Why do some freelance writers ask for a client’s monthly budget

You have probably seen freelance writers that use their blogs to attract freelance clients use this tactic when trying to lead potential clients who might be interested in their writing service to get in touch with them.

Usually they use this tactic on their Contact Me, Hire Me or Services page. They will for example have a shirt intro telling people landing on their contact page what they need to do before they can send a message.

So, they will be told to fill all fields marked with x – like add their name, email. And then there will always a drop-down menu they can use to select their budget. Usually there will be a range of numbers they can select from (for example $500 – $1000, $1110 – $1500, $1500 – $2200, $2500 – $3000, $3000+).

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Once they select a range (a monthly budget they are fine with), they will be requires to add a few extra details about what they need help with, and at the end of the contact form, there will be a Send button.

Who uses this method

It is mostly content writers that use their own blogs to get freelance work. Unlike freelancers that use freelance marketplaces / bidding sites (like Fiverr, UpWork and Freelancer & Niabusiness) to find online jobs or freelancers that use cold pitching (sending emails to potential clients), these freelancers let clients come to them – to their blogs. How they do it is simple?

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They will start a blog and write articles in the niche they want to get hired in. Then grow that blog – by using guest posts to get more exposure for their work and to get links. Then they will add a short reminder in their blog posts (sometimes inside the post or in the author bio) that they are a freelance writer and are available to create content for individuals and businesses that are interested in the niche topic they already blog about.

So, people coming to their blogs, once they start ranking highly on Google for certain search terms, will land on their blogs, read a few posts and see that the author is also a freelance writer that is available for hire.

That is when they will click on a link in whatever blog posts they are reading and be taken to the contact / hire me page where they can use the contact form made available to them to show interested in the writing services the author offers.

It takes a lot of work to do this as a freelance writer but there are a lot of people that are doing this successfully in niches known to attract small business owners, online business owners, startup founders, CEOs, managers and entrepreneurs – actual people that might be interested in having someone create quality content their organization / business can use to bolster their inbound marketing efforts / results.

When should you start doing this (asking freelance clients for their monthly budget)?

When you can really afford to be selective. That is when you should start qualifying the people who come to you wanting you to write for them. If you are still in a place where doing this doesn’t make sense or when you are still relying on freelance platforms and cold pitching as a way to get work, you might not want to boldly pursue this method.

When you are established as a blogger / freelance writer and not a beginner, you can happily increase your rates and use the method above to weed out certain clients.

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Because when you are established and use your blog to get clients, usually you will have other well-paying clients you are already working with and you will also be in a position to increase your monthly income by relying on other revenue streams such as commissions from affiliate programs by merchants whose products and services you review and promote on your blog.

Also when you are not in a rush to get clients and start making some money immediately, you can use this tactic to boldly ask people who are interested in your services to provide you with a monthly budget they can afford in the initial contact they make with you. This is usually a great way established freelancers use to weed out:

  • problematic clients
  • clients who negotiate too much
  • clients who don’t really appreciate the value of content and the time it takes to create it
  • clients who are still stuck in the content mill mentality and are okay pinching every last penny from the people they hire
  • clients that still don’t know how to best get more out of the content they order once it is sent back to them. So, clients who have not figured how to profitably monetize the pieces of content they order or clients who haven’t yet figures out their customer lifetime value
  • high volume clients that want to pay cheap rates for content just because they are sending more work to a writer
  • other freelancers trying to outsource the work they have gotten to other freelance writers (subcontractors)
  • agencies that don’t want to pay well but still expect spectacularly researched and well-written content
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So, these are the top reasons why some freelance writers ask for a client’s monthly budget. It helps them weed out 99% of the people that they may not want to work with, leaving them with 1% that can provide with a regular flow of assignments that pay well.

This is really important if you have an established blog where several business owners flock to every month.

People with different types of businesses (culture, products, services & size) will enquire about the writing services being offered and the freelancer / blogger for hire will be in a better position to gauge who take onboard and who not to work with.

Plus if you run a profitable blog, you want to make sure that if you provide writing services to others, that it is worth your while. If someone wants to pay you a per word rate that is below what you are making monthly from some of your affiliate links, you can use the monthly budget tactic to just gently push them to the side so they can leave the line open for others with better offers to get in touch with you.

So, while working on getting online writing jobs from freelance marketplaces and using cold emailing, you should also start on working on your blog, to build it gradually over time, so that one day you can get in a position where you can use your own blog to attract clients while still having the options of bidding on job sites / using freelance marketplaces & cold pitching open to you.

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