Another writer recently told me his marketing suffered from “paralysis of analysis.” He wanted marketing strategies that didn’t require a ton of thought.

Frankly, that’s how I see marketing anyway.

Lori Widmer

Maybe it’s the word. “Marketing” sounds ominous and complicated, like one of those torturous processes that corporations labor over for months to produce a few pages of strategy. Perhaps corporations need that process. However, for freelance writers, it needn’t be so tedious.

Maybe you suffer from that same paralysis as my writer friend, or are just bored with your current methods. If so, try adding one or more of these strategies to your marketing efforts:

1. Plan it. Choose how many clients you’re going to contact. Make it a number that feels manageable to get in touch with on any given day. The next day, contact that same number. Repeat this every work day. If you find you’re able to contact more clients than you originally thought, do it. The idea is to do something every day to expand your client list.

2. Suggest new projects. If you’ve worked with certain clients for years providing a specific service or product, suggest adding another service. Blogs, newsletters, and sales letters are just a few ways writers and editors can add to what they provide to increase their earnings. Create a sales package of everything you offer and present it to a client, showing how additional services or products can help them improve their businesses or lives.

3. Follow up. All those marketing pieces you sent out a month ago are useless unless you follow up. Get in touch with those contacts. Say hello, repeat your offer, send them a relevant article, or just ask what they need and how you can help. They may not need your services, but you won’t know if you don’t ask.

4. Target potential clients that resemble your existing clients. Not every client you’ll have will fit into the same box. For that reason, brainstorm where to direct your next marketing efforts. Look for potential clients that share similarities with companies you already do work for. If you work with doctors’ offices now, check out health-care suppliers. If a group of potential clients has similar needs, your chances of securing business increase.

5. Create several points of contact. Keeping your name in front of clients even when you’re not marketing to them directly can boost your business, too. Whom will your clients remember – the person who sent them a brochure, or the person they interact with every week on social media sites? Brush off your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ accounts and use them to get in touch with clients by sharing links, stories and ideas.

Inefficient marketing comes from lack of regular application. If you’re consistent with whatever methods you choose, you will see results.

What are your obstacles to consistent marketing?

You can’t control the economy, or the price of gas or what magazine or newspaper will fold next.

In the face of so uncertainty, it’s easy to feel helpless. Especially when you’re an independently employed writer whose livelihood depends on the circumstances of others.

But between the choices of doing nothing and feeling helpless and doing something, I vote for doing something. So here are 10 things a freelance writer can do today to feel better about the economy and your place in it:

1. Update your resume. Ideally, it’s on your Website so the changes are easy and immediate.

2. Update your online presence. Make sure your latest clips are on your Website or blog. Revamp your profile on LinkedIn. Sign up with Facebook or Plaxo. Be sure to list any clients you’ve started writing for recently, writing groups or associations you’ve joined or classes you’ve taken to update your skills.

3. Submit expense receipts. Everybody’s got at least a few expenses that have been sitting around way too long. If you write for publications that reimburse expenses, that’s money in your pocket. What are you waiting for?

4. Send invoices. It’s easy to get consumed with the minutia of getting stories done and out the door. Just don’t forget to send an invoice along with them. And once those checks come in, bank them ASAP.

5. Send out a query. It doesn’t have to be the world’s best, or the world’s longest. The point is to send something and get the process going.

6. Go through your contacts. Look at your Rolodex, Outlook, LinkedIn connections or Facebook friends. Reach out to any who’ve taken a new job or moved to a different company to say hi or reconnect. Not every communication has to be specifically about work, but you never know when a simple “How’s it going?” could open the door to an opportunity.

7. Email every editor you’ve worked with in the past six months. Ask if they’ve got assignments that don’t have writers attached to them yet. Ask if they’re taking pitches. Ask if they know of other editors at their publication who are. In other words, ask for work.

8. Brainstorm. Read through old story notes or pitches from PR agencies for a nugget or conversation thread that you could turn into a query. Take a shower, go for a long walk or a bike ride – whatever activity you use to get the creative juices flowing. Bring a notepad along in case you’re inspired.

9. Clean your office. Go through files and throw away things you don’t use any more or don’t need to keep. Flipping through old papers might flip the old idea switch. Even if it doesn’t, a clean office is like a fresh start.

10. Commiserate. You might work alone, but you’re not going through this alone. There’s a world of freelancers out there in the same position. Talk to them. Share suggestions. Why reinvent the wheel when you can borrow great ideas from people just like you.

What suggestions do other writers have for things to do right now to feel better about the economy?

There are so many ways to promote yourself it’d be easy to get carried away and have no time left to write. So have a plan. If you’re new to the business, take baby steps, like starting to use an email signature. If you already have a Website, blog and newsletter, consider adding a podcast or planning to attend a convention. There’s no right way to market yourself, just the way that works for you.

Here are 10 ways freelance writers can market themselves:

1. Use your email signature. In addition to listing basic contact information, an email signature can point people to your Website, blog, newest book and anything else you want them to know about you. Learn more in this post about using an email signature.

2. Create a Website. Use a Website to display your resume, clips, bio and any other selling points you think might be important. Include a picture so editors can match a face with a name. Some freelancers pay to have Websites hosted and designed for them. But you can find cheap or free Websites at places that cater to writers, such as Mediabistro, or general business sites such as LinkedIn.

3. Start a blog. Writers use blogs to market themselves in different ways. Some blog as a way to keep their writing skills sharp. Others blog about a particular subject they’re interested in. On his WriterBiz blog, Erik Sherman regularly reviews freelance contracts. Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell uses her blog, K.C.’s Write for You to interview authors. Still others have blogs to create a platform for books they’ve written or are writing.

4. Create an e-newsletter. Like blogs, freelancers use e-newsletters to different ends. Some writers’ newsletters play up their expertise in a certain area, such as Marcia Layton Turner’s newsletter on writing, Become a Six-Figure Writer, and Sandy Beckwith’s newsletter for authors, Build Book Buzz. Other writers use e-newsletters to keep sources, editors, friends and family in on what’s going on in their work life.

5. Start a podcast. I wrote a story about podcasting recently, and learned that if you stick to the basics, they’re not that hard to do. If you’re interested in learning more, listen to this podcast interview I did with Peter Brusso, an Orange County, Calif., consultant who produces podcasts for sole practitioners and other small-businesspeople. It’s a 25-minute Q&A that covers things like the equipment you’ll need, how to come up with topics, where to host a podcast and how to drum up publicity.

6. Network. These days freelancers can network online or in the real world. Online, you can join professional networks such as LinkedIn to cultivate sources