Press Releases, Funding Announcements, and Biz Journals: Marketing How-To for Freelance Writers
If you've ever wondered how you can make your list of potential clients who actually have enough revenue to pay good rates, this livestream's for you! I've found several different ways of using public announcements and publications to find great clients and I'm walking you step-by-step through how you can use in-your-niche tricks to form your marketing list and snag awesome clients.
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So one of the biggest things that I get in my inbox is how do I find ideal clients? What kinds of tips and tricks do I have for finding them or for getting information about where they hide out or where I can add them to my list, all that good stuff. So today we're gonna go over a few of those things and go through all these different steps that to find them through different public things that everybody can use to find them. So if you're, you've been wondering, like how to get your clients and how to, you know, search different things in your niche, this is for you. And everybody's here. We have all of our pets. I don't know if they're on camera. Oh, they are. They're there licking those over there. Licking of course, maybe we will give them something later. They're super snuggled up.
And if, uh, <laugh>, if you hear any like rain noises, it's basically melting here. So we had a super cold winter mix situation. So now we have a bunch of snow and we have a bunch of ice that's melting and it just sounds like it's raining outside. So Hey, Vicki, welcome in glad you could join. Uh, if you have questions as I go over anything, feel free to put it in the chat. We can go over anything freelance writing, and I'm just gonna hop into what we're gonna talk about. So let's talk about public announcements and publications. So this is one of my favorite ways to find different types of clients in my niche. That's a wave. Oh, interesting. Okay. I'm surprised that it changed. Yeah. YouTube, I guess like doesn't have as many emojis as like other places a wave. Hi Vicki. <laugh>. Yeah.
So here's the deal. When you're looking for things, you need to find trade publications. So trade publications are gonna have everything that's in your niche. Right? So, um, for me, sometimes that could be pizza today, or it could be QS or FSR. It could be online, it could be print. Sometimes advertisements in those trade magazines are really helpful because if companies have money to advertise or they're trying to get restaurant owners or whoever your niche is, or, um, hospitality, tech software, like those types of things, uh, it's really helpful to start making a list. Those. So for me, um, yeah, I like that you had the wave, like the ocean wave in there, biggie. So for me, I oftentimes pill for through those things for like announcements or new things that are popping up or, oh, you found the wave is the wave in YouTube or is the wave like you just found that on your own.
Okay. Full solve the wave thing. Um, anyways, so when we're doing these publications, right, they're in our niche. So they're usually trade magazines and they usually have advertisements articles, press releases, announcements, all of these different things that we can follow to start adding companies to our list. So as you go through these different types of niche, niche, publications, add to your list, and then you're gonna refine it by revenue. Right. So this process I've talked about before, both on YouTube, on social, and then like in my course in freelance writer, wealth lab pizza <laugh> Hey, Getty. Welcome in. Welcome from your car. I hope you're not driving <laugh> don't drive. Um, so yeah, putting these things on your list, then you're gonna refine by revenue later, right? So like, I've talked about this process before, and then you kind of refined by 3 million, at least 3 million ish for startups and then five to 50 million or regular companies.
So the deal is that you're using these publications, these trade magazines, like online or print, whatever to find names of companies to reach out, to right. Find them to add to your list and then cut them down by if they have enough revenue. Um, because we need to know that the companies that have the revenue have enough, have to pay a writer or pay outside help. That's really important. So as we're going through everything, um, there's a whole bunch of different stuff that we can do. Like we can also follow them on LinkedIn, the publication, or we can follow editors cuz they share stories that are really important. But the deal is that we have a constant influx from all of these different trade magazines in our niche is of products or services or companies that we can then add to our list to then refine by revenue and then reach out to.
So for me, a lot of <laugh> there's just a really big, big, loud bang noise outside. I think a clump of snow just fell off my roof. Um, so where was I? Um, oh yeah. We're using these things to have like a constant influx of potential clients and potential ideas for companies we wanna reach out to. So then the same thing goes, if you follow a publication, oftentimes they will just publish press releases. So that helps too. Um, but you can find a whole bunch of different things with these niche. Oh, you have to, to do that. Okay. Um, there's a whole bunch of different things with these niche publications, right? That you can use to keep having a constant influx of clients to add to your list. And this is really important because we have to keep marketing. Right? We've talked about this before.
