Is Your Work To Marketing Ratio 2-1?
My freelance life began in November 2002 when I was laid off from my technical writing job of nearly eleven years. I can’t say that I didn’t see it coming – I was working in business aviation in the New York City area and our business was still reeling from the attacks of 9/11/2001. While the rest of the nation was doing fairly well, the New York metropolitan area was still struggling. Thirty of us were given our walking papers over a week long period.
Starting My Own Business
Immediately, I decided to start my own business, although my wife wasn’t particularly thrilled with that idea. I had a fair severance which included medical coverage for six months, something we needed as we had a pair of toddlers in the house. I quickly had papers drawn up to start my own business and within a few weeks time had my Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS and my state’s business license. Admittedly, I didn’t have many clues on how to proceed.
After a number of fits and starts where I eventually transitioned from building and maintaining websites to chiefly freelance writing, I began to find my groove. A lot of “life” happened during the ensuing months as my wife and I both lost our mothers, who were our remaining parents. Life was a blur throughout 2003 and well into 2004 before we decided to move and get a fresh start in North Carolina. So we sold our New Jersey home, purchased one in the Tarheel state and headed out nearly two years after starting my business.
A Time To Refocus
It was soon after when we arrived in North Carolina that I realized I needed to refocus my work. I eventually sold off or closed down several websites and began soliciting work from new customers. Oh, if I had only known back then that there was a huge community of online freelancer support, I might have been able to shorten my learning curve. But it was to be nearly another year before I managed to hook up with others thanks to having started my own blog.
Without going into all of the details covering my transition, I will instead share with you my current approach toward work which involves two components mainly – writing and marketing. Working together hand in hand, when both components are going well then I’m doing fine, but if my marketing isn’t up to snuff, then my writing may be lacking.
Am I saying that if I’m spending all of my time writing that marketing doesn’t matter? No. Eventually, jobs do come to an end and if I’m not continually marketing, then I could eventually find myself in big trouble, scrambling to take anything in order to make ends meet – been there, done that!
Two Thirds Writing, One Third Marketing
I’ve played around for months, even years on trying to find the right balance of freelance writing and marketing and have determined that if I spend two-thirds of my time writing and one-third of the time marketing, then I have achieved a good balance. This means that I need to spend the alloted time writing for others (so that I can get paid) and the rest of the time networking and soliciting new business (so that my work doesn’t dry up).
I average about fifty hours a week of work which means about 34 hours I’m writing and 16 hours are marketing. But the writing side isn’t just putting pen to pad (or making keystrokes to create words) as that also involves research (e.g., web research, interviews, phone calls, etc.) and, if the project is very detailed, writing an outline although most of the time that information is sitting in my head.
Marketing isn’t paying for web ads only, something I rarely do these days, but it does involve reading and responding to emails, phone meetings, the occasional snail mail letter or query, email messaging, social media usage, promoting articles, the occasional press release, etc. Marketing also means tweaking my blogs and websites and updating older information, deleting files, updating WordPress and more. Yes, I suppose I could include a third component, maintenance, and perhaps a fourth component, accounting, into the working equation. Both are comparably small and come out of my time here and there.
A Little Bit Here And There
For me, marketing isn’t always a set time of the day and it may not be every day either. If work is slow, which thank God it hasn’t been, then I’ll pour more of my time and energy into marketing. If I’m very busy, I still find the time to do some marketing no matter what. Most of my deadlines are knowable well in advance which means that I can plan ahead of time to work everything into my schedule without busting my writing-marketing ratio.
Of course, my 2-1 ratio isn’t set in stone as things do change when you work as a freelancer. I know of people whose ratio is 1-1 which means that half the time they write and the other half they market themselves. For professionals who are long established and have a steady stream of customers, their marketing ratio may be closer to 10-1, but I would venture to guess that most of these people are closer to 3-1 as they enjoy the contact they have through social media and other sources.
How about you? Do you have a set time to write as well as to market yourself? I would love to hear how you balance everything that you do as a freelance writer.
See Also — How Far In Advance Do You Plan Your Work?
Tags: freelance writing, internet, marketing, networking, social media, Writing
Development, Writing | Matthew C. Keegan, 23 Jul 09
By LarryJackson, July 23, 2009 @ 5:51 am
It’s hard to say how I balance my writing because I have a full time job already. A lot of the time, my articles are in response to a news story and are done on the spur of the moment. That’s probably not the best way to do it, but that’s usually what happens. Then there are those articles, usually in my Featured section that I spend more time on, doing research, etc. They are usually longer than the rest of my articles and I have spent as much as two or three days writing them, depending on the topic.
