Something I really struggled with when first starting out freelancing, was trying to book new video production clients and landing gigs. I’m sure you also are facing the same kind of struggle.
Actually, everyone has to face this. The people who overcome this struggle period eventually become successful at a point of time. And you might be thinking, how do I actually land these clients?
And I’m telling you, cold emailing is not the way to go. So, I’ve actually used these four process, that had really helped me to land more gigs in 2019. Hopefully, these will help a lot of you land more gigs in 2020 and beyond. Let’s get right into it.
What’s in it for me?
The 4 Step Process
Step one is to research
You have to do your research before you reach out to prospective clients. I’m going to be using a restaurant as an example. Not any specific restaurant, but let’s just say a restaurant. Suppose you want your local restaurant to be your client.
You need to do your research on it before you reach out to them. What kind of research should you do? You need to go onto their website. You go into their social media channels in order to see what their video presence is currently like. So, go to the website. Maybe scan and see.
Do they have the main promo video? Do they have produced videos for certain things that they have or the services that they offer? Then if you hop on their Instagram, do they even have any videos on their social media?
Why this process of research is so important?
Because too many times content creators will reach out to brands that already have infrastructure that’s working for them or have a content creator making videos for them.
You don’t want to work with clients like this because they already have something that’s working. The chances of you landing a gig with them are probably unlikely.
Now, on the flip side of that, though, if you find a prospective client that potentially needs help with content creation and you notice that they don’t have a video on their Web site and they don’t have any videos in their social media, chances are you might be able to land a video production gig with them.
Step two is Spec Work
Now, what is spec work? Actually, I want to look up the definition of what is spec work on Google first before I act like I know what I’m writing about.
Spec work gets any kind of creative work, either partial or completed, submitted by designers to prospective clients before designers secure both their work and equitable fees.
This is the type of content that you create that you don’t get paid for, but you use it to reach out to clients to potentially land gigs. How I would go about this process and let’s pull back the restaurant for the purpose of this example, let’s say you’ve done your research on a specific set of restaurants and you notice that they need videos and their video presence is heavily lacking.
Now, what I would do is maybe pull some strings and reach out to some friends that like cooking. I would ask this person to create a recipe and I would film a cinematic sequence of it.
Or even better, if you have family members or friends that own restaurants, maybe go ask them and say, Hey, can I just come into your restaurant? Can I film for an hour or two just to get some clips and maybe put something together for myself?
Now, don’t spend too much time in this step, but you want to make sure that you have finished a video that you can reach out to the client with.
Step three is to stand out
The step two already will make you stand out from the rest because you’re actually taking the initiative to show rather than say now that you’ve completed step number one, which is researching the brand or business, and then you’ve complete a step number two, which is creating a piece of spec work for them.
You want to actually reach out to them now in order to basically present your pitch. Now, this part right here really helped me. You have to offer a free service. What that means is you basically pitch the client and say that you’ll do the first video for free and then after that, you’re going be charging a fee if they’d like to continue the business.
With that being said, you reach out to them with your spec work and if you don’t know who to reach out to, a lot of times these brands or businesses will have like a generic email on their website. You don’t want to just reach out to their customer service or their generic email. I mean you can, but you also want to tackle it some different avenues. So, make sure you reach out to them via Instagram social media.
Now, this is another trick. You can also do when reaching out to the client is go on LinkedIn, look up their business name, and chances are you might find some professionals who work at that company, business or brand, and you can actually message them directly from LinkedIn with your pitch instead of just a generic email because they probably already get a ton of emails on a daily basis when messaging this potential client.
I would say something along the lines like, “Hey, my name is Ayan Dey. I’m a local content creator, videographer and I would love to create some content for your business and offer some serious value. I noticed that you guys don’t really have a video presence, but I think that I can help out with that. Here’s a video that I shot. I think you might enjoy that. I would love to offer the first video that I do with you guys for free, no strings attached. And you can have delivered content. But if you like the video, I would love to talk further about doing business together.”
Then leave your Web site, leave your handle and just hope that they get back to you. Now, I will tell you, I’ve done this process before. I’ve reached out with spec work, told them that I’ll do the first video for free. I’ve booked many video production clients this way.
The fourth step is to close the client itself
Now, this is a really important part of the process of acquiring a video production client, because this is where you get the money and how you land the client. Let’s say you’ve done your research. You have your spec work and now you have the free video that you’ve shot for this client.
When you reach out to the client with this free video, they’re going to ask the question, how much do you charge? You want to make sure you have your package prices set. And I recommend having three packages, one, two and three. Good, better, best for your prices.
So, when you message your video production client with the free video, you can enter your prices and you’ll be able to better your chances of landing this client. You want to reach out to the client saying something along the lines like, “Hey, the video is done. I hope you guys like it. No strings attached. You can use it on your social media, on your website if you’d like to get more content such as this for your business. Here, my package prices below. Looking forward to hearing back from you.” And that’s how you do it.
It’s pretty easy. Definitely longer than just emailing the client with your portfolio. But I promise you if you’re first starting out, then leave no stone unturned to get the first client. It’s worked for me and many others as well.
Now, another important thing to keep in mind is don’t be discouraged if the client doesn’t actually want to work with you by the time you get to step four. The reason why I say this is because you’ve done spec work, you’ve done free work.
Even if the client doesn’t want any further business with you, you already have two pieces of work that you can now add to your portfolio. This is going to be really helpful for you when will reach out to future clients. Now that you have the restaurant video and spec work, you can reach out to more clients with this method. And I guarantee you, you will book a client or a restaurant in this example before you even know it.
Conclusion
The important thing to keep in mind when applying this four-step process in your freelance business is that when you first start out, you’re going to hear no a lot more times and you’re going to hear yes.
But you need to remember to have the grit and persistence to keep reaching out to more clients and keep shooting and just making sure that the wheel is still turning because if you stop, that’s when you basically kill all your chances of becoming a full-time content creator. If you are a video editor and looking for new clients you also can follow these steps.
FAQ
To get the first client. Like every other business, in video production business also getting the first client is the most difficult task. After that things start moving.
Put yourself in your customer’s place and now say, will you sign a contract with an agency without seeing their previous works. Yeah, you should create a good portfolio in order to get clients.
Spec Work (short for speculative) is any job for which the client expects to see examples or a finished product before agreeing to pay a fee.
Linkedin is the social media site for professionals. You can get contact details of executives of different businesses there on Linkedin. Suppose, you want to make an ad video for Mainland China restaurant. If you approach the chefs of that restaurant this is not gonna work for you, you have to reach their marketing or sales executives. You can get close to these specific people on Linkedin.
Select a niche. Suppose you are targeting the restaurants. Search Restaurants Near Me on Google and get the list. Now check the restaurants if they already got a video or not. If not, then approach them and tell them that you want to make a video for them for free. People love freebies. Make a good video for them. Now you have something to show to your clients. Get email ids of your potential customers from Linkedin and start approaching them with the video you have shot for free as your portfolio.
