Is Freelance Digital Marketing Legit Enough to Make Money?

The online economy has never been more popular. One of the most popular careers and side hustles is freelance digital marketing, where you can work from home, a shared co-working space, or even a coffee shop to fulfill client projects. That begs the question, “Is freelance digital marketing legit?” The answer is a resounding yes.

Freelance digital marketers enjoy all sorts of perks, with the potential for a good income and limitless career growth since they are business owners, too. Of course, these advantages are balanced against numerous challenges, which are particularly noticeable when you’re first starting out.

In this blog post, we cover everything to give you a detailed view into what your professional life will be like if you go down this career path.

What Is Freelance Digital Marketing?

Freelance digital marketing is the profession of creating online content for a business’ customers, so those customers can engage with said content and move down the business’ sales funnel. It’s a highly specialized skill and trade that an increasing number of people around the world are trying their hand at due to the demand for this occupation.

Freelance Digital Marketer at work at a desk in front of a laptop.

The barrier to entry is low, with only a strong and reliable WiFi connection, a computer, and marketing acumen as prerequisites. Specialists in this trade are found all over the globe and can work from anywhere, with some eschewing the traditional office setup for a more flexible and hybrid setup.

Everyone from small businesses with a mom-and-pop sensibility to large Fortune 500 SaaS companies use and depend on digital marketing to:

Raise brand awareness
Generate leads and demand
Connect with their target audience
Bring more organic traffic to their websites
Increase their conversions, sales, and revenue

Freelance digital marketers are essential to the success of small and large businesses. Freelance digital marketers are self-employed since they work for themselves on a project-by-project basis or run their own digital agency, where they manage their clients’ projects.

What Projects Does a Freelance Digital Marketer Work on?

As a digital marketer, you’ll work on a vast array of interesting projects that will challenge you but also allow you to demonstrate your expertise in raising brand awareness and bringing more customers to your clients. Digital marketing encompasses all the strategies that businesses use to drive more sales to their websites, based on generating demand and leads.

Here are some examples of projects available to you as a freelancer in digital marketing:

SEO — Performing SEO and website audits, keyword research, competitor analysis, keyword gap analysis, backlink campaigns, on- and off-page optimization
Content marketing — Writing blog posts, articles, website copy, ebooks, case studies, emails, infographic scripts, video scripts, white papers, social media posts
Paid ads — Ideating, designing, and running PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like those for Google Ads
Social media — Conducting competitor research, devising and designing social strategy, creating and publishing social posts, curating social profiles and streams, engaging with your customers’ target audience

Whatever type of marketing you specialize in, you’ll have a broad selection of tasks and projects to support for your clients.

Necessary Digital Marketing Skills

You'll need to develop a set of necessary skills to succeed in this field. Having a strong understanding of digital marketing techniques and strategies is essential. This includes knowing how to optimize websites for search engines, create engaging content, and effectively use social media platforms, as just some examples. You’ll also need to bolster your writing skills and adopt use of the active voice, clear communication in your writing, and writing conversationally.

A woman looking at a laptop and writing on a tablet while engaging in freelance digital marketing.

Then, being able to analyze data and draw insights from it is crucial in digital marketing. This will help you measure the success of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions. You’ll need to develop a working knowledge of tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, as well as third-party SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Mangools, SE Ranking, or Screaming Frog.

It’s also a smart idea to learn how to use project management tools like Todoist, Asana, Notion, Trello, Clickup, or Monday. Adopting the kanban method, where you move your projects forward by managing content production in boards, in these tools will help you become more productive and seamlessly handle numerous projects and clients at once, without becoming disorganized.

Finally, having strong communication and writing skills will enable you to effectively convey your progress updates, outreach, and upsells to potential clients and customers.

Can You Make Good Money From Freelance Digital Marketing?

The answer is yes, you can make good money from freelance digital marketing. According to Talent, the average freelance digital marketing salary is $78,000 per year or $37.50 per hour in the US. There’s a lot of variation with salaries based on career experience. For instance, the entry-level salary in this industry is just $48,750 while the more experienced digital marketers can make as much as up to $95,794 per year.

A suitcase full of $100 bills on a table.

That’s one of the reasons that this specialty skill has exploded in popularity over the last couple of decades. People want a decent income while being able to work on a stimulating selection of projects in an industry that’s only getting more lucrative by the year. And they can do this while also choosing, in many cases, their workplace setting.

If you’re still asking yourself, “Is freelance digital marketing legit?” you may want to consider the good income you can earn from this occupation.

The Benefits and Challenges of Freelance Digital Marketing

There are numerous benefits to working freelance. For one thing, you’re your own boss, so you don’t have to report to anyone. You also don’t have to show up to the office from 9 to 5. In other words, you have more freedom to control your own schedule and work the way that you want, based on what you want to prioritize in the workday. You can take long breaks in the middle of the day to recharge, as well as work late into the night.

A freelance digital marketer thinking about the benefits and challenges of the industry.

As mentioned above, making money as a freelance digital marketer is appealing, too. The earnings potential is significant, especially as you gain more clients, perform well, network more, and scale your operations. As you grow, you may even open a digital marketing agency, working with freelancers of your own to complete bigger and better paying projects for clients that have more budget.

While these upsides are undeniably attractive, there are also challenges to be aware of.

As with any freelance occupation, your income will fluctuate, unlike if you’re an employee working for someone else, when you have steady income. This challenge is particularly noticeable in the early parts of your career, when you’re building relationships and trying to find more clients. Still, depending on how your clients budget, you could still get affected by fluctuating and unreliable income even later in your career, though to a lesser extent.

The other potential hazard with freelancing is that you could fall prey to online scammers, again, particularly when you’re new. Scams include not being paid by a client and having project terms change on you in the middle of the project. You can guard yourself against scams by asking for payment up front (prepayment) before a project starts and never writing any unpaid “test” articles, where your so-called client can essentially use the copy you’ve written for them without paying for it.

Platforms for Freelance Digital Marketing

You usually find clients in a number of ways as a freelance digital marketer, including:

Cold outreach via email and phone
Networking (online and in-person)
Building organic content to drive traffic to your portfolio website or social channels
Generating leads like this can take time but will result in a stronger base of clients.

The other option you have is to simply sign up for an online writing platform, which puts you in touch with clients that they find for you or allow you to advertise your services as a freelancer to clients who contact you directly.

Examples of these platforms are:

Increase Your Earnings Potential and Freedom With Freelance Digital Marketing

Now, you realize that working freelance as a digital marketer is a viable profession, one that has a lot of room for growth and earnings potential. So is freelance digital marketing legit? Yes, it is. 100%. With the right mentality, skills, openness to learning, and digital tools, you can make a full-fledged career for yourself in this field.

While you’ll have to work hard in your early years, you’ll eventually build a base of leads, clients, networking connections, and brand recognition that will help you grow as the years go by. The important frame of mind you need to have is to persevere since you’ll be running your own business as a freelancer.

If you’re in need of a highly skilled content marketing agency you can partner with to grow your business and website conversions, then reach out to us today. Contact The Glorious Company today for a no-obligation consultation and estimate.

Have any questions? Keep the conversation going by leaving a comment below.

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