You have to do, at least for me, I think the magic number is 50 to 75 Lois or pitches a month. Some people and hundreds, I was never able to do that. 75 was my max number. Um, but I think you need to have some kind of constant inflow of information. I like trade magazines to do that. They have press releases too. Um, and then the same thing with public announcements, right? So public announcements could be funding announcements. It could be anything you get from PR news wire, right? A news wire is something that you can sign up for as a journalist. It's free. You can tell them the niches or industries that you work in and they send you all these press releases all the time. I get a ton of them. <laugh> um, anytime you sign up for that, you're gonna get a ton of them.
So then as you're getting all of these announcements, right? Like, and public, um, funding announcements can be crunch based. They tech crunch. Um, I like Inno, I N N O like I have Austin Inno cuz we have a lot of, um, startups here, but it could be a city. Like you can pick any city's Inno. It's just like an online publication, uh, built in is another. We have built in Austin. Um, and then there's a bunch of built-ins around the country in different cities. I think that's really helpful for getting startup information or funding announcements. Anytime that you can get something that just comes into your inbox and you can filter through it every day is super, super helpful. So when you're kind of adding all these things in you're look for anything, that's giving you a flow of information. So sometimes what helps too is to reach out, to press contacts.
So people that represent your type of niche clients, whether you need to interview someone for a publication or whether you need to add some clients to your list, like I've had people pitch me, um, companies and I've reached out to them and gotten work instead of writing about that, come I've worked for that company cuz I knew that I would just, it just wasn't a fit for me to write about them. So the deal is that we have all of these different things coming in and giving us information, right? We have public announcements like press releases or funding announcements from all of these different places. Then we have publications, trade publications, giving us information. We have press contact X. Um, the more that you get things published in magazines, the more people send you. You can follow people on LinkedIn, but the deal is that this is a constant flow.
So when I hear sometimes from coaching students or from my core students, that they're really struggling to make their list. I know that they're not signed up for any of this flow of information that exists in their niche. There are tons of places that will constantly send stuff to your inbox. They wanna grow their email list. They want you on their email list and they'll send it to you all the time. So your job is to set up all of the funnels for all this information to then come into your inbox and then you filter it out, right? You filter it the first time budget just saying, oh, this company seems like a fit. Put it on my list. The second filter is you filter out by revenue, right? Then you figure like, then you start filtering out by looking at that company's website, their LinkedIn page, uh, who works there, what their marketing efforts are like, what their content looks like.
Then you send your LOI or your pitch. So as long as we have all of these things, funneling information into us, right to our inbox, then we have lots of opportunities to find ideal clients. And the thing is, is like, you don't need that many clients, like you need three to five clients at one time. Um, maybe you probably need like 10 to 20 clients over the year, depending on how things go. Mine. I think if I remember right, like my average client clients are like 10 or less per year. Uh, and that includes magazines, like things that I write for. So it could be like sometimes like I've, I'm trying to remember like a few years ago, I think I had a bunch, like I think it was closer to like 15 or so clients. Um, but since you know, I've been moving along, I work with less and less people for longer periods of time.
Um, and I think that kind of like helps you hone in a little bit more, right? Like it helps you hone in on who's a good fit for your business where your business is going. Um, actually having conversations with your clients about their goals and where they're going. So the deal is that even though you're sending 50 to 75 of these Lois or pitches a month, you only need a very small fraction of people to get back to you. So when we're making all these lists, that's why it's really helpful to have everything come to us, right? Have everything come to our inbox and then we can filter whatever we want. Um, and then we're able to like make our marketing actually have of, you know, a nice step by step system. We get all this stuff in their inbox. We add it to our list.
Once our list has 50 to 75 names, um, or maybe a hundred, you refine them out by, uh, revenue. And then you start sending your Lois and pitches. So once you kinda have all those systems set up, it's really easy to find clients. The other thing is that we are trying to, um, make this process as simplified as possible because we wanna be spending our time on paid work, right? We wanna be spending our time actually doing the things that help our clients move forward and creating good content. Hey Annie, welcome in glad you're able to hang out. Um, we wanna sure that we have all these things, right. Just automatically coming to us so we can actually do the work that we are getting paid to do. Um, the more that you can step by step this process, the more publications or the more places that you can find that will give you information.
That's a big plus. That's what we wanna do. Um, the struggle isn't that at this is the thing. The struggle is not that you are finding places, looking for writers. Like no, you are specifically reaching out to companies who are moving and shaking. They're moving forward, they're getting funding, their revenues going up. They're actually creating content and asking if they need help with that content. This is a mistake. I see a lot of times in my inbox, I get a lot of messages from people being like, how do you actually find these people? How do you know they need help? You don't, you don't, you never will because you don't work at that company. You don't know people at that company. You need to reach out and ask. That's it. Just ask if they need help. This is a big mistake. When you start combing job boards or you start trying to guess who needs, right?
