Earn More When You Monetize Your Creative Freelance Work For The Holiday Season
December is the busiest time of year for most creative freelancers. Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are just three of the many holidays celebrated around the world each December. Whether you’re designing holiday cards, taking family photos, or developing other digital products that shoppers can use as gifts, there is no limit to the creative freelance work available during the holiday season.
Keep reading to find out how you can monetize your creative freelance work for the holidays and get repeat clients who keep coming back.
Holiday Sales at the Glance
Creative marketplaces and digital directories, like Funnel, acquire more buyers between the months of October and December than any other time of the year.
Buyers on Funnel’s digital directory are searching for all sorts of services to help them with their holiday planning, from custom holiday cards to family portraits, decorations and even drone videos they can give as gifts. The traffic on most freelance marketplaces represents a major increase compared to any other time of the year. Sellers who optimize their profiles can capitalize on the increased interest and earn extra revenue during the month of December.
Get Your Online Profiles Ready for the Holidays
The key to earning extra money by freelancing for the holiday season is to prepare beforehand. The weeks before the holiday rush are the best time to prepare your freelance advertising and marketing strategy.
If you’re looking to earn more with creative freelance work, then consider your Funnel profile to be your online showroom. Make sure your showroom is ready for the holidays by getting your profile in tip-top shape.
Enhance your profile by adding targeted keywords that will help you reach holiday shoppers. A few ideas include: last-minute gift idea, holiday gift, custom Christmas cards, and family photos for holiday cards. You get the idea! The goal here is to include relevant terms that people might be searching for when they shop for gifts online.
If you are going to offer incentives, like rush orders or free shipping during the month of December, now is the time to include that information in your profile, as well.
Promote these offerings and incentives using social media and email marketing. Don’t forget to tag Funnel, so buyers know how to find your profile with examples of your previous work.
Additional tips to get your online profile ready:
- Review your profile from the buyer’s perspective and look for any red flags.
- Test how your profile looks from a mobile device to make sure your best work is appearing first.
- Respond to buyer queries and messages as quickly as possible.
- Make use of any additional marketing channels you have access to, such as social media, blogs, and email marketing.
- Analyze any limited-time discounts you’ve run in the past to measure the ROI.
How to Earn Extra Money By Freelancing for the Holiday Season
The holidays offer many opportunities for shopping — and selling. As a creative freelancer, the holidays are a lucrative time to offer up your services.
When it comes to advertising your services, it’s good to keep the consumer’s perspective in mind. For example, decorations typically come before gifts. That means consumers are more likely to make decorative purchases in the months of October and November, and buy their gifts in the month of December.
Offer Custom-Made Products with Personalization
Are you willing to create custom products for your clients? Whether you’re a photographer, videographer, or graphic designer, you can generate holiday sales by offering to create personalized, custom-made work for clients based on their unique specifications. As a best practice, it’s a smart idea to sell a variety of gift options for a range of recipients, including people who are purchasing gifts for themselves.
Target Last-Minute Shoppers with Instant Downloads
If you have existing creative freelance work that you’re willing to sell, you can reach last-minute shoppers by offering that work as an instant download. Freelance photographers have been especially successful using this technique to sell digital prints of landscapes and cityscapes to gift buyers who have already missed traditional shipping deadlines.
Repackage Existing Work
The holidays are an excellent time to repackage existing work for new audiences. If you are a photographer, you may have winter-time images you captured during the holidays the year prior. Repackage that work with a festive title, and you can market it to buyers interested in holiday photography or fine art Christmas decorations.
Similarly, if you are a graphic designer, you can repackage any holiday-themed designs you have created in the past and sell them to buyers looking for unique holiday cards and stationery.
Give Your Services a Holiday Twist
Are you a book designer or a graphic designer who has experience with magazines? Consider putting a unique twist on your book and magazine design services by offering to create custom memory books or family albums that buyers can give as gifts to their loved ones. Personalized books are always a hot seller, and as someone who has experience designing and delivering custom books, your freelance services will be in high demand.
Unofficial December Holidays
Christmas isn’t the only holiday people are preparing for in December. A number of unofficial holidays and annual events occur in the weeks leading up to Christmas each year. As you gather holiday freelance ideas, consider how you can target your services to help people preparing for these unofficial December holidays.
Small Business Saturday
Small Business Saturday is an event hosted annually on the Saturday after Black Friday. This is a day when consumers are encouraged to make purchases from small businesses, including freelance businesses. If you’re selling creative freelance work, it’s a good idea to use targeted keywords in your listings to reach people looking to make purchases on Small Business Saturday.
Green Monday
Green Monday refers to the retail industry’s busiest shopping day, happening on the second Monday in December each year. Most mailing services consider the second Monday to be the cut-off day for shipping packages that are guaranteed for Christmas delivery. If your freelance business involves selling physical goods—for example, if you’re a photographer who sells prints—then Green Monday is an important date to keep in mind.
Free Shipping Day
Free Shipping Day occurs in mid-December. Once again, this is a holiday that applies primarily to creative freelancers who sell physical goods, rather than digital.
Super Saturday
Super Saturday happens on the last Saturday before Christmas. For creative freelancers who sell digital goods, Super Saturday is a major event. Last-minute shoppers no longer have time to order physical goods for Christmas Day delivery, so they are more inclined to make digital purchases on this day instead. Freelancers who have access to promotional tools on social media and email should advertise their digital downloads on Super Saturday to maximize sales.
Advertise Your Creative Services on Funnel
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