I’m a writer, and I boost my business via video.
Um, what? If you’re a writer, and want to be hired as a writer, shouldn’t you do your marketing via written word? After all, that’s how people are going to judge whether you’re good enough, right?
Well, yes. And I do use the written word a lot. I publish a written post on my own blog every other week, and I write for a handful of client sites as well. But back in January and February, I was having a little trouble getting traffic to my site and booking business. To solve that problem, I joined a business coaching program (like I’ve mentioned in some of my past posts)—but a colleague in my city’s entrepreneur network suggested something a little radical: YouTube.
In our communications, she reasoned that no other writer was doing YouTube videos as a way to stand out, so it’d be so easy for me to set myself apart that way. And, in a way, she was right: it’s not that no writers were using YouTube, but the number was (and still is) so small, I might as well be the only one. My videos consistently rank in the top five for their keywords. Compare that to the number of writers I’m competing against with the written word in Google search, and the choice to use video as a part of my marketing strategy is almost a no-brainer.
My videos don’t have that many views (currently approximately 30-50 each), but the keywords I use are highly targeted, and I know that people aren’t just stumbling upon them by chance—they’re watching them because they want to know exactly what I’m teaching in those videos. Once they see I’m capable of teaching them those things, a fair number of them follow the call to action I put at the end to read my blog or download my lead magnet.
Video marketing helps me raise personal brand awareness, grow my email list, and reach people in my target audience who already know they need help from someone like me. And although my video quality is not great, it’s good enough—which works for me and my viewers.
In the video above, I walk through the exact process I use to produce my videos, including how I determine which keywords to use in my titles so I can drive the targeted traffic these videos are so good for. I also mention these resources, both of which I highly recommend for freelancers looking to try video in their marketing strategies:
If you want more inspiration and ideas for video marketing as a freelancer, check out my YouTube channel. And if I’ve inspired you in any way to give YouTube a shot for your own freelance career, let me know in the comments!
