How to get freelance clients ? When you are starting out as a freelancer, you must have already asked yourself this question. That’s why we are here to help you in your research! It is clear that if you are a freelancer, you need to develop this fundamental skill: sales 😉
Here we go with the 13 tips to find your potential future clients, hang on tight, because you are going to get meteorites of information! 😇
#1. Prepare the details of your freelance business
When you first start out, it’s essential to focus on learning sales techniques. Indeed, you will develop :
- Your ability to persuade your prospects that you are the best person to help them.
- Your business finances.
- Your network of potential clients and partners.
Let’s go into more detail with two important aspects, namely, the typical profile of your potential client and your offers! 😇
1) Define your client avatar
If you already have a freelance business and are struggling to attract clients, then don’t skip this part. It is crucial and can stop you from wasting time. On the other hand, if you are just starting out, then this part is your first step. 👣 First, let’s give you a definition.
A customer avatar is the typical customer who is most likely to sign up for your product and service offerings.
This avatar should be defined as precisely as possible before you start your marketing actions. Be into the detail, even the fine detail. 🧐 Define in draft:
- Her age.
- His/her gender.
- His/her socio-professional class (CSP).
- His personal situation.
- His values.
- His beliefs.
- His frustrations.
- His deep needs (need for recognition, money, etc.).
- The media on which your avatar is (social networks, offline…).
- The queries this person is searching on Google.
Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll have completed an accurate mapping of your ideal customer. That is to say, the customer who will best match your offer. Doing this exercise will help you target 🎯 your marketing actions to hit the nail on the head every time. Next, let’s move on to the second key… fundamental! 🗝️
2) Clarify your service offerings
Once you’ve determined your target audience, you need to create your offers based on the needs of your avatars. Don’t create offers by following your desires 100%. You need to create something that your prospects need and want to trust you with. 🤝🏼
Know how to listen to your target and create what they want. Okay, but, how do you actually do that? 🤔 Create a survey on Google Form and ask these sample questions:
- “What is the biggest challenge you face today in your business of… ?”
- “If you had a magic wand right now, what would you instantly change?”
- “How much would you be willing to invest to get… ?”
Next, create your offers and be as segmented as possible about the promise of your different offers. 😇 Also remember this:
For example if you are a graphic designer, it is best to set up multiple bids like:
- 🥇 Offer 1: custom logo design.
- 🥈 Offer 2: graphic card creation.
So you target different needs. And if your client wants to get the whole thing, you make a package with a preferential price (but not too much 😉 ).
#2. Create your portfolio
This may seem trivial to you, yet many people forget that having a portfolio adds real value to your prospects’ research. 🔎
Indeed, when you contact them, you need to be able to show your previous work and what you have in your belly! And for that, what better way than with a portfolio or a portfolio? 😻
Just like modeling, a freelance graphic designer can have their portfolio proudly displaying their skills and specializations. To do this, there are many sites such as Wix, WordPress, Adobe or Canva! It’s up to you to find what you need 😉
Get your first customers this week
Take advantage of the power of Waalaxy to generate leads every day. Start prospecting for free, today.
#3. Register on freelancing platforms
Indispensable and sometimes forgotten, we are obviously talking about freelancing platforms. These are websites that allow you to get in touch with clients. 💟
Inside, you can find assignments that client-prospects will have directly posted and you can if you wish, submit your application for this assignment. There are a multitude of websites dedicated to freelance writer missions, we will present you two of them! ⬇️
Presentation of Fiverr
Let’s move on to the first platform, aka Fiverr. 👀 
Presentation of Malt
The second platform we are presenting is none other than Malt. 😇 
#4. Regularly check the tenders to find freelance clients
In addition to the dedicated platforms for an freelance work, you can also turn to more general websites that also offer job opportunities of all kinds, and sometimes even, for freelancers! 💡
1) On the Indeed website
First example, Indeed, or more commonly known as: the temple of employment. 🛕 On this site, you can find different types of job offers everywhere in France, and to search for freelance projects, nothing could be easier:
- Type in the search bar “freelance” or the type of job you want,
- In the “Job Type” filter, choose “Freelance/Freelance”.
2) On LinkedIn
Second example, LinkedIn, the number one professional social network! With its 850 million users, this social media has such a large database that normally you should find your match! In the “Job Offer” section at the top, you have access to different offers and you just have to type in the search bar “freelance”.
