Are you using pitches as part of your strategy to get freelance clients? Pitching is awesome because one great pitch can land you thousands of dollars worth of work. However, it can be frustrating when you’re sending pitch after pitch and you can’t seem to land any clients. Honestly, we’ve all been there but the right freelance pitching tips can help you get clients fast. 

In this post, we’re going to take a look at what you can do to improve your pitches fast so you can get out there and land a client.  If you’re ready to turn up the heat on your freelance business and get to work, this is the post for you. Here are 9 simple freelance pitching tips to help you land clients.

Have a professional email address

First Impressions matter. One of the first things your potential clients will notice when you email them is your email address. So, if you’re still using that email address with the weird name that you made 15 years ago, It’s time to change it up. This is part of treating your freelance business like a business.  

Make a new email account if you don’t have an email address that sounds professional. It only takes a few minutes and it can make a big difference if you want clients to take you seriously. If you have your own website, you should also get an email address with that domain name, (name@yourdomain.com). I use G Suite for this.

Do your research

I know that as a new freelancer it can be tempting to pick any company that you think may have the budget to pay you, but avoid this. Before you pitch a company. look at the presence they have online.  If they haven’t updated their website in two decades, they’re going to value anything you could do for them. 

If you read up on a company and they bore you to tears, don’t pitch them. Take the time to find clients who are going to be the right fit for you. Then it’s so much easier to write a great pitch.

Sending five awesome pitches to businesses you care about is better than sending 20 pitches to businesses you don’t care about. Think about this before you send that pitch. 

Make a connection

Once you know who to pitch, you should figure out how you can make a connection. Maybe you looked your potential client up on social and you liked their most recent post. Maybe you’re from the same city that a company you’re pitching is in. These small connections can have a huge impact.

Remember, these potential clients don’t know you. You’re landing in their inbox as a complete stranger. Making a connection is one way that you can build some trust with them. If you want to stand out, you have to show that you’re a real person, not some weirdo from the dark corners of the internet asking them for money. This can be the difference between getting a client and ending up in the spam folder.

Keep it short

If you ramble on and on in your pitch, you’re not going to look like an expert. Your potential clients do not need your life story. They just need to understand why you’re emailing them. If they glance at your email and can’t figure that out fast, your pitches won’t go anywhere.

Most people don’t read every email that they get anyway, they skim. Your potential clients will do the same thing to your emails if they’re too long. Once you make sure that you have all the necessary information in your pitch, cut it down as short as you can. If you can get to the point, your email is much more likely to get a response.

Focus on the client

When you’re writing your pitches, focus on what you can do for the client, not yourself. Clients don’t care that much about your background or how long you’ve been writing. They’re focused on their own business. This means your main goal should be to show them that you know how to help their business see more success. This alone can transform your pitches. You’ll go from looking desperate to look like a total expert.

Include a CTA

A call to action or CTA is a critical part of your pitch. The definition of a CTA is: 

A piece of content intended to induce a viewer, reader, or listener to perform a specific act, typically taking the form of an instruction or directive (e.g. buy now or click here).

Now, of course, you shouldn’t send your pitch asking your potential client to buy now. (That’s one way to land in the spam folder fast)! BUT you should give them a reason to reply. Asking a relevant question at the end of your pitch is a great way to close your email. This will inspire your potential client to act.

Don’t just fire off emails into cyberspace and expect a reply. If you don’t give your potential client a reason to respond to you, they won’t. 

Proofread

This one is so important. Even as an experienced freelancer who gets most of their clients from pitching, this is still the most common pitching mistake for me. I’m not a great proofreader but it’s a skill I’m always trying to improve on. 

Always proofread your pitches. Always. Multiple times if you know that you’re not a good proofreader. 

Having a single typo is not the end of the world. However, you have to remember that the person you’re pitching probably gets pitches for different services all the time. At the end of the day, the person who writes the perfect freelance pitch without typos is going to get hired over you. 

This is where having the right tools can be handy if you want to send out pitches fast. Grammarly is an awesome tool to help you proofread. If you don’t have Grammarly yet, you can sign up for free and catch errors in your pitches fast, before you hit send.

Track your emails 

You can get a lot of valuable information from tracking your emails. Using a tool like HubSpot free CRM, you’ll know when and if potential clients open your pitch. This is important because you can pay attention to who’s opening emails from you. On the flip side, if your emails aren’t getting opened it all, you’ll know that you need to make changes. Your pitches won’t go far if they’re sitting in people’s inboxes or worse, getting thrown straight in the trash. 

Even though I’ve been successful with cold pitching freelance clients, I still track every freelance pitch I send. This doesn’t mean that I’m constantly checking when emails get opened, but it is something that I look at a couple of time of times a week. This is a free and simple way to figure out whether your pitches are awesome or need some help. 

Keep practicing 

You can get all the advice in the world about pitching but if you don’t apply it, it won’t matter. There’s one thing you must do if you want to improve your freelance pitches. 

Pitch, often If you’re only pitching a few companies every week, you’re not going to get better at pitching.

Believe me, some of the first pitches I sent were bad. Seriously. Embarrassingly bad. I invested in resources to help me improve my pitching skills, and they definitely helped. However, I had to get out there and pitch a lot to discover what worked for me. 

(Are you interested in seeing some of those AWFUL pitches? Let me know in the comments). 

When I got VERY serious about pitching, I was sending out about 10 pitches per day. Once work started coming my way and contracts got signed, I was able to cut that number down. The idea here is that you should send as many good pitches as you can until you start getting a lot of bites from potential clients. Then, you can cut back, refine your pitch and be more picky as your schedule fills up. 

Ready to put these freelance pitching tips in action?

There are tons of ways to make money online, but in my opinion, learning how to write great pitches is key to becoming a successful freelancer. I can tell you that pitching is one of the top marketing methods I use in my business. It helped me grow my business fast.

If you use these freelance pitching tips, you’ll already be steps ahead of many other freelancers who are trying to get work. Now, it’s up to you to get out there, pitch and get paid.

 

PSSSTTT…want even more freelance pitching tips? 

In my free e-course for freelance writers, I share tips on launching your freelance business and writing pitches that will land YOU a gig fast. Click the button below to sign up and get access to the course now. See you inside!

 

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