Open Thread: How Much Time Do You Spend on Marketing?
Posted April 25, 2010 in Marketing, Open Thread
Something that most non-freelancers don’t realize is that it take an awful lot of marketing effort to build a successful freelancing business. The time that you spend marketing your freelance business is not time that you are getting paid for.
In fact, I’ve read where some freelancing gurus recommend spending at least half of your working time on marketing. While there’s no doubt that marketing is terribly important to freelancing success, I wasn’t sure whether most freelancers actually spend half their time on this task.
Thinking about this topic got me curious–I wonder how much time our readers spend on marketing each week?
In fact, that’s this week’s open thread topic:
How many hours do you spend on marketing each week?
I’ll start. If I include the time spent networking, I spend between one and two hours a day on marketing. However, I may be an exception because I have been freelancing for a long time and I get a lot of repeat business and business through referrals.
Let’s hear from you. How much time do you spend on marketing?
Leave your answers in the comments.
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About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 20 years of professional business writing experience. If you liked this post, then you may also enjoy Laura’s blog about her freelance writing experiences, WritingThoughts. Laura is also on Google+.
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47 Comments
Heather
April 25th, 2010 at 8:47 amIf we’re including networking, I spend probably in the region of 2-8 hours a day marketing. Clearly, something’s not right there :)
Avonelle Lovhaug
April 25th, 2010 at 9:15 amI spend 4-8 hours a week marketing. Activities that I consider marketing include: attending chamber of commerce events, writing blog posts, and tweaking my google adwords campaigns.
I’ve been a freelancer for over 7 years and almost all of my business comes from repeat business.
Marta
April 25th, 2010 at 9:54 amWhat can I say… I definitely spend too much time on marketing these days. 2-3h a day is a minimum for me. But no one said it’s gonna be easy, right? :)
Rick
April 25th, 2010 at 11:23 amSimply not enough, it is something I struggle with because I am busy enough … at the moment. And there is the problem, when things inevitably slow down I will wish I had spent more time marketing. sigh..
Lucian
April 25th, 2010 at 11:58 amI spend around 5-9 hours a week for marketing myself. That means time talking with prospective clients, writing blog posts, reaching job boards, reading other blogs and commenting, Twitter etc. 60%-70% of my clients are coming from repeat work and referrals. The rest are part of my marketing efforts.
Jordan Walker
April 25th, 2010 at 12:07 pmI spend roughly 5 – 6 hours a week.
Nicole Foster
April 25th, 2010 at 12:24 pmMy marketing habits are kind of random. I can’t dedicate certain hours to it, so I end up randomly marketing.
Nonetheless, I’m having a hard time online marketing lately because I’ve been so busy, so I’m trying to focus on offline marketing for now.
Gail @ Support Freelancers
April 25th, 2010 at 1:16 pmNew freelancers probably will have to spend half their time marketing and even then building a new business doesn’t happen overnight. May I make some suggestions?
1) Make sure your blog or Web site clearly shares what you do and ideally what it costs or at least how to find out. Your about page can be a good place for that or you could have another page called hire me or consulting. Both your about and that page should be VERY OBVIOUS on your site – usually a tab under the header.
2) Create relationships with people who are in a position to recommend you and send you business. You won’t need to do nearly as much marketing if the people who influence those who would most be interested in hiring you are your best cheerleaders.
3) Whenever possible make it easy for potential clients to buy from you. That is done by offering a specific task for a set price. Most people have difficulty making decisions. If you only give them two yes/no decisions to make you will get a lot more business.
Some examples of this would be:
A. Creating and installing a Favicon $X
B. Article writing 500 words for $X or a package of X for $XX.XX
C. Installing WordPress $X
D. Installing or updating plugins $X
E. Writing some custom CSS to change the look of quotes or add a Call to Action box
You get the idea. There is a HUGE market for people who will provide BASIC services. If you think those are too easy or don’t pay enough that is untrue. What something is worth is NOT based on how long it takes YOU to do it.
