How to Identify Your Target Market for Your Freelance Business

 

Starting a freelance business is perhaps, one of the lowest cost businesses you can start. There are hardly any setup costs when it comes to freelancing. If you have the drive to succeed, patience, and a well thought out marketing strategy, you can kick your business into gear very quickly.

Freelancing is extremely diversified. Let’s take a look at a few possible ideas for starting a freelance business.

Possible Freelance Business Ideas:

• Writing
• Editing
• Teaching (guitar lessons, coupon classes, horseback riding etc.)
• Tutoring
• Cleaning
• Landscaping

You can start a freelance business at pretty much anything that you are good at! There will be a market for the skills you have. You just have to hunt your market down!

Finding Your Target Market

When it comes to finding your clients the more specific you can be, the better results you will have. Take it from me, when I first tried my hand at freelance writing I applied to almost every job out there. I also queried random websites and never heard a thing back.

Then I decided to switch my strategy. I listed subjects that I knew very well. Out of those subjects I then picked the one I thought to be the most marketable. This turned out to be personal lines insurance. I now query independent insurance agents who need help with their blog and I apply to jobs on job boards that have to do with insurance.

When I am querying and applying for jobs I make it very clear that I know the ins and outs and laws when it comes to insurance. I also attach my most relevant writing samples on the topic. The result has been phenomenal. I have now gotten several jobs writing about insurance and have even more samples to show potential clients.

By narrowing my niche I doubled, maybe even tripled my chances at getting freelance writing jobs. I also think it’s a good idea to be an expert on more than one subject. For me I will apply to jobs that have to do with insurance, divorce, or personal finance. These are the areas that I know well and can write like an expert.

Narrowing Down Your Niche

Narrowing down your target market is not just for freelance writing. It’s for all freelance businesses. Take tutoring for example, do you think you will get more clients as a general k-12 tutor or would it be more effective to be a foreign language tutor or a high school math tutor?

The latter of the two will produce you more results. Parents will want to hire a tutor for their child who is specialized in the subject the child is failing. The more specific your services are the better you will be able to find your clients and market your business.

All the same rules apply to each business. Narrow it down to the type of service you will offer and the specific customer you will target.

 If you want to start a cleaning business will it be commercial or residential? Who will you target to sell your services to? Rich neighborhoods? Busy moms? Retail Establishments? You could also ask yourself these same exact questions for a landscaping or mowing business.

If you narrow down your niche you can build yourself a great reputation. I think in the beginning its tempting to want to keep your options open by being a “generalist.” But the truth is people don’t want to hire generalists, they want to hire specialists.

Work on narrowing down your niche and offering specialized services and your freelance income will begin to increase very quickly.

Do you freelance at anything? How to do you narrow your target market? How do you find customers?

(This post is part of the First Friday Link Party @ Make a Living Writing.)