Business strategies: 11 free marketing resources for freelancers
As any successful freelancer knows, getting new clients isn’t just a matter of having desirable skills. It’s about having the time and resources to brand your business, showcase your skills, and reach your target audience.
Unfortunately, many of the best tools for building and executing a top-notch marketing strategy come with hefty price tags. Fortunately, that’s not always the case. After years of helping freelancers reach employers ready to hire, we at Moonlighting, have found that some of the best marketing tools do come FREE! Check out our favorite resources that will make an instrumental impact on your business without breaking the bank:
Reach your audience
Moonlighting – Moonlighting is the fastest growing on-demand hiring community. Market your freelance business to employers ready to hire accountants, graphic designers, tutors, landscapers, pet sitters, and anything in between. Sign up and post your services now.
Stock photography and vectors
Pexels – High-quality images can truly set your brand apart and tell your unique story. Unfortunately, royalty-free stock photography can cost you an arm and a leg, so finding a free stock photo site is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We love Pexels and Pixabay for professional images that you can use everywhere, even commercially with no attribution required.
VectorStock – Easily search and find royalty-free vector images, graphics, icons, and illustrations you can download for free (or purchase an inexpensive package equal to just $1 per vector). Each zip file contains a vector EPS (Adobe Illustrator version 8+ compatible) and some artists will also include PDF and AI files as well.
Photo editing
Pixlr – Adobe Photoshop is the gold standard for photo editing, however, that gold standard does come with a 24 Karat price tag, too. For a great free alternative, check out Pixlr. This powerful photo editor is the closest free tool you can get to Photoshop. The Pixlr Editor web app is highly recommended, but they also offer a version you can download to your desktop as well as mobile apps for Android and iOS.
Pablo – Pablo by Buffer is a great tool to create visual content that is easily customized and eye-catching. You can upload your own photo and overlay it with text or choose from their templates to get started sprucing up that tweet or picture post. Any photo in their database can be used royalty-free and with more than 600K images to choose from, you’d need a lifetime of social media management to run out of resources.
Social media marketing
Buffer – Staying consistently active on social media is critical for a good social media presence, but getting a post up at the right time, multiple times every day can be overwhelming. With Buffer, you can create a posting schedule, queue up posts for each time slot, and track the performance of your content on all the major social media networks including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+.
Buzzsumo – Looking to break through in your field and create engaging content that beats out the competition? Buzzsumo helps you analyze the best performing content for any topic or competitor. Easily research the top headlines, influencers who are sharing this content, and the social channels where people are most interested in this topic.
Content writing, editing and collaboration
Grammarly – This free writing app makes sure your messages, documents, and social media posts are clear, mistake-free, and effective. So even if you’re not a writer, Grammarly can make you look like a pro.
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer – A good headline can be the difference between your content being read and you missing your target audience completely. CoSchedule’s free headline analyzer will score your overall headline quality and rate its ability to result in social shares, increased traffic, and SEO value.
Google Drive – Google has created a suite of free web-based tools that make creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations a breeze. You can also access templates for business plans, brochures, and project proposals. On top of that, they also provide a safe place to store, access, and share these files from anywhere. So you can collaborate on your documents in real time, edit and markup copy, or leave comments on a living document. When it comes to collaboration, Google has nailed it.
At a time when marketing is essential to every business, big and small, these free marketing resources can help jumpstart and grow your freelance business.
Are you ready to discover the potential of your freelance business with the right marketing? Join the amazing community of freelancers, entrepreneurs, and gig workers changing how America works bysigning up for Moonlighting ordownload the app today - Free!