It is worth how long it would take THEM to learn how and get it done. In many cases they do not want to learn how to do it themselves no matter how long it would take so to those people it is worth even more than their time X the hours required.
Remember that to someone who has a career or business income they may value their time much higher than you price yours. What you can do in 15 minutes that you think isn’t worth bothering with might take them 10 hours x $25, $100, $300 or even more PER HOUR!
A task you thought you could only charge $15 for could be valued by the market at $100-$500 or more.
Offer a specific task for a specific price and you make your services very easy to purchase.
Here are the only two questions they potential buyers will need to answer:
A. Am I interested in what this freelancer has to offer? yes/no
B. Am I willing to spend the amount of money they charge for their service? yes/no
See how simple that is? You will get far more buyers that way than if they have to contact you for a quote or you only focus on large jobs. Those small jobs will turn into more work from happy clients and referrals.
Eventually how much time you spend marketing your services will drop to very little because satisfied customers and connected Social Media Marketers will send you all the business you can handle.
Chris Gannon
April 25th, 2010 at 2:33 pmZero. It’s all word of mouth. Otherwise I end up fielding time wasters’ phone calls and emails. Word of mouth usually guarantees work that is related to my level of work and it results in fewer, higher value jobs.
Thiago Cavalcanti
April 25th, 2010 at 4:19 pmI’ve just got back to freelancing after a six month long hiatus due to a corporate job I took and I’m finding that my old usual 2-hours-a-day marketing routine isn’t enough anymore!
This has lead me to conclude that there should be an inverse relationship between the (continuous) time one has been freelancing and how much of his or her day should be spent on marketing efforts.
Am I right to think so?
Maxime
April 25th, 2010 at 6:04 pmAbout 4-5 hours a day. I’m beginning freelancing, I have to find clients right now if I don’t want to grow my business.
@Chris Gannon: I agree with you, word of mouth is the better way to find relevant work. And hope I will spend zero or few hours on marketing as well!
Stephanie
April 25th, 2010 at 6:28 pmI’m an independent freelancer at the moment, so if blogging and participating in other blog discussions count, then just 4-5 hours a week. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to start my own freelancing business. :)
Alex
April 26th, 2010 at 1:56 amI’ve been freelancing for 1 year now. And am just starting to get referrals, which is obviously the best form of adverting. But I’m still spending some time on marketing, about 2-3 hours a day (reading business blogs and books, designing and posting ads)
Laura Spencer
April 26th, 2010 at 9:15 amThanks to everyone who answered.
I think that we all learned something here. :-)
Shanna
April 26th, 2010 at 9:43 amI set my marketing plan years ago with one day a week scheduled for my own marketing. It is still one day a week, but the tasks are different now.
Cook
April 26th, 2010 at 11:53 amuseful read….thx for selecting such a great topic
John Soares
April 26th, 2010 at 2:31 pmI spend maybe a couple hours per month marketing my freelance writing, which has paid the bills for the last 16 years.
However, I am spending 2 or so hours a day marketing the information products I create and the blogs I write.
CJ
April 26th, 2010 at 8:16 pmIt’s pretty random. At the moment I have a nice little writing gig that will last 4-8 months. The problem is, all the momentum I’ve built up via social media is starting to slide because I’m not able to access these networks during the day while I’m on site with the client. I find balancing current workload, with blogging and then marketing is hard to do with limited hours in the day.
Advance Web
April 27th, 2010 at 5:10 amWell for me, it depends on what I will promote. But most of the time I will use up to 5 hours for marketing.
Mike
April 27th, 2010 at 5:31 amMarketing is must if you are freelancer or you are leading a company…i can agree that one to two hours are enough if you are freelancer and if you are long term in business, you get lot of repeat business based on quality of your services.
So questions comes to new starters or who have not much number of clients, i will say work 1 to 2 hours on social media and building network within your niche is good…….
