Marketing Trends for Freelancers and Contractors in 2024

As a freelance copywriter, you know one of the best ways to have consistent copywriting work is to pitch clients.

Sometimes it’s obvious what you can pitch a client. For example, you go to a prospective client’s website and sign up for their email list. Five days later and you still haven’t received a welcome email (or any other email). It’s the perfect opportunity to pitch them on a welcome email series. These emails can build the know/like/trust factor with their audience.

Other times, it’s a little harder to come up with an idea. They’re already doing incredible work! Their copy sounds amazing!

As Comprehensive Copywriting Academy students know, this is NOT the time to make assumptions. You have no idea what’s going on in a business. Maybe their copywriter just left. Maybe they need extra copywriting support. Maybe their marketing manager has been writing copy and would like to focus on their job. There are SO many reasons why a company may have amazing copy—but still need a copywriter (YOU!).

Equally important to emphasize? Don’t make assumptions about a company’s revenue. There are small businesses raking in millions in profit each year and giant corporations on the verge of bankruptcy. You have no idea what a business’s numbers look like, and assuming based on size will lose you many, many opportunities.

So, here’s how to use marketing trends to your advantage.

Look at Roundups of Marketing Challenges

When it comes to finding ideas to pitch, Google is your best friend. Search things like:

• Marketing challenges
• Marketing challenges 2024 (or whatever the upcoming year!)
• Biggest marketing challenges
• Small business biggest marketing challenges

You’ll find a ton of content just by searching these terms. (In fact, we’ll bet you have to search only one of them to get more than enough inspiration.)

Once you have these lists, you’ll be tuned in to what clients are struggling with—and how you can help them solve those challenges.

Some challenges (e.g., “hiring top talent”) may not apply directly to your pitch strategy. But hiring top talent certainly means it’s an opportunity to show off

But other challenges will most definitely apply to you. Take Hubspot’s list of challenges marketers face. In 2024, one of the challenges Hubspot identified is knowing the social issues your audience cares about.

You, as a copywriter, understand personas. You understand audiences and the importance of connecting with them. So, if you’re going to pitch a brand, you may consider asking yourself:

• Who is the brand’s audience?
• What social causes does this audience care about?
• How could this brand support a social cause and effectively communicate that to its audience?

Perhaps you pitch the idea of an email campaign in support of a specific cause.

Remember that the company may not hire you for the project you pitched. But by crafting your pitch around something that the brand cares about, they can see you’re doing your homework. Not only are you demonstrating you know their brand, you’re demonstrating you’re thinking strategically about the marketing landscape and how they can best navigate their deepest challenges.

Lead Generation

One of the marketing challenges that seems to stay at the top of annual trends and roundup lists is lead generation. According to digital agency Vital, getting more leads is the top concern by a long shot. More than a quarter (26%) of respondents said “getting more leads,” compared to the next most important priority (generating brand awareness: 11.74%).

But even generating brand awareness and the number three challenge, “increasing my website’s overall traffic (9.16%), both relate to getting leads.

So, knowing that this is likely a high priority for whatever business you’re pitching, you may want to consider pitching ideas that will help bring new prospective customers in versus idea that will, for example, increase loyalty of existing customers (though these ideas are certainly valuable, too!).

For example, while sending a newsletter to existing customers could help increase lifetime customer value (if the newsletter is selling something) or brand loyalty (if the newsletter has valuable information), it’s not bringing in new people.

But if you pitch something like a free e-book that prospective customers have to opt in to receive (by giving their email address), this project has the opportunity to generate new leads. (And, if you end up doing the work, you could always pitch writing ads to drive paid traffic to this opt-in. And a landing page where they sign up for the e-book…there’s lots of additional projects!)

New Marketing Channels

It seems like every few months a new social media channel emerges. While regular posting on these social channels typically falls under the “content” bucket, with every social platform comes ads. TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook/Meta, Instagram, Pinterest…they all have an ads platform.

As a copywriter, it’s important to stay up to date on these new platforms. While the fundamentals of copywriting still apply, there are always nuances to each platform. For example, the character count on a Facebook single image ad is going to be different than an Instagram story ad is going to be different than the concept you come up with for a TikTok video.

Depending on the brand you pitch, their audience may or may not be using these new platforms. So, you first step is to understand if the channel would be a good fit. And if they’re already on the channel, it doesn’t mean it’s a good fit! It just means they likely saw the new platform and felt they needed to jump on it.

But if it’s a good fit and they’re not yet advertising on the channel, it may be a good opportunity to pitch your services. Or, if they are advertising, great! That means they have ad budget. You may consider pitching a new idea for their ads. Look at Facebook Ads Library or TikTok Ads Library and the like to get an idea of what’s out there. You can (and should!) look at their competitors, too.

Your Turn

What are your tactics for pitching clients? Have you found annual roundups about marketing trends and challenges helpful to pitching? Share your thoughts below!

Last Updated on March 27, 2024