To learn more about how to find a job offer on LinkedIn, it happens in this article! ⬅️
#5. Use viral marketing to naturally attract customers
If you apply the previous keys and get good results in capturing customers, then a phenomenon will kick in. This is viral marketing (or also called “word of mouth” or “word of mouth”). 🗣 To activate this powerful lever that will allow you to find freelance clients, you must:
- Have a website that is easily accessible when a user enters your “first name last name”.
- Have good reviews on your Google My Business listing.
- Have several search results matching you on the first page of Google on your “first name last name” (example: your LinkedIn account, your Malt account, etc.).
Your clients will recommend you to other potential new clients if you’re great, and it will all come together, like the snowball effect. ☃️
#6. Implement two kinds of marketing strategies
When you want to find freelance opportunities, you need to be the reference on a specific pain point of your market. For example if you are an SEO consultant and your offering is “Website load time optimization” then you need to become the “top of mind” in that area. That is to say, the person, the #1 expert who immediately comes to mind when a specific field is mentioned. To achieve this branding, you must :
- Have a benevolent and honest image in your messages.
- Prove your coaching expertise and ability to solve problems.
- Produce qualitative content (directly applicable to your audience).
- Be interviewed by authorities in your market.
When you make your audience aware of your profile, then you will naturally find freelance contrat. 😁
To implement what we are saying, you need to implement two types of marketing strategies, which we will see right away. 👀
Create an acquisition strategy to prospect
Convincing new clients in freelancing is learned. Unfortunately, almost all freelance jobs get it wrong. They rely only on word of mouth or “luck of the draw”. Without a strategy, it is much more complicated to get clients, but how do you do it? Here’s what you need to create: A sales tunnel. 🚀 
That is, a customer journey that takes a simple visitor to the customer stage, in an automated way to save you a lot of time. What is a good acquisition strategy for how to get freelance clients?
- A landing page to capture your prospects’ contact information in exchange for a resource you send them: a digital book, a checklist, a video training, etc.
- A landing page to showcase your paid offers, correlated to the resource you sent them earlier.
Then you need a dual acquisition system:
- 🔵 Drive traffic (visitors) to step 1 to convert them into leads.
- 🔵 Warm up your leads after step 1 to turn them into customers.
To attract traffic, you can create content and optimize it for search engines and social networks, or you can advertise online. To warm up your prospects, you can use an autoresponder to do e-mail marketing for example. In short, create a lead acquisition system to find work freelance.
Use an adapted content strategy
Once you have defined a suitable acquisition strategy, it is time to move on to the writing part, namely the content strategy. What is it exactly? Well, here are a few points to explain in depth 🌊
- Publish content regularly,
- Find an editorial line,
- Fine-tune your personal branding,
- Use the TOFU-MOFU-BOFU method (I promise, it’s not complicated).
To learn more about content strategy, it’s all written in this guide! ⬅️
#7. Use your professional network as a springboard
Before you started freelancing, I imagine you’ve already worked for a b2b or btoc company, no matter the field of activity. As a result, you have had professional contacts and exchanges with some people. Well, don’t put them aside, they can be useful! Indeed, don’t hesitate to get closer to them on LinkedIn for example, and ask them if they know people who are looking for freelance marketplace, you never know! 🤭
Also, all the network you have developed on LinkedIn for example, don’t hesitate to solicit them by sending them messages.
#8. The opinion of your former customers counts
We have all at least once in our lives analyzed the items of the restaurant we wanted to test to see if it was worth it or not. Well, today, the restaurant in question is you. 🧑🏼🍳
If you have former customers from your old businesses for example, don’t hesitate to ask them for a little review, it only takes a few minutes and it will help you gain maybe, new customers! This way, you can proudly display your clients’ reviews in your portfolio, your portfolio, or even your website if you already have one.
#9. Prospecting for leads
We have already told you that LinkedIn can be an interesting lever for your search for future clients, and by that we mean prospecting. Analyzing profiles, joining groups, searching for prospects according to filters, sending personalized messages, all this is part of business prospecting.
Unfortunately, it takes time, and when you are a freelance professional, you are quickly overwhelmed between the administrative side, increasing your notoriety, some projects and finding clients. That’s why there are prospecting tools that make our lives easier! 🥰
Prospecting tool on LinkedIn and Emails
How could we talk to you about prospecting without talking about our tool? Check out Waalaxy. 👽
This is a chrome extension and with it, you will be able to :
- Get 700 LinkedIn leads per week, in 10 minutes per day, all without the headache.