Also google and other search engines are separate from your SMM or SMO marketing time
Judith HeartSong
April 27th, 2010 at 5:38 amAs a professional artist I am up by five am every morning, seven days a week, and spend at least two hours working on my art-related marketing before I start my business day. I participated in a panel discussion last night at the Corcoran and afterward many artists asked me this same question, related to maintaining my blog, website, PR, and keeping all the wheels turning to spread the ripples on the pond. In this economy I want to work harder to rise above the crowd and get my work noticed and the sky is the limit…. you never do know how far you can go.
Lamwhigma
April 27th, 2010 at 1:32 pmHello I just lost my job in San Antonio,Texas. I have applied to most of the job sites more times than thousand times and applied to 100s of positions. However, i have not been able to find a single good response to my applications. If anyone knows about any particular place where i can look for a good job, please revert me with the location details. I will be thankful to you for your early response.
Cory
April 27th, 2010 at 4:34 pmYou should be spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on it. Think of it like this……
Everything you do concerning your company is marketing. If you head out to a tech meetup, if you send an email, if you leave comments on blogs, if you go to dinner with friends, whatever…..it is all marketing at the end of the day.
Sure, direct mail or email blasts or Facebook ads may work and that is considered marketing as well. But, you can truly market yourself for free just by being out there, getting noticed, and making connections. And when you do, be ready to pitch yourself and your company in a very personable, non-car salesman way!
Why? Because ultimately, you are marketing YOU. Not your company, not your services, not your product. YOU are the company (if you are a freelancer). Marketing doesn’t have to be rocket science, it just has to be you talking, interacting, and pushing your ideas.
Never pass up the opportunity to hand out a card, or explain what you do, or post on a blog with a tidbit of info. Marketing yourself in this way can go a long way in attracting clients.
–Cory
Sunny
April 28th, 2010 at 8:22 amOK, I will be honest I spend about less then a hour PW on marketing now that’s noting to what you guys do so I will be getting head down now!!.
However though I am currently working on a project that doesn’t look very gooish (if that’s a word). any way I am currently compiling an online directory. so where do i begin to start this type of marketing please give it a visit it’s at http://www.fizwix.com and let me know.
Milan Dobrota
April 29th, 2010 at 5:10 pmProbably around 7 – 15 hours a week. But quality work is what matters the most.
Joyclejotly
April 29th, 2010 at 7:43 pmHi I am currently out of work in Austin,Texas. I looked at all the sites more times than thousand times and sent off hundreds of resumes. However, i have not been able to find a single good response to my applications. If anyone knows about particular job site where i can look for a good job, please reply me with the location details. I will be thankful to you for your early response.
Anessyseand
May 4th, 2010 at 3:53 pmHello I am currently out of work in Garland,Texas I have applied to most of the job sites more times than thousand times and sent off hundreds of resumes. However, i have not been able to find a single good response to my applications. If anyone knows about any particular place where i can look for a good job, please reply me with the location details. I will be thankful to you for your early response.
Phil
July 28th, 2010 at 11:33 pmGreat post.
Hello I have applied to most of the job sites more times than thousand times and sent off hundreds of resumes.
NICK
August 8th, 2010 at 6:27 amonline marketing is good process….but for that person must know how to do all of marketing thing online…first take experience then do it……
great article thanks for sharing…
sam
August 27th, 2010 at 7:54 amI’m having a hard time online marketing lately because I’ve been so busy, so I’m trying to focus on offline marketing for now.thanks for sharing the opinion..
Kayla
December 27th, 2010 at 12:59 amShort answer: not enough
Long answer: I tend to do a lot of blogging for additional income in between client projects, and while I do it primarily for enjoyment and sometimes to stay afloat financially, it does end up being my biggest marketing tactic. So, I could say I spend hours a week marketing if I were to include that. I then spend some of my time on Twitter, and even LinkedIn occasionally, but I could definitely better myself in finding a more organized and efficient way to market myself.
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April 11th, 2012 at 8:10 amWas forwarded to this post by an associate. And, I concur with what you are saying. Wonderful read.
Tim
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