As for the social media thing, I find myself not using it as much as maybe I should. I Tweet my articles and they are automatically posted on my Facebook page. Sometimes, I will Stumble one of them, but I usually do not see much traffic from them. That may be my own fault for not spending more time using the media, but I find myself with having more things to do than to be on those web sites.
LarryJackson´s last blog ..President Obama speaks out on health care reform
By Matt Keegan, July 23, 2009 @ 6:20 am
Larry, as a part-time blogger you have to write when you can and where you can. If I was working for someone else, especially in a field unrelated to my blogging, I would find it difficult to balance everything. Clearly, blogging is a “fill in” task for you, but one that you seem to enjoy.
Writing articles over several days sometimes is the best approach. That way, you can build your case and come up with something that is well researched, factual, interesting and persuasive. I can tell that you put a lot of effort into everything you write, so you’re on the right path for sure.
Matt Keegan´s last blog ..Taxpayers Group Objects To Coercive Health Plan Proposal
By Trish, July 23, 2009 @ 6:54 am
I have personally been spending too much time on marketing, leaving me very little time for developing my product even more. Thanks for the wake up call.
By Dominique, July 23, 2009 @ 10:59 am
Matt, This is a great article! I loved hearing how your journey progressed.
I am afraid that I am no where close to where I want to be as a writer or as a blogger. When I head back to OK I am planning on redesigning my blog and doing more in-depth articles as I did in AZ. I also want to start submitting my work again and getting them published online as well as “off” line.
Because I am currently writing in between diaper changes, feedings, etc., I have just enough time to read and scan the days news and then respond in a post or article. That isn’t what I want to ultimately do with my blog and writing, but I know it is just for a time and then I can build a schedule and so forth.
Now getting paid for writing…that one always escapes me. I just can’t seem to figure out how to go about that or where to go. Maybe you can write a future article about that journey?!
Dominique´s last blog ..1/2 TRILLION $ and Bernanke forgets WHO GOT IT?
By Matthew C. Keegan, July 23, 2009 @ 11:15 am
Dominique, in time you will be able to pursue a more enriching blogging experience, but you must enjoy the time you have now especially with your grand-daughter being so young. Children grow up so quickly and this precious gift is with you right now, so enjoy this stage in her development.
I’ve covered tips on securing blogging work on this blog previously; those articles are searchable through this site. But, I will share again some current information perhaps this August.
By Frank Lynch, July 23, 2009 @ 11:44 am
I really liked the idea of balancing work and distributing the required time to each component and not neglecting the anyone for the as each of them are equally important. In online business we always need to add two to three components to earn a regular income and we just can’t rely upon just one thing as you never know when you will get jinxed.But again each component of online business we choose for ourselves is equally important and we should understand this fact.
By Matthew C. Keegan, July 23, 2009 @ 11:52 am
Thanks, Frank. I wouldn’t see they are equally important as far as time used for each, but they are just as important that they both be done. Trying to find the right balance can take time and that balance can shift depending on workload and job outlook.
By Robert, July 24, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
I am glad that you dint gave up, yes that’s the spirit of live you have to be very persistent in your effort towards your goal. Balancing your work is an art in itself, its about time management, efficiency & attitude towards your work, if you are fine with all these para meters i think one can strike a fine balance with there work and all the other odd things they want to do.
Robert ´s last blog ..WGP Synergy
By Wyjazdy Studenckie, July 27, 2009 @ 5:55 am
I admire your blog that is filled with content, words and interesting articles. But (as I was writing before, commenting another article) I said that I have some doubts of getting traffic from filling the content. As I have seen many blogs without many articles (sometimes just few) that appear high on pagerank and on goole list I lose my faith in the necessity of blogging by writing new posts. Your review of the 1-2 theory maybe is right but not in every single case?
By Matt Keegan, July 27, 2009 @ 7:02 am
Wyjazday, there are a number of different reasons why a blog is successful and achieving good PageRank. Linking is important including inbound links from quality sources. Obviously, people like what is written on these sites, thus the high ranking. It isn’t quantity that matters, but quality though some of this can be “gamed” in order to bring about artificially high ranking numbers.
Personally, I don’t care what others bloggers are doing to get their high position online. Traffic numbers are more of a tool measuring the number of people who come to a blog, but it isn’t indicative of quality. I think wise commentators, such as yourself, is a much better indicator than what Google, Alexa or some other traffic measuring device can possibly reveal.
Matt Keegan´s last blog ..Back To School Savings Await Families