How To Start Your Freelance Video Business in 2022: A Step-by-Step Guide
Do you want to learn how to start a video freelance business from scratch this year, get sales, make more money doing what you love and be your own boss?
Are you looking for freedom and flexibility so that you can work and live on your terms? You’re planning to take life by the reins and your industry by storm?
If yes then read on.
It is often pretty challenging to start a business without any formal training, It’s even more difficult to establish your business once and make a name for yourself. This article will give you everything you need to start your freelance business and make money from the comfort of your home.
What is a Freelance Business?
In general, freelancing is working on your terms and independently making decisions about the same. If put simply, you are in charge of your work. You can choose your working hours, pricing, place of work, and services that you provide. A freelancer works on a contract or project basis. For me freelancing is the one career lifestyle that affords you flexibility, freedom, a limitless earning potential and can be extremely fulfilling, when done right.
1. Define your service & offering:
I’d highly recommend that if you’re starting off as a freelancer, you need to determine your area of expertise. You need to understand what problem are you solving for your potential clients, do people need this problem to be solved) (the level of demand in the market)and lastly do you have the skills and expertise to solve this. You can start with your interests and skillset, do you have a passion as a video editor, designer, post-production artist, creative consultant or motion designer? You’ll need to understand how your skills can help a prospective client. Try to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client. With this in mind, what problems can this skillset do they have, and how can this be used to resolve the issue?
It’s essential to recognise that clients are looking for a solution to a problem. The bigger the problem — the more you’re paid to solve this. Once you have a deep understanding of a client’s dilemmas, you’ll be able to use your service to address their issue. This will be the foundation of how you package your skills as a service — this is the first step. Now it’s time to come up with a brief description of the service that helps you sell your freelance service to companies. Try to concisely explain what you can do, how you do it, and for what type of business/client. Don’t worry about the price yet; we’ll come to that in the later steps.
2. Find your target audience
Now that you have a freelance service to offer, you’ll need to find a target audience. Start by identifying the type of clients that will be a good fit for your service. Do these clients have a shared problem and common characteristics? Are they in a specific industry? Do they have a budget to hire you? I.e is there a demand for your service and are they willing and able to pay for this. This is extremely important as you can’t sell a service to someone who doesn’t need it. A market only exists with service providers (that’s you) and customers that require it; your clients.
As a new freelancer, merely being great at what you do is not enough to automatically have clients seeking you out. It’s crucial to position yourself in front of your potential clients so they can learn about your services. You’ll need to take an active role in finding potential clients. For most freelancers, there are four ways to acquire clients:
Freelance job posting platforms.
Leverage existing connections and networking.
Marketing, advertising, and outreach.
Building a solid brand and getting inbound clients.
3. Establish your online presence
Overnight success is rarely ever the case. It takes time and effort to establish your business’ presence in the market. You need to let people know about your services. Most freelancers tend to look for popular freelance marketplaces like Freelancer.com and Upwork. Little do they know that these marketplaces do more harm than good. There are millions of freelancers that are signed up on these platforms, meaning that you’re competing with other freelancers which may lead them to get trapped in bidding wars. So, an ideal way of establishing your online presence is to go online and create your own marketplace. It is a one-time investment. It helps you to stay on top of the market, as it helps you build trust with your prospective clients.
4. Create a system to find clients
The system is how you are going to find clients? What is your strategy to get freelance clients?
If you’re an experienced video freelancer, you probably despise Fiverr, PeoplePerHour and all the other standardised marketplaces. It’s a race to the bottom to bid for the cheapest freelancer, they rarely are looking for creative or consultative input and ultimately discredit the freelancers’ talent.
If you’re just kicking off your career, you can use those platforms to gain experience but just know, that it won’t be financially viable in the long run and almost impossible to then raise your rates with those existing clients. Of course, this isn’t the case for all online marketplaces — there are some amazing ones like YunoJuno 🙌
The Holy Grail for a service-based business is having your own sales funnel. This is when you have clients who seek you out for your expertise and want to work with you — and you alone.
But, how do you create this funnel?
Don’t you need to be a known figure in your industry? Someone who regularly does keynotes at all the big conferences and probably has published a few books? (This helps, but isn’t necessary).
Anyone can create a sales funnel — and that means you, my friend.
If you want to learn about getting clients and creating sales funnel you can learn everything here.
5. Set your pricing
As a freelancer, you get to set your pricing. You can even decide if you want to get paid on an hourly basis or upon the completion of the project. If you are just beginning your career as a freelancer, you need to keep your competitors in mind and then set your pricing. It should neither be too high nor too low, it should seem reasonable to the client. If you decide to be a freelance consultant or tutor, you can even create packages for your clients. These packages can provide your clients with a discount on a set number of sessions, and you can use this strategy to attract more clients.
Once you have clearly defined your service and your target market, it’s time to set your price. The goal is to maximize the amount you’re paid without losing out on potential jobs. So, start by looking at your competitors in the market. What are they charging for similar freelancing services?
6. Market your work
There are millions of freelancers out there and the only way any client can see your freelance business is through excellent marketing. You need to work according to the expectations of your prospective clients. You need to publish blogs and posts that allow people to understand your business. If you post content that is relatable to the audience and relevant to your business, then clients will find interest in your service and consider choosing your services.
For instance, if you are a freelance consultant, you may post content regarding what type of consultation you provide and keep free webinars to attract prospective clients. However, the correct marketing strategy may differ for one freelance business from another.
Once you get kick-started in your freelancing career, you need to build and establish your brand’s image. Since you are your own brand, you need to constantly update your website and social media with your accomplished projects. Keep sharing blogs and articles about your business & learn more about how to market yourself as a freelancer here.
7. Network with other freelancers & clients
Networking is essential for any business and especially for a freelancer. It is important to make connections with prospective clients in order to create their interest in your business. You can connect with them for discussion, invite them to events, and you can host webinars or online sessions for them. Giving importance to these connections can prove to be really beneficial as they would get more inclined to availing your services simply because you managed to build a rapport with them. I’d recommend to network as often as possible, with many competitors out there, networking is your chance to dehumanise a faceless company into someone they can trust and rely on, to deliver killer videos for years to come.
Hope this helps. 💖
If you want to learn more about getting work, finding clients, pricing, negotiation, and the business side of freelancing then enrol for Freelance Mastery — the #1 freelancer course which helps you to land high-paying post-production clients, fast.
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