Let's kick off this week full of freebies and announcements with a SWOT analysis worksheet. Add this to your marketing arsenal as a way to figure out your current place within your market.
What is a SWOT Analysis?
You conduct a SWOT analysis by taking an honest look at four key areas:
- Your Strengths -- What gives you an edge over the competition?
- Your Weaknesses -- What do you need to overcome to be, or stay, competitive?
- Opportunities -- What opportunities exist within your market or specialty for growth?
- Threats -- What are the biggest external threats or challenges you'll face as a freelancer in your specific market?
Let's look at an example of what you might come up with if you were a US-based freelance writer fresh out of college with a business degree, and you wanted to write business-oriented online content. In this example, let's say you spent your summers working for an internet marketing firm in addition to earning your degree.
Example SWOT Analysis
Using the example scenario above, your SWOT analysis might look something like this:
Strengths
- Specialized degree
- US-based (targeting US clients)
- Internet marketing experience allowing you to offer value-added services like SEO and social media assistance
- Strong understanding of marketing fundamentals to promote your own services
Weaknesses
- Limited experience compared to your main competitors
- Lack of visibility in the market
- Extremely limited marketing budget
Opportunities
- Rapid expansion in your specialty (more online business publications as well as constant new businesses launched needing web content)
- A growing international market (with a demand for native English speakers to help overseas companies target US-based customers)
Threats
- Growing competition alongside the growing demand
- Low-priced competitors skew prospects' idea of value
When you conduct a SWOT analysis, none of these sections should remain blank. No matter how good you think you are, you do have weaknesses. No matter how new you are, you do have strengths. And every market will have both opportunities and strengths. If you can't think of any, try talking to existing clients or colleagues to see if they can shed some light on things you haven't considered.
Download the SWOT analysis worksheet for freelance writers below to get started.
Thanks for another great freebie, Jenn. I love the SWOT method: very helpful in nailing down what your marketing time needs to accomplish.
Thanks for another great resource Jenn. The SWOT analysis is a good tool for finding out how your business is tracking at a point in time, and then repeating the exercise in future to assess how and where your business has changed over time.
Thank you! A SWOT analysis can do wonders to your business, so very grateful for this freebie. 🙂
I’ve used and created SWOTs quite a bit for other types of businesses. I didn’t think it would do much for me.
The filled in sample SWOT (just downloaded it to check it out), though, really helped me identify things that I didn’t think about in regards to myself in comparison to other writers, etc.
This may not be the most appropriate place to ask a follow-up question, but I noticed that one of the weaknesses of the sample person was something along the lines of “not much of a budget for marketing”. What would someone spend money for marketing on (I just send letters of introduction; post info plus contact info on linkedin, which is free; or for areas in my niche area – pay for an online listing)
What if you don’t have any weaknesses? I just crossed that out and wrote down, “Favorite Animal.” Now my SWOT has cat written on it and I’m not sure how that helps my business.
😀
@ Yo – Mine is covered with “I’m a Superstar!” Do y’all think that might bode ill for my SWOT?
I think that’s better than cat ‘cuz it means you’re walking around all confident and I just want to sleep and eat tuna.
Hmmm…maybe “Overconfident” should make it on to the sheet. I just want to sleep, but that’s a whole other thing. 🙂
Wait, are you saying overconfidence is a weakness? Why didn’t anyone tell me that sooner?? ;-P
@ Wolfster – One of the marketing methods many writers don’t think of is PPC (Pay-Per-Click) It’s highly effective for certain keywords but takes some experimentation and finesse to make it work in most cases. While you can get serious returns from PPC, you have to spend money to get exposure which might not be earned back for some time. PPC is tricky even for skilled marketers and can be expensive if you’re not on top of your campaign and spending all of the time. That is where a big marketing budget can pay off in a big way.
Another budget buster can be taking time off from client projects (with pay) to create a marketable items such as a white paper or ebook. You lose profits while creating and then if you use it for marketing, you’ll need to set up a landing page or copy of some kind to promote it which can be expensive if you can’t do that yourself and then you can incur additional expenses if you pay affiliate commission on sales or leads to the book or (again) for PPC traffic for exposure to the book.
I spent a few hundred dollars on PPC during my slow season last year. I got a couple of clients from it and they more than made up for the cost. I’ll probably roll that around again later this year.
Other marketing costs could be advertising in reunion booklets or yearbooks (I target insurance agents remember :)), banner ads, business cards (design and printing), time off for networking events etc.
OMG forgot there was a cat in the pic with me. Hahaha, now I really seem like the crazy cat lady 🙂
@Rebecca,
Thank you for sharing that piece of information (PPC). I’ve received free coupons to try out google ads (I think they are pay per click), but never imagined that it would help me as a writer. I may have to give that a go before the next anticipated slow time. Sounds like a good thing to experiment with provided I put a cap on it and land a client or two.
If anyone else has ideas that would cost $ for marketing and that pay off for writers, feel free to share.
Your competitors use the SWOT framework by observing at yourself. You can start to craft a strategy which will help you distinguish yourself from your competitors, so you will compete successfully in your market.