This is a post from a member of the Freelancers Union community. If you’re interested in sharing your expertise, your story, or some advice you think will help a fellow freelancer out, feel free to send your blog post to us here.

Lead generation is essential to any thriving business. And as a freelancer, you need a consistent flow of qualified leads to find the few clients that drastically impact your revenue. The problem? A 2019 report found that 6 out of 10 marketers said generating new leads was their top marketing challenge.The other 40% stated that engaging those leads was their biggest problem.

Typical lead generation tactics don’t work so well anymore because they are too ubiquitous to have an impact. So think out of the box, and put value first, with these three ideas.

Create an interactive tool that provides value

One of my favorite examples is an ROI calculator, like this one from FreshDesk. Companies drop in some basic details on how their current customer service reps are managed, then receive custom information that helps sell prospects on their value — like saving time, money, or improving key performance metrics:

To translate this for freelancing, you can show that your value as a freelancer is much more cost effective than hiring someone in-house. Showcase that you can produce more for less, and/or that you are saving prospective hirers money on benefits, salary, and onboarding costs.

The idea here is to create an engaging tool that leads will enjoy using, and learn from. But the kicker is:

• You are selling without selling.
• Instead of giving the hard pitch, you’re subtly selling yourself as the best possible option.

Create a personalized quiz

Quizzes are few and far between as lead generation tools, but when done right, they can have great impact.

You can create quizzes online with tons of different tools and platforms, from paid to free. With your quiz, it’s key to clearly state the end-value that users will recieve from completion — whether ebooks, custom reports, or templates.

Turn your blog posts into PDFs

Reading online can be difficult, especially when content is long-form — which most of it is. According to Buffer, most people read less than 15 seconds of a post before leaving (please stay!).

One reason is that the experience likely isn’t great. But to collect their email address, you need readers to stick around. One unconventional yet effective method, used by BigCommerce, is to offer offers each post as a downloadable, shareable PDF fit for any format and device:

They drive lead generation by requiring you to fill out some basic contact information to download the PDF. And by providing value and another way to consume their content, I'm willing to be that they significantly drive up signups.

With tools like SmallPDF, you can convert your word documents directly into PDF format in seconds, and avoid the costs and lag times associated with creating add-ons and ebooks.

In conclusion

Lead generation is critical to a thriving freelancing business, but it’s also one of the most difficult aspects of marketing. So ditch the generic approaches and think value first.

What is your favorite lead generation tactic?