Today is the first day of our 30 day marketing bootcamp for freelance writers — specifically writers interested in the query-free freelancing style. The marketing bootcamp post series will deal predominantly with Internet marketing and online PR tactics to help freelance writers build their platform and greater visibility to attract clients. We’ll focus mostly on online tactics, simply because they’re often the most affordable and most easily accessible.

Let’s talk about target markets.

Background

Your target market is the group of potential clients you’re trying to attract. They’re the people you hope will eventually hire you (and those you’ll target with all of your marketing efforts).

Do you know who your target market is? If you say “business owners” or “webmasters” or “magazines,” then you don’t. Those are too general. They’re not targeted at all. Your target market should be more specific. For example, an SEO content writer might narrow their target market down to SEO firm owners in their region who are prepared to offer monthly contracts to have a writer handle all SEO content for their various clients. That means they have someone specifiic they’re trying to reach. They know who their marketing messages have to “speak to” in order to land the types of writing jobs they want.

So ask yourself again: “Who is my target market?” If you aren’t sure, today’s exercises should help you out.

Exercises

1. Write down a brief description (no more than 3 sentences) of who your general market is (or who you think it will be).
2. Ask yourself the following questions in order to narrow down your actual target market:
   - Do you want to work with clients in a certain country, region, or town?
   - Do you want to work with clients or publications in a specific niche or industry?
   - Do you want to work with end clients or middlemen clients?
   - What kind of budget should clients have if they want to hire you?
   - How much work should each client be able to bring in (ties to end vs middlemen clients)?
   - Do you want only clients offering regular gigs or are one-off gigs okay with you?
   - What people in the company or publication will actually have the power to hire you?
3. Using those answers, re-craft your original statement to account for any specifics you didn’t think of previously.
4. Make a list of all of the features your services include (what are you able to write, what credentials do you have, etc.), and list their corresponding benefit to your new target market.
5. Craft a USP (unique selling position / proposition). This represents your value to the client — why they should hire you instead of another writer. In other words, what’s so great about you (based on those features, benefits, and needs of your target market)? Keep in mind that low prices are never a good USP for service providers (since your time is a limited resource – low prices do not equal “value” in this sense).
6. If you can’t come up with a reason you should be hired over the competition, you probably haven’t chosen the best target market. Look for ways to narrow it down further, or go back to exercise #2 and re-think some of your desires.

In the end your target market should be specific in nature, and there should be a reason for them to hire you. Remember, query-free freelancing is about setting yourself apart through your platform and marketing and PR strategies. If nothing could possibly set you apart with a certain target market, it’s not the right one for you (no matter how appealing it might sound).