You don't know. You always should ask. There's nothing wrong with asking. They can always say no. Well, one, they can just ghost you and ignore you two. The next thing is that they can get back to you and say like, no thanks. And then you can add them to a follow list and follow up and see if things change. Because things always change. Someone leaves the company, they change their content marketing efforts. They on old money to a different place in their content, right? Like in their marketing. And then they're like, Hey, we have budget. Now there's things that always change. So you can add 'em to your follow up list or they get back to you. And they're like, yeah, let's talk. Uh, I have some content that I need help with. Let's set up a time to have a call, blah, blah, blah, move along with your life.
So there's all of these different things that like, we don't wanna make that mistake of to guess who needs writers? Like we are not making assumptions. We're just asking if they need help. That's it. Hey, Shara. Welcome in Shara. Shera, Shara. I'm in a guess. It's Shara, but let me know. Um, let me know if that is your name. I hate pronouncing people's names wrong. So let me know if I said it right or wrong. Okay. So, um, okay. I think those were all the points I wanted to hit on that one. I am gonna do AUP date though, because they're over there being SNU. My gosh, Charlotte, you look so suspicious. Why are you so suspicious? You're so suspicious. All right. It's probably because you know that you're gonna get something. Oh my gosh. She's she's abandoning ship. You have to go back to your Haba hole. Go back to your Haba hole. Go back to your HAA hole. Good job.
All right. Sit. Good girl. Right? We're gonna show everybody your high fives. Ready? High five. Good job. Other one. Good job. Good girl.
Hold on. Maybe I can get it better that way. Let's
Try again. Ready? Hi. Hi. Good girl. Hi. Hi, other one other one. Good job. Good job. All right,
Buddy. We're gonna 1, 2, 3 dog. And see if you can see if you can catch it. Charlotte, you look so suspicious. Why
Ready buddy? 1, 2, 3 dog. Let's go. Good job. All right buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, you're so close. It's right there. It's right here.
Sometimes when you get to be over 15 years old, it's hard to catch things and participate in life and you know, Charlotte, you are a funny dog. You look like a, like a little mermaid. All right, MI you gonna catch this time. You're good at catching.
Well, this one I crushed by accident. So guess we're gonna have to do a little hand feeding. Oh no. There you go
Here. Go buddy. All right. You guys are doing great
Sherra. Okay. Like share up pizza. I like that Shera. Okay, good Sherra. I remember that. <laugh> everybody's got their blankets on too. So Charlotte was covered now. She's not cuz she decided to go on a little voyage, but everybody's covered cuz it's cold and you know, we, we could have put their jams on, but decided not to. All right, cool. If this has been helpful so far, Ugh, I have dog drill in my hand now. Um, if this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a higher freelance right in business subscribe. Next point that we're gonna go over is things that we're looking for in these announcements, characteristics, cool things that we can find for awesome clients. Yes. Now guys, maybe want pizza. I I'm buy pizza now, but I don't even know if we can go to the store.
Everything's kind of iced over. I'm kind of hoping that um, everything will melt today. So it's not like Rochester. Like I, I, I like little story time, but I grew up in Rochester, New York. So we are used to getting like 110 inches of snow a year. Like lake effects, snow it snows there more than a lot of places in Alaska. It's a whole thing. So like for me when it snows or it gets cold here, like it's not, it's not a thing. Um, but <laugh> when it gets like it doesn't stick. Right. So a lot of times when it sticks, it's really surprising when the rain, um, and we get like freezing stuff or snow or whatever and it sticks. It's really surprising. And I have to be careful about whether I say cold or chilly. Right? Like I'm really careful about this cuz like it's not cold here when it's like 40 degrees, but it's definitely cold. Now when it's 20 outside. Um, cuz like in Rochester, 40 would be like, oh sweet. It's like warming up. <laugh> hi.
What's up. You have to go back to your Hava hole. You have fuzz on your back too. Sorry.
So anyways, um, when it snows and it's cold here, I always have to be careful about stores. Like in Rochester when it OS all the time, the stores are always open. Like there's no problem with power or water or the stores. Like there really has to be a catastrophic event for everything to shut down in Rochester here. It's like they cancel school. It's like a whole thing if it's like barely gonna even threaten to do anything. So it's a whole thing. <laugh> yeah. The lake effect snow is like a big deal. Oh, now that you moved to the Prairie. Yeah. So like when I moved here, right. Um, I've been living in warm climates for a while. Like I guess it, it did snow in Blacksburg. It was CLO cold in Blacksburg. It did snow. And when I lived in Arizona too, which I have, I'm an Arizona state shirt on today.
