It’s 2022, and everyone is online. Most successful companies are also online, vying for user attention. So, a company can’t just throw up any old ad and expect it to make a huge impact.

They need a strategy, and that’s where freelance digital marketing comes in. Everyone needs digital marketers, but many companies — especially smaller ones — don’t want to hire a dedicated full-time marketer to handle marketing efforts.

If you are even a little bit creative, enjoy managing projects, and can get on board with Google, keep reading for:

• An explanation of what digital marketing is
• In-demand specializations
• What freelance digital marketing salary is in 2022
• How to figure out what kind of digital marketing you want to do
• Where to find digital marketing jobs
• How to secure your first client
  

What is freelance digital marketing, exactly?

Digital marketing is all forms of marketing that happens online. Through digital marketing efforts, businesses can reach their audiences through websites, social media platforms, on mobile devices, through emails, in apps, and more.

Freelance digital marketers help clients: 

1. Define a company’s marketing goals
2. Identify the specific audiences they need to reach
3. Find where those audiences are “hanging out” online
4. Figure out how to reach those audiences effectively
5. What kind of elements are needed to put together a marketing strategy
6. Define what a successful marketing strategy is in relation to the original goals
7. Measure the overall success of online marketing efforts
8. Pivot a marketing strategy when needed

Considering the numerous ways you can reach an audience online today, there are several different types of digital marketing — and the skills involved with each marketing specialization are in high demand.

Types of Digital Marketing

1) Content Marketing

Content marketing uses the creation and distribution of valuable content, such as blog posts, white papers, and explainer videos, to attract interested users to a website.

This kind of content is free for viewers and captures the interest of people who would want to buy the company’s product or service.

The type of content a company should use and the places where that content is posted are very important. Your primary job as a content marketer is to make these decisions, although many companies may ask you to plan out a content strategy and create the content itself.

2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the practice of creating and improving on a website and the website’s content to rank higher in organic search engine results.

There are two aspects to SEO: on-page optimization and off-page optimization. Off-page optimization refers to the more “technical” things you can do to improve a website: reduce page load speeds, improve a site’s structure, improve a site’s stability, etc. On-page SEO refers to the writing and media that users see on the page.

Here is a guide on SEO copywriting, and a guide on technical SEO, to help you build SEO marketing skills.

One of the most important aspects of SEO (and digital marketing in general) is keyword research. Keywords are the terms that users type into search boxes on Google, social media, marketplaces like Amazon, etc. 

Keyword research involves researching the keywords that your target audiences are searching for, then using those keywords throughout your marketing strategy. You need a strong understanding of keyword research for on-page content writing, technical SEO — almost all the types of digital marketing.

3) Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

While SEO marketing is all about getting a webpage to rank higher in organic (unpaid) search results, pay per click advertising is about ranking higher in search results using paid ads.

Think about whenever you look something up on Google. Paid ads are listed at the top of all search results. 

With pay per click advertising, you only pay for that ad whenever someone clicks on it. Digital marketers focused on PPC advertising will need to do keyword research, audience intent analysis, and then organize a PPC campaign using an ad campaign tool like Google Ads, Amazon Sponsored Products, or Facebook Ads.

Social media marketing is one of the most in-demand jobs for freelancers right now. Individuals and companies are looking for social media marketing campaigns on every platform: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter…the list goes on.

Social media marketers create campaigns that are designed to reach target audiences on at least one social media platform. The social media marketer is responsible for:

1. Assisting companies in create concrete campaign goals
2. Researching which platform(s) a company's intended audience are on
3. Determining what kind of content will be necessary to execute the campaign
4. Outlining the timeline of the campaign design and execution
5. Figuring out what kind of measurements can be taken to determine the success of a campaign (otherwise known as key performance indicators, or KPIs)

Common social media marketing campaign goals are to:

• Increase brand awareness
• Spread information about things like product releases, events, trends, etc.
• Motivate users to buy into a product or service

Many platforms now allow eCommerce store owners to create 'shoppable' social media posts, so social media marketing campaigns are more important than ever.                              

5) Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a collaboration between influencers on social media platforms and on prominent websites wherein they promote a company’s product to their following in exchange for free products or monetary compensation.

To start an influencer marketing campaign, you as an influencer marketing strategist need to help decide on the campaign’s objectives, what platform(s) you want to engage with, the type of influencer you want to work with, and how you’ll pay them.

6) Email Marketing

Email marketing involves the use of email outreach to advertise new products, services, sales, and news in general. 

As an email marketer, you can expect to help a company carve out their email marketing goals, segment their email subscriber list into different target audiences, identify (and possibly create) the visuals and copywriting that will go in the emails themselves, and use email management software such as MailChimp or ActiveCampaign to set up an automated sending schedule.

7) Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is an advertising strategy where you reach users through their mobile devices. Common types of mobile marketing include:

1. SMS text message marketing
2. Location-based marketing (aka GPS marketing)
3. Communication app marketing (Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, etc.)
4. In-app marketing (banner promotions, video ads, etc.)

To create mobile marketing campaigns, someone (possibly you) will write the copy — including a clear CTA — and set up automated message deployment using mobile marketing software.

8) Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is similar to influencer marketing, but instead of paying people to show off a company’s product, the company pays per referral. 

Typically, affiliate marketing is set up so that writers and social media influencers can persuade their audience to buy a product, go to a website, sign up for a free trial, or any other lead generating action.

Depending on the type of affiliate program, an affiliate marketer may get paid per sale, per signup, per click, etc.

Most digital marketers are not expected to be an affiliate marketer, but rather to build an affiliate program, find affiliates to work with, promote an existing affiliate program, or manage a company’s current affiliates.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average freelance digital marketing salary in 2022 is $68,970, which translates to $33 per hour.

This will change depending on your:

• Level of experience
• Skill set
• Knowledge of marketing software
• Your previous track record of marketing campaign success

 A quick glance on Upwork, the world’s largest freelance job platform, shows that digital marketers make anywhere from $20-$100 per hour. 

The highest paying jobs are in digital marketing management, while the lowest tend to be in content/social media marketing. This is simply because digital marketing managers tend to have more knowledge and overall value when it comes to a company’s marketing efforts.

How to Become a Freelance Digital Marketing Specialist

Step 1: Decide what kind of digital marketing services you want to offer.

Carving out your service offering is the first step to figuring out exactly what you need to become a freelance digital marketer.

When deciding what kind of marketing you want to do, research what kind of skill sets you need to be successful at the job. For example:

• Are there technical skills, like web design, that hurt even to read about? Steer clear of search engine marketing.
• Does the graphic design element of marketing excite you? Consider content or social media marketing. 
• Do you love the idea of managing projects and people? Think about getting into influencer and affiliate marketing program management.
  

Step 2: Acquire the skill set you need to offer your particular digital marketing services.

At its core, marketing is about helping a company carve out specific marketing goals, determine what actions are necessary to reach those goals, create (or find someone else to create) the materials (visuals, copy, videos, etc.) needed to reach target audiences, and then measuring the success of marketing campaign efforts.

You’ll need to learn how to put together a campaign proposal, what kind of software you’ll need to execute the campaign, how to manage a campaign through project management and communication tools, and potentially, how to create marketing assets.

It’s also crucial that you learn what campaign success looks like and how to measure it. You need to show your clients the real, tangible value of your marketing efforts. 

This might mean learning how Google Analytics works so you can set up key performance indicators (KPIs) such as number of website visits, where visitors come from (social media, an affiliate’s website, PPC, etc), whether users answered the call to action by purchasing, signing up for an email newsletter, sharing social content with friends — Google Analytics can measure tangible results of your efforts and visualize them in an easy-to-understand way.

This might mean learning how to use a page tracking tool like Hotjar, which shows what parts of a website a user engages with and what makes them flee from a website. Using this data, an SEO marketer can improve the form and function of a website. Then, they could use Hotjar to display the difference in how a user interacts with a site — specifically, how often a user gets to (and clicks on) a CTA. 

Note: If you’re not sure what kind of skills you would need for a specific digital marketing position, look on a job listing platform like Indeed or Upwork. Listed jobs usually have a job description or list of skills required to perform the job. 

Step 3: Put these skill sets to use.

While you probably won’t get paid as a freelance digital marketer at first, you can (and should) get some digital marketing experience.

Offer to create location-based marketing campaigns for local restaurants. Partner with a micro influencer to practice making those connections. Create your own website and demonstrate your own SEO skills. Become an affiliate for a brand, design your own affiliate marketing campaign, and learn exactly what a good affiliate marketing strategy looks like.

You could even design some sort of offering — a class, a physical object, a book of stickers, it doesn’t matter all that much — then determine your target audience, create a campaign to get noticed, and see what kind of conversions you might get.

Even if you’re not making money as a digital marketer, you could be making money.

When you make your offer, pitch yourself the way you would pitch to potential clients. Identify who you would pitch to, do some research about the competition, figure out what your potential client is lacking, and explain how you could fill that gap. 

Ideally, you would create a marketing campaign pitch deck (there are several templates out there) to demonstrate your research, your campaign idea, some sample campaign assets, and projections about how the campaign could positively impact the individual or company.

Step 4: Get very specific about your offering.

At first, you decided on a very general area of digital marketing. But hopefully, with some learning and experience under your belt, you now have a better understanding of what digital marketing jobs you would (and wouldn’t) be good at.

You might also learn the type of client or subject matter you’d work well with.

For example, you might find that you are really great at running Facebook ad campaigns. You also really like working with small to midsize companies. Craft your offering to specifically attract those kinds of clients who are also looking for your specific offering.

Step 5: Apply to your first freelance digital marketing jobs.

At first, it’s probably easiest to use a job platform like Upwork to apply for digital marketing jobs. There’s a low barrier to entry, you get to display your previous work on your profile, and you can apply to specific jobs that sound right to you.

You might notice that most job postings on Upwork are either pretty generic or quite lengthy in description — mostly because a lot of companies either don’t know what they need or because they have an idea of everything they would want.

When you apply to jobs with generic descriptions, try to shape your proposal so that they can see your past experience and how you might start helping the company now.

When you apply to jobs with detailed descriptions, make sure to read the entire description and succinctly explain how you could fit all their needs.