- Send fully customized automated scripts with over 99 sample templates.
- Track the progress of your campaigns in real time.
- Be able to launch and maintain campaigns even when your computer is turned off, thanks to the cloud.
- 📣 NEW: LinkedIn messaging, but better.
Yes yes, you heard right, we just released our brand new feature, LinkedIn messaging, directly on Waalaxy. Want to know more about it? Click on this button below!
Discover Waalaxy's <strong>LinkedIn</strong> messaging 🚀#10. Partner with other freelancers
You must be thinking, no but the Waalaxy team, are you out of your mind to think about partnering with competitors? Well, no, no accidents have been discovered yet. More seriously, let’s take an example, if you’re a graphic designer, you can partner for a project with a community manager.
You gain experience because you learn to work with others, in areas that you may not have chosen at the beginning and moreover, you are paid, what could be better? 😇 So keep an open mind and if you are offered a collaboration, think about it 😉
#11. Approach a company spontaneously
Do you know about unsolicited applications? It’s the act of proposing your application to a company that hasn’t opened a position. Ok, you like examples then, here’s one. 👇🏼 You’re a freelance talent web guy going to a restaurant with friends (second reference to a restaurant in this article, I think I’m hungry…), and when you scan the card with the QR Code, you realize that the website or e-commerce can be greatly improved. So what do you do? 🧐
Well, if you can, slip away for a few moments and go to a manager and pass on your card or portfolio web address with some recommendations. If he is not available, just leave your card with your number. 📱
Don’t be afraid and dare to show off your expertise for all to see! 🦋
#12. Be present and use digital marketing
We all agree that now using digital marketing is a must, especially when starting out. Yes, social media is now the lifeblood of the business and that’s why you need to flood the web with your content to find mass freelances clients and have the luxury of choosing them afterwards. 🥰
Being ubiquitous with your prospects means being visible on as many touchpoints as possible to do prospecting. 🎯
For example, it means being visible via:
- Facebook (SMO/Ads).
- Instagram.
- Twitter.
- Snapchat.
- Pinterest.
- Tiktok.
- YouTube (SMO/Ads).
- Google (SEO/Ads).
- LinkedIn (SMO/Ads).
You need to choose the social networks where your potential customers are and vary your strategies between inbound marketing and outbound. In the B2C sector, the most used messengers are Messenger and Snapchat, while in the Btob sector it is more LinkedIn. Multiply the acquisition levers and deliver your messages to reach more people. 🎯
#13. Offer your services to your entourage
We are coming (already) to the last tip and not the least: your entourage. It is often said that you should not mix your professional life with your private life, but who told you to associate yourself with your family? Here, we advise you to talk in more detail about your activity and what you can do to your loved ones.
By multiplying the sectors and fields of activity, they may have in their entourage people who are looking for become a freelancer. Since the dawn of time, word of mouth has been powerful, so don’t hesitate to use it wisely for more visibility and to find new clients. 🥰
Conclusion of the article: how to get freelance clients
You will have understood via this article that how to get freelance clients can sometimes be perilous 🎪 but not impossible.
With these 13 tips, I think you’ve got it covered and all you have to do is get to work, or rather, research! 🥰
Frequently Asked Questions
And because we like to keep you happy, we’re going to answer the three questions that come up the most! Here we go ❤️🔥
Where to offer your freelance services?
Being a freelance consultant, you’re spoiled for choice:
- On platforms specialized in freelance artists missions,
- Spontaneous application,
- Prospecting on professional social networks,
- Respond to calls for tender,
- Propose your services to your friends and your professional network.
Yes, you have a multitude of places to offer your services, you just have to start! 🦋
How to find your first freelance assignment?
Interesting question, a bit like your first job, finding your first assignment can sometimes be complex because you have no experience as a successful freelancer, no previous clients, but, don’t lose hope, with the 13 tips we gave you above, you will easily find your first freelance assignment.
How to find clients for free?
To find clients for free, you can sign up on freelancing platforms that are free, use social networks such as Instagram, TikTok or even Facebook. Not to mention the most important, use a professional social network such as LinkedIn. 💟
That’s it, you now have all the keys 🗝️ in hand to how to get freelance clients, we wish you good luck and great success! 🥰