Just re the sun devils. Um <laugh> so like at Virginia tech it would snow cuz in the mountains and then in Phoenix it would, it snowed once. Which like the snow just follows me wherever I go. And then, uh, here it snowed like pretty much every year we've lived here or it's been like it's frozen things have froze. Um, which has been like a rarity for this area. So like, I guess I'm just bringing it with me. I forgot where I was going with this story. But the point is that when things are crazy outside, when it's like frozen and snowy outside, I'm always like worried if the store is gonna be open here. And I never worried about that in Rochester. I was just like, snow's a normal thing. Plows are gonna be out salting, plowing, doing all their stuff. Yes. Hello. You have to go back to your Hava hole. You little sad munchkin. Go back to your Hava hole.
No, you have to go. All right. Ready? Good job. Ready buddy. 1, 2, 3 dog.
Good job. All right, Charlotte, because we're having a wild Friday actually. Charlotte, you look pretty well lit today. I'm actually kind of excited about that because a lot of times when y'all are on the camera together, one of you is blown out, which Bo is a little blown out right now.
But you guys look pretty good. Here you go. Good job. All right, Minnie. Ready to show everyone your high five skills. I know. I know. Back up, back up. Good girl. High five. Good job. High five other, one other one. Ow. Other one other one. Good job.
Good job. All right. Cool. Let's get to our last few points. If you have questions drop 'em in the chat. It could be about anything freelance writing wise. Um, the point was pizza. Yeah, it was Annie. Um, like Shera, like Shera pizza. I always make the joke too sometimes. Like when people ask about like, when I say my name and sometimes like when I say Mandy and think people think my name is Andy or some other version of not Mandy, like I'd be like Mandy, like candy. Now I have Sherra like Sherra pizza. <laugh> okay. Sorry. Shera. I hope you're like hope it's okay to like talk about this for 500 minutes. All right. Last point. So let's talk about this things we're looking for in announcements money, obviously. Right? So as we're kind of moving along and we're looking at funding announcements, they should be getting a bunch of money.
Right? So, um, 10 million is always great, but like anything more than that is really great. Um, and then anytime, like when a, when a startup gets their first kind of round of funding, I've kind of found that the butter zone is like kind of in the series B range. So series a sometimes is them working on their products. So if you see something in this announcement, oh, grumble, uh, if you see something in the announcement about them getting series a money, that usually means they're gonna use that money to build out their product, build out their systems, build out their actual business series. B is when they're like, all right, we need to do some marketing. It depends on the company. Right? So it depends on how things are organized and how they're kind of putting things together. This is another thing that like, you don't know until you talk to them, right?
So writers oftentimes try to make these go SS of like, oh, it's series a, you know, they must be doing this. These are just general guidelines because you don't know how they use their money. You can always ask seed money is a different thing. Seed money is like, um, like one of my friends does messaging, oh my goodness gracious. You're just sassy. You're just sassy you just over there, bro. She'll over there. G grumbling give you some pets while being so one of my friends says messaging and positioning product, uh, pro projects. Um, so she ends up doing a lot of stuff with seed money. So like people who get seed money, they do messaging and positioning for their product or service before they actually start any marketing efforts. Hi bean, babe. Hi bean, babe. So that works for her. Um, but she's also doing these big giant workshops slash messaging and positioning projects.
If you're doing content marketing stuff, a lot of times, by the time they start hiring marketing people or the CEO thinks it's time to start marketing or they have a content marketing person that series B. So in the announcements, look at where they are. Are they at seed money? Are they at series a series B anything after series B CDE, whatever. That's usually like way more money on top of what they already have. So that's always a good bet. B and above is always a good bet. The other thing we wanna look for in our announcements is their growth. Like, oh my gosh, they grew 275% year over year, whatever. That's always really helpful to look at. Um, the other thing is if they're hiring, right? Like they mentioned that they just hired a marketing person or they just hired, um, a strategy team or they just hired something and it's in the announcement or in an article or, um, it's something where, you know, the, it shows that they're like moving forward and their business is growing.
