Tag Archives: competition

Gamification: Make Freelance Writing More Fun

By Jennifer Mattern on February 26th, 2013

In the comments on our recent post about loving your work, Anne Wayman mentioned that she might try to turn some of her marketing into a game. That’s something I try to do with my daily work as much as possible too. So I thought it might be fun to look at gamification and how you can gamify your freelance writing work. Gamification doesn’t have to mean literally turning something into a game. But you use game principles in your process — like racing a clock or incentivizing certain goals or actions. I find it makes work not only more …

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Posted in Productivity & Organization |

What sets you Apart from other Writers?

By Chris Bibey on January 9th, 2012

As you continue to market your services, you will receive many of the same questions from potential clients. You are sure to hear the following from time to time: What sets you apart from other writers? Why should I hire you instead of another freelancer? These are legitimate questions – and you need to have legitimate answers. If you are unprepared for the above questions, you may be taken off guard and subsequently lose out on a project. There are several basic answers you can use to address this common concern. Experience. Do you have a lot of experience in …

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Posted in Marketing |

In Business, Imitation is Far From Flattery

By Jennifer Mattern on January 6th, 2010

Market research is important. You should always know what your competition is doing, because it gives you insight into your market. But copying successful formats and strategies is not generally the way to succed for yourself. Imitation may occasionally be the sincerest form of flattery, but not in business. Jessie Fitzgerald asked me on Twitter today if I owned AllFreelanceBlogging.com. I don’t, but I joked that maybe I should go register it to stop some leech from registering it to run a similar blog and play on my branding work over the years. But it wasn’t that much of a …

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Posted in Freelance Writing Business |

Freelance Writers: How to Make Your Own “Dumb Luck”

By Jennifer Mattern on October 20th, 2009

No doubt you’ve stumbled across a competitor at some point and thought “how is this person even in business?” Their credentials aren’t as solid as yours. Their samples are terrible (or they don’t seem to have any to speak of). Their professional site is so dated that it needed to retire a decade ago. Given those things, why are they ranking #1 in the search engines in your niche? Why are they apparently getting more work (which they may or may not even deserve)? It probably has at least something to do with dumb luck. Luck shouldn’t be something you …

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