Ask HN: Freelancers, How much time do you spend on marketing? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Freelancers, How much time do you spend on marketing?

5 pointscovgjai9 comments

How much time do you spend on marketing? also, please specify the marketing activities you do.

Near zero.

Instead, I focus on being on the absolute top of my game (e.g. study hours a day, examine lots of open source code to improve, read research papers, etc), constantly reevaluate my approaches to improve (across the board, not just tech), doing my best to produce more than anyone else they have ever hired, and only attend meetups and conferences where I have a genuine intellectual interest. To most, this seems like anti-advice. To most, perhaps it is. I am a believer in being 100% genuine, in all regards, and "selling" of any sort flies in the face of this for me. I'd rather spend those ~15 hours a week most spend marketing on research, doing open-source, volunteering, mentoring, coding, etc.

Oddly enough, the more demanding I become as a freelancer the more success I seem to have. If they communicate well, truly want to accomplish great things, have interesting problems that push the bar, and have a great vision I am on 100% on board! If they don't, no thank you.

I get too many referrals and have to decline quite a bit of work (or the great match just isn't there).

Where/who do you send the work to that you decline?

I know of solid devs in some of the areas I work that typically can take it. Otherwise, much of it is very niche both in domain and technology so it is up to the companies to find another route (sadly).

I spend 8-10 hours a week marketing. Activities that I consider marketing include, attending networking events, writing blog posts and sending out newsletters to my clients.

8-10 or less per week. I count that as sending emails to people, browsing different marketplaces, interacting with different kinds of clients (including on here).

I'd LIKE to start updating my blog and using twitter a bit more. One step at a time I suppose..

Definitely not enough, maybe only 2-3 hours per work which includes responding to potential clients by e-mail, blogging and refining the copy on my landing page.

Thanks James. I wanted to see what you must be doing in those 2-3 hours/week, so i just checked your website and twitter account. What you are doing with "customer feedback day" is awesome, very few people in freelancing/small-agency setup do lead nurturing and i believe you are one of those.

Cheers Jai. My sales process is flawed and still evolving but I'm grateful for the positive feedback.

I think it depends on the way you do marketing. Choosing the right way which is suitable with your skills will save your time.

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