Um, that's always helpful also in these articles, look at what their product does. Oh my gosh. All right. Bean squeeze bean squeezed. Go back to your little hobo hole and I'll give you something being squeeze. If you go back to your Hava hole, I'll give you some good job being squeezed. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Good job. All right, ready buddy. There we go. You did it. So the deal is that, um, as we're looking at all these announcements, and as we're looking at these articles, what does that product do? Is it really solving a big pain point for that client? Right. So let's say for me, let's say it's hospitality tech that hospitality tech product is solving a big pain point for restaurant owners or caterers or people who run big food service operations. So I'm like, okay, that's gonna be more in demand. Which means that company's gonna grow.
We, which means I should reach out. I should add them to my list, pay attention to those things. Any product or service that is solving a big problem in that industry. And it feels like it's gonna grow, right? Like you're like, um, for example, contactless payments, right? Restaurant owners were not. That was like, there was a lot of restaurants that still did cash. Only. Like this was a big thing. Cash only was a thing. It's still a thing at restaurants. There's barbecue restaurants here in Austin that do cash only. But then when the pandemic hit, they're like, oh, sh crap. We have to move to contactless payments. We have to do all the COVID stuff. And that made a big jump for hospitality tech companies, right? They have to invest in all of these tech solutions that they were avoiding before. That was, is a big thing where you're like, aha, that's gonna grow.
Obviously that was an easy one, right? Like that's kind of like a, you know, but there's a bunch of other things where if you find a product or an announcement or an article or press release talking about a product or service or a company that's solving a big problem in your niche and you feel like that's gonna grow, that makes that company good bet that, um, they're gonna be someone you should reach out to and add to your client list. I don't know if you guys can hear her, but she is singing the song of her people over there. I dunno why you're so sassy today. I've tried to tell all these people about all the important things they need to look at and you're over there, like being, being a, an angry Wal. All right. Ready athlete. Ready buddy. 1, 2, 3 dogs. Good job. So when you're looking through these announcements, shall it <laugh>, you're just like a SAS machine.
All right. Ready? Good girl. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Oh buddy. We're so close. So, so look for all of these things, look for growth. Look for what series they're in. Look for, like new people hired at the company, look at how their company is structured. Sometimes they'll say like the CEO hired a marketing person or the CEO hired some other type of big time person look for shifts in your industry, right? So you're reading these articles in these trade magazines or you're reading press releases or you're reading information in niche, publications or niche. Um, conferences are good too. We haven't mentioned that, but conference attendee lists are really good for finding, um, potential clients and looking at what products and services are on the, a arise, right? Like a lot of conferences wanna have hot topic people, right? They wanted to have top hot topic speakers.
They also wanna have, um, like people who, or products that are on the rise that are like new and fun and that people should know about. They have those people as speakers so that those can be people you can add. Um, but the deal is we wanna make sure that everything is kind of going in an upward trend, that there are things that are gonna grow products or services that are in those articles or in those press release releases are ads that are online or ads in print that are things that are solving a big problem that will grow over time. So like now, right? Like for me, a lot of times it's hospitality tech or it's restaurants, or it's a prop tech or real estate. There's a lot of tech things that are really rushing in there. Um, because they're solving very specific issues, right?
So I pay attention to those companies, pay attention to things that are changing in that niche. I think that's really helpful for finding really good clients. And then the next part is like, you actually talk to them, right? You send an LOI, you reach out to them and you to them, right. So that's the connection part like awesome clients are usually doing a bunch of different things. They're growing, they're learning they're they care about their audience, right? They show a lot of like initiative and the things that they're trying to do to solve their audience's problem through their product or service. So then when you get on a call with them, the excitement that they talk about their product or the, that they talk about their audience or the excitement about creating content, that all leads to them. Usually being an awesome client. I think that when you can see the growth or you can see like sometimes what helps too is to read articles they've been quoted in that can kind of tell you what type of client they would be.
If their quotes are like very serious or they're very like matter fact, maybe that's really good for you cuz you're my kind of like a matter of fact person or maybe their quotes are kind of like fun and um, they're just like, we're having fun over here or, oh my gosh, I hear you. You just gotta like take a chill pill. She, so maybe they're um, you know, maybe they are, um, their quotes are like more lively, you know, that would be a good fit for you sometimes. That's really helpful. Yes. Hello. You have a lot of complaints today. Would you like to, would you like to tell someone about it? Would you like to press one for customer service?
I can see you got your interested ears on <affirmative> with your interested ears on ready? Good job. Ready buddy. 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job. All right, cool. So I think that was pretty much all the points I wanted to make. Basically we wanna look for all of those different factors, every company isn't gonna have, all of those things. Sometimes you just take a chance on companies where you can see that they're growing and they got funding or you see that, um, they're solving a big problem, right? And they have money. Like they have regular revenue. They've been, um, maybe they've been a company that's been around for decades, but they're not good at creating regular content. There's all these different things that we can pull from that. But for me, press releases business journals. Like I have a subscription to the Austin business journal and like Austin Inno built in, um, press releases, uh, funding, announcements, PR contacts, things on link to in there's tons of things that we can follow to find the right clients. Oh my gosh. SAS master flex. Can you
Just lay down? You're so Sady lay down, lay down.
Oh my gosh. You're just like outta control today. It's probably cuz she's been inside so much because it's been all icy and snowy and sad here. Some time she gets like extra, extra sassy. When it's been all, when she hasn't been able to run around outside and check all of her normal, um, little ho, whole areas. I see you. All right. If there's any questions you can drop 'em in the chat and if not, I think we're gonna hop out. We'll just toss a few treats. See if any questions come in. I know that sometimes people get confus about like finding PR contacts. You can honestly just Google them. Good girl. Anybody? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Oh, so close it's
In the blanket. It's in the blanket.
Yeah. So the deal is that, um, you can find PR companies like you can just Google hospitality, tech PR company, or you can look 'em up on LinkedIn. Um, or you can just, you know, connect with people over time. Like for me go buddy, a lot of it was figuring out that PR people, um, reach out to you a lot when you're writing articles. So the more articles you end up writing for magazines, especially niche publications, you end up connecting with a lot of PR people over time. Um, and then the other thing is like, if you end up doing something like hero, you get a lot of hero queries, you connect with a lot of, um, PR people and then they just send you releases all the time. So either it's you use someone for an interview or you're like, no, I'd never interview a company like that.
Or a founder of, um, this type of venture. Then you can be like, huh? Maybe they'd be a client for me. Check their revenue. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job. Um, let's see how it goes. Sh Shera, Shera. I gotta remember that Shera like Shera pizza. All right. Shera says, do you still send 50 to 75 otherwise a month? Or was that when you were starting out? Yeah, I do. Don't so I don't and yes, it was when I was figuring it out. So when I first started out, I didn't send any Lois. I started on platforms. Big mistake. Don't do that. Uh, but once I kind of figured out that you had to send Lois and pitches. Yeah. 75 was the number I would hit and it would usually be somewhere between 50 and 75 a month. Um, depending on like how my work was going.
So if I had a lot of work, I probably would only send like 50 and then if I didn't have a ton of work, I'd send more like 75. This is what I do now. What now is more like quarterly slash follow up on warm leads. So, um, a lot of times what I end up doing is like, it depends on how my work is going. So like the first month of the quarter, I always kind of send some out and then I do that every quarter. So January, April, June, right? Is this right? January, April, July, October. So those are the kind of times when I send out a bunch of Lois and it's probably like maybe 20 new places plus 20 to 50 warm leads that I'm following up with. Um, it just depends. So I do that every quarter and if I have a ton of work or for example, like my course is coming up, my course is gonna open in April and I know that I'm gonna be busy onboarding course students.
I probably won't do a ton of marketing in April. Um, I'll probably like push out some things we'll have to see, but maybe I'll do marketing. Who knows? Um, it depends on like how things are going. So right now it's like I do it quarterly and I'll send like 20 new companies and maybe 20 to 50 warm lead follows depending on how many I have in the hopper. So that's every quarter usually. Um, if I'm really busy, it could be four to five months before I send some market <affirmative>. Um, and that's probably the same, like it's probably like 20 new companies and then 20 to 50 warm leads that I'm following up with. Um, and then it just depends. Like I think it's also where you are in your business. So when I was in my business and I wanted to do a lot more content, I sent a lot more stuff to get more content work.
Now I'm trying to switch more into 10 strategy projects. So those are a lot slower going along rather than everybody creating content and needing blog posts or articles or case studies, I'm trying to do all the content strategy stuff. So that is a much longer cycle I've noticed. So it depends on where you are. I think when you're doing 50 to 75, oh, sassy, you got a little Bork in there. Can you just lay down and be the normal dog for five seconds? Can you lay down? Thank you. Oh, you gotta lay down the whole way you get halfway laid out and then sit up. So when you're starting out 50 to 75 Lois, you're getting content stuff. When you're moving into content strategy or messaging and positioning, or you're moving into like more idea space stuff, rather than, um, creating more content like blog, post articles, case studies, that's gonna be a longer cycle.
So, um, for me, it's a longer cycle getting content strategy stuff, just because you have to catch it at the right time. Like sometimes people don't end up doing content strategy in the middle of the year. They do it at the bookends. Right. They do it at the beginning and the end of the year. Um, so it just depends, but yeah, like I think your marketing changes over time. I know people who do marketing every single day still, even though they make six figures, I think it matters for where you are in your career and what you're doing, but yeah. And you're starting out 50 to 75. All right. Shera says, um, oh, she, you have so many questions. Great questions Shera. What percent of the time now is marketing for you? Uh, like a really small percentage. So for me to send 20 Lois based on me consistently adding people to my list or, you know, no, like I have templates too, right?
So like, um, they're here too. So hold on. I can put them up. So I have templates here. These are the marketing templates, the LOI templates. I use the marketing things I use on LinkedIn and my contracts. They're at Mandy ellis.com/bundle. And you can get them there. Um, they're really simple and easy and it makes my marketing a lot quicker. So I am basically of the idea that when you're doing your marketing, it should be kind of like a drive through experience. Hi, do you need help? I'm qualified. Here's some places I've worked for. Let me know if you wanna chat, then you get in into an actual conversation with them. So your marketing isn't like trying to convince them of the sale. The first time you reach out, like they don't even know you. The deal is to just say like, Hey, do you need help?
Cool. I'm qualified. I wanna chat. Let, let me know the deal is that now that I have it set up that I'm constantly getting stuff in my inbox, right? Like I have press releases. I have funny announcements. I have PO our stuff. I have, um, notifications from niche publications and from business publications, I just keep adding to the list. And then when I decide, like I need to do some marketing, which, uh, I did earlier this, or I did it in January. Um, then it's like really quick. It probably takes me half an hour maybe to send 20 LOI because I already know like that I've already prequalified all these companies. So when I send the Lois, I'm going off of my spreadsheet list, my spreadsheet list already has been narrowed down by company. It's been narrowed down by them having enough money. Right. They have 3 million, at least as a startup or they have five to 50 million as, um, a regular traditional be.
That's not startup. Sometimes they have more than 50 million. I just find that like, that's kind of the butter zone. So, um, then I already have in my spreadsheet, the contact of who I'm reaching out to, like, I already put that in my spreadsheet of like it's Sharon or it's Steve or it's, um, whoever it is, um, they're already in my, so I actually sit down to send the Lois. It takes like 30 minutes for 20 of 'em. Um, and I have all my templates already set up, send my templates. So for me, the marketing is really, really, um, systematized. It's really quick. Now. Um, when I first started, it took me forever. When I had zero work, all I did was marketing and that's what you should do. If you have no work, if you're not getting paid, you need to be spending all your time, marketing, all of it.
That means making your list, finding the right companies, finding the people to reach out to on LinkedIn. I send them as emails too. So I have LinkedIn premium. I send them as InMails. If you don't have premium, I didn't have the money for premium. It's like 65 bucks a month. It's a lot. Um, so if you don't have the money for premium, you can just send emails and you can use hunter.io to find emails. Yes. Hello, SAS machine. Can you go back to your hover hole and lay down? Thank you. Thank you so much. <laugh> so I think as you go along and you create a step by step process, it gets easier. It doesn't take as much time. Plus when you have a bunch of work, you know, when you've like, I have been filling my marketing pipeline for years and years and years.
So like that really kind of pushes the train along. So keeping the train going right shoveling in a couple, um, a couple, you know, shovel fulls of coal to keep the train running is pretty minimal. All right. Sherra, another question. Let's do this. So Shera says any recommendations for tracking all those Lois yes. For a tech challenge person. Yes. So when I send Lois, I do a couple of different things and I think I have a video on this, on this channel of how I do it. I go over this like in depth and give everybody everything in the course. So in freelance writer, wealth lab, I take everybody step by step through this process. I give you the spreadsheet. Um, I have like all these tech videos of like how to do it ready? Oh, you tried. You tried here, go buddy.
So the deal is I have a spreadsheet. It's just like an Excel spreadsheet. Um, you can use Google, like Google docs or Google spreadsheet, whatever, put all the people in there, right? Just make the spreadsheet, put every company in there. Then spend some time cutting out the companies that don't have the revenue, delete them out, bless you. And then spend some time at adding in all the people on LinkedIn. You need to reach out to. So the CEO, like most likely you want the content marketing manager. If they don't have a content person or a content marketing manager, you want the marketing person. If they don't have a marketing person, it's usually the CEO put those links to their LinkedIn profiles in your spreadsheet. Then when you're ready to start sending your Lois, you have a set of two templates that you work off of.
