No two freelance clients are alike. Any freelance writing veteran can tell you keeping clients happy can depend on a number of factors, including a company’s size, the industry, or personalities involved. Still, there are a few tips for keeping freelance clients at peace that seem to apply to most of them.
Deliver on Time
Always meet given deadlines seems simple. Make it a habit by properly planning ahead, and this super-simple tip pays dividends on a broad scale. Remember, time is money in business, so lost time equals lost money.
Know Their Wants
It can seem easy to get a topic and keywords and go off to the races to deliver. Not so fast: first you should truly ascertain what the business does, and what it wants. Knowing the end goal should help in producing the content, whether its more leads, more sales or just more attention. Acquaint yourself with all the client information you can to truly know the audience and purpose of the content.
Provide Quality
It seems a no-brainer, but learn to be consistent in weaving in search engine optimization best practices into colorful and engaging content, and you limit opportunities for complaints. Think how your client’s audience might type phrases into search engines, and lace that into paragraphs.
Compete Well
Along the lines of No. 3, go the extra mile to ensure your content uses top-quality, credible sources, and information from high-traffic websites to solidly back up your writing. Properly research topics, validate your work and compare well with the many other freelance writers out there.
Communicate
Never hesitate to ask clients questions if you have them, and try early on to establish an easy and comfortable line of communication. It doesn’t have to be lengthy conversations, either. Send one-line progress reports, ask a question well before deadline, or just post-submission feedback to keep communication lines robust.
Finally, try to go above and beyond what is asked. Spend extra time to consider what clients may need or want next. Simply suggesting new topics can do wonders toward making freelance clients happy. And nurturing satisfied clients keeps jobs coming and helps bring even more work.