I'm a practical guy. Which is why I like to give pragmatic advice. Currently I'm working on writing top-10 lists for all things freelance. In this e-mail you'll read the one I wrote on marketing. Hope you pick up a new idea!

Here we go. Ten marketing tips for freelancers.

1. Share your knowledge on social media

Only a small percentage of freelancers post regularly on social media. Be the outlier. Get your knowledge out there. Post a few times per week on LinkedIN. Attract an audience and fill your DM’s up with leads.

I'm a huge fan of LinkedIN. It allows you to become an authority, connect with likeminded people and if you stick with it, it will get you leads. Writing on LinkedIN:

- got me 7.500 followers
- helped me sell 2,000 books
- earned me €75,000 in book sales
- got me about 50% of my leads

2. Treat your profile as a sales page

Stop reading for a minute. Head over to the LinkedIN profile pages of a few freelancers. You’ll find: no banners, vague taglines, no ‘about’ section and zero recommendations. Such a shame. If you want leads to DM you, optimize your profile page. Add professional images, persuasive copywriting and clear calls-to-actions.

Your posts, DM's and all your networking effort elsewhere all lead people to your LinkedIN profile. Make sure it's optimized to get people to take action.

3. Get speaking gigs

If you're a bit like me, you find networking at events boring and inefficient. However, if you get on the podium and give a talk, you'll have the attention of dozens of people at the same time.

Also if you record your talk, and you'll have content for weeks. Now that's a good ROI on your time, if you ask me.

Scout the internet for relevant conferences in your niche. Pitch yourself as a speaker. I’ll guarantee you, if you fill up a room with 100 potential leads and you hold a high quality talk, you *will* do business afterwards.

4. Start a podcast

I like podcasting and listening to podcasts. Why you should consider podcasting? To start, podcasting reduces the distance between you and your target audiences. Listening to someone speak adds so much more depth than reading a LinkedIN post. This is important, because people to business with people. Building rapport through a podcasts is a perfect way to get warm leads.

Secondly, podcasting is a brilliant way of attracting new people to your business. People actively look for new podcasts to listen. Pick the right podcast topic and use episode titles people look for, you'll have an active audience in no time. My previous podcast was a Dutch called 'The Freelance Podcast' and had about 1,000 listeners per episode.

Also: when you interview interesting guests, you get introduces to their network as well, resulting in more listeners and growth of your authority.

5. Get on podcasts as a guest

Too lazy to start your own podcast? Go look for podcasts in your niche and pitch yourself as a guest. It’s the perfect way to get in front of a fresh audience. Ask the host for the raw material, so you can recycle the content in your social media posts.

6. Get a professional website

Every freelancer should have home on the web they own. All that social media activity, networking and speaking gigs should lead to people going to your website and being persuaded to get in touch with you.

It's also important to actually own a piece of the internet. A place for your most important content. Social media is fine and all, but you could get blocked or they could go bankrupt, resulting in you losing your content and access to your audience.

7. Connect with complementary freelancers

Pro tip: have others do the marketing for you. Find freelancers who complement your services and offer them a kickback fee for leads they send your way. I’ve always offered 10% kickback fee on leads I’d close.

Two of my partners were business coaches in my first years of freelancing. They both spoke to dozens of entrepreneurs per week. They knew what I was bringing to the table, so whenever one of their clients needed online marketing to grow their business, I'd get introduced. Win-win.

8. Make friends with your competition

I’ve never seen fellow Google Ads specialists as a threat. Or even as competition. Instead, I open conversations all the time with people who have shared ambitions. It’s how I ended up sharing an office with three fellow Google Ads specialists. Whenever someone is fully booked or can’t take on a client for different reasons, they can recommend you as a freelancer.

9. Work for free

If there is a way to get a foot in the door and display what you have to offer, do it. I offer free audits to any lead I would like to take on. What happens is that I’ll sum up so many opportunities and how I’d tackle them, it’s hard for my lead to not hire me.

10. Try paid advertising

Lots of freelance shy away from paid advertising. I get it. It’s scary, costs money and is often unknown territory. but it’s also a quick way to attract more people to your business. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. Often you can target a highly relevant audience in your local area for a few $ per day. I suggest you give it a try!