And then all you have to do is open up the link that you left yourself for the LinkedIn profile. Send it as an email, right? Send your template, customize it a little bit. Um, send it through an email or use hunter, H U NT, r.io to find their email and send them the email with the template. Then this is the cool, like tech challenge part is a, I don't follow up on Lois that I don't get a response to. I think it's a waste of time. I used to do it, but I don't anymore. Um, and then I like pitches from magazines, different stories, always follow up on those. Um, but with Lois, if you don't respond to me from my LOI, then I just don't follow up. If you do respond and you're like, not right now, or try again later, or we'll put you on file or something like that.
Something where it's like, you've obviously taken the time to respond and I'm like, I'll follow up with you in three months. That's when you use boomerang, I've talked about this. I love, love, love, booming. Um, it is booming for Gmail. So all you have to do is install it and you can snooze all your messages in all these different ways. So if someone gets back to me and it's an email that says like, so and so got back to you on LinkedIn, or they respond to my email and they're like, not right now. I just tell boomerang to put that message back in my inbox in three months, then I just follow up with boomerang. It is the best thing ever. I can also set it so that like, if they don't reply, it will boomerang it back to my inbox. In however much time, I want two months, three months, whatever.
Let's say someone got back to me and they're like, yeah, we're planning for Q3. Like right now, let's say they were like, we're planning for Q3. So I would back to them right before Q3. And I would just say, boomerang, put this in my inbox a week before the start of Q3 and boomerang, we'll put it back and then I can just follow up from there. So spreadsheet, Google sheets, Excel, spread spreadsheet, narrow it down by revenue. Then you have your company list that, you know, you can work off of find the people on LinkedIn to talk to. Then when you go on LinkedIn to send them an email, uh, or an email or an email, you have your templates. And then after that, if there's anyone who gets back to you, um, and basically says like, not right now, or try again, or like, we'll put you on a list.
Um, boomerang is how you get it to come back in your inbox, Google, or, uh, Gmail also has like a snooze function, but it's not in depth as what you get from boomerang where you can say like, Hey, if they don't reply, send this back to my inbox, right. Let's say someone replied and they're like, yeah, let's set a meeting and then they never get back to you. If they don't reply, boomerang will put it back in your inbox. Makes it so much easier. Yeah. So much easier. So I hope that was helpful. And I go over this a lot. I think there's other video on this, in this channel about tech tools that I like to use, like boomerang and Damato and hunter.io, hike, Ruper. Hi. I see you. Good boy, bear. Um, things that really help me run my business smoothly. My templates, um, are really, really helpful. Like I used to not, um, use templates. I used to write all my Lois from scratch and that took forever and I never understood how people got all their marketing done. And then I realized there was a bunch of people using templates. And I was like, why didn't I do this? <laugh> so templates make it a lot quicker. Yes. Hello?
Oh, no. Now we've only got one and Bo you look like a ghost. The ghost of tree present. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job, buddy. All right, Charlie. How hill go in your ha hole. That's not your ha hole. Go in your ha hole. Good job. Sit. All right, MI ready? High five other, one other, one other one. Ow
Out other one other, one other, one other one. Come on other one. Good job.
We gotta make you work a little bit. Cause you've been real sassy today. All right. People, um, I hope this was helpful. If you have anything that you use to, um, find clients or little announcements or magazines or things that you find helpful share and below in the comments, I'm always looking for new ways to like do marketing or share with other people. I know that I've had coaching students who use, um, there's like a couple of niche platforms, um, that they use to find clients that are really helpful. So share that below in the comments. If you feel like this is helpful, get 'em the thumbs up. And if you feel like you wanna learn more about earning, you learn more about a building, a high earning freelance writing business subscribe. We will always have up dates. I always have everyone trio left in my hand. All right, buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Oh, you're so close. All right, MI last one, high
Five. Good job. Other one. Good job.
All right. We're gonna hop off. We're here every Friday at noon. If you have a topic that you want me to cover, you can hop into mandy.com/question. So if there's a topic you want me to cover on the live stream or a question that you have, that you wanna be put on the live stream to get answered, you can always put it there. And if you want it to be anonymous, feel free to check, check the anonymous box. And I hope this was helpful and I will see you next Friday. Bye.
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