Jennifer’s note: Writers often ask me this question. It is the most important one because without clients, we would have no income and no work. There are many potential clients for every niche. The same steps can be used to find leads, whether you’re working as a B2B technical writer or your business is geared towards cake decorators, yoga instructors, or bird watchers.
Cat DiStasio is a B2B technology and HR writer. I asked her to share her experience with me because I’m still recovering from the Content Byte Summit I attended in Australia. You can read my conference recap tomorrow. Spoiler alert: It was incredible.
It’s a real pain to find potential clients. It’s official. This is a tedious, repetitive and time-consuming task. It’s necessary. I’ve never figured it out, nor have I heard anyone tell me how they avoided it. Here we are. It’s time to act. This is how.
I want to say something right away. I followed Jennifer’s advice and examples on her blog (and in her book). This topic is also a hot one in the Freelance Marketing Writer group, which I help to run on Facebook. As I mentioned, I have been doing this for a very long time, and I’ve learned a lot from my own experience. It’s not magic or silver bullets, but practical, useful information that I will share below.
This post will show you how to:
- Search for potential clients (direct brands or agencies);
- Choose the right person to contact for your outreach.
- Find the email addresses of those contacts.
You’ll also find some tips on how to contact potential clients. This article can serve as a guide for outbound marketing.
Finding Potential Client Companies
What makes a client perfect is entirely subjective. You’ll have to spend some time figuring out what your ideal clients are. Focus on visible attributes for marketing outreach. You can learn a lot about a business by simply looking at its website. You can tell a lot about a company by looking at its website.
You’ll need to do some research once you decide that you want to find companies that sell bird-watching tools and equipment. You could create a niche for bird watcher apps. This would be great if you want to add a tech niche!
Google will be your best friend. You can start by searching for “top bird watching apps”; any list you find will likely be helpful. After you’ve compiled a list, you can proceed to the next stage. You can use Hubspot’s free version to gather lead information as you conduct your research.
You can do the same for agencies. However, you may need to expand your niche. Start by searching “top content agencies for recreational apps”, or “content agencies for hobby apps”. You can search for agencies near you. It doesn’t really matter where you are, but some agencies advertise that they use local writers.
You can use a directory or list of content marketing companies, such as
- Clutch Top Content Marketing Agencies
- AgencyList by state/niche
- Hubspot Solutions Directory
How to Choose the Best Contact Person
You don’t want to contact the accountant, customer service manager, or (in many cases) the CEO to get a written contract for the company blog (more about that later). Talk to someone from the marketing department. This is usually the Content Marketing Manager or Marketing Director.
LinkedIn is a great resource for learning more about these people. It is possible without a premium account.
Step 1. Find the company’s page on LinkedIn. You can search for the LinkedIn icon on the website of the company, but it is more effective to click on “View Page” on LinkedIn.
Step 3: You’ll find the number of employees on LinkedIn in your company page. This is a link. Click on it! Then, in step 3, you will be taken to a list of all the employees who have public profiles on LinkedIn. You can search for job titles in the search bar at the top. To start, I search for terms such as “content” or “marketing”. You’ll need to be more creative – literally – if you want to work with agencies. Search for “creative director,” “editorial director,“ and “head of creativity“ or similar terms.
Step 5: If you are able to find someone in the company who has one of these job titles, that’s great! Then, congratulations! Add their name and title to your spreadsheet.
Step 5: Try to find someone who has a similar job title if there is no match.
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- This could be anyone who works in marketing. Search for “marketing manager,” “demand generation manager,“ or “marketing coordination.”
- The marketing department of an agency is not responsible for hiring freelancers to do client work. Instead, they are in charge of marketing the agency. It can be not easy to find the perfect person. Look for “account management“ or “project management.”
Find Email Addresses of Contacts
Your lead sheet includes the following: company name, URL, contact name, and job title. What’s missing? Email is my preferred method, but I will also offer other options.
People will freely publish their email addresses on their LinkedIn profiles, so I won’t bother to look there. I instead use one of several tools to find their email address (or make an educated guess).
- Hunter.io can be accessed via the web. You can choose between a free account, which allows you to perform 25 searches per month, or a paid option for more. You enter the domain (companyname.com, or something similar, the same as the website), and it will display any public email address on the internet (anywhere). There is also an option called “find by name”, which allows you to search for a specific person. Hunter can guess a person’s email address based on their format. It’s often right.
- Wiza.I learned about this tool recently, but haven’t really used it myself. It’s a plugin for your browser that lets you pull email addresses from someone’s LinkedIn profile. Wiza is a great tool to use if you’re looking for a contact. I don’t visit all profiles, but if that’s what you want, it makes sense.
- I would love to hear if anyone has tried them or has any other suggestions.
What Does NOT Work for Email Outreach:
- Submitting the “Contact Us“ web form
- Sending an email using a generic address like info@ or Contact @
- Emailing the CEO
How to reach out to prospective clients
After your spreadsheet is completed, block off some time in your calendar. Refill your favourite beverage and get ready for the hard work. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can complete large batches of leads (such as 20, 25, or more).
Using email for outreach:
Email is my preferred way to communicate. Hubspot allows me to log and track every email. This means I have a record of all communications with the company, even if multiple people are involved. I can also see when emails were opened or forwarded. Emails make it easy to follow up, as I can go straight to my Sent folder and find everything.
- Your LOI should be up-to-date and tailored to each niche that you are targeting.
- Write a different email for each person on your list. You will save time by not sending yourself an email and BCCing your leads. You’ll be able to tell that you made a mistake in the email header. Or, your message may have been automatically marked as spam.
- Set a reminder for two weeks later to follow up on anyone who has not responded.
Using LinkedIn for outreach:
You may have a good reason to avoid email. You may not have been able to find the email address of a contact. You may then decide to contact them on LinkedIn instead, and this is totally possible. What do most successful writers do?
- Send a request for connection with a short message such as, “We work together on marketing to birdwatchers“, or “Does your company work with freelancer writers for content marketing?”
- Send a request for connection with the full LOI.
- Once connected, send a second message within a week to follow up on either type of introduction.
