have top-shelf expectations, expect to pay top-shelf prices.
Marketers need to remember that although freelancers don’t require a dedicated yearly salary or a benefits package, they can still cost you just as much as a salaried employee over time. For example, a clinical copywriter with a decade of experience can charge a premium hourly rate of up to $150 per hour.
If that copywriter is contracted to write four articles for your hospital per month (two hours of research, one hour to outline, two hours to draft, one hour for feedback, one hour for revisions), you can expect to pay around $3,600 per month for all four articles.
Sure, you can hire an offshore freelance writer with very little healthcare experience, but the quality of their writing will likely require extensive revisions and rewrites. An experienced freelancer can position you as a leader in your space, and you won’t have to worry about missing errors or potential overhauls.
Checkmate: the best of all worlds.
Navigating the freelance market, listing freelance jobs, and trying to sift through a wide range of portfolios to find your perfect match can be overwhelming.
This is exactly why we exist. Designity takes the reins for you so that you can focus on what matters most. Get a designated creative director who dives into our own US-based pool of highly vetted marketers and creatives, to find the perfect people for your projects.
Never manage freelancers again. Never worry about tracking your progress. Get access to a wide range of creatives, great customer support, and the perfect interchangeable team no matter how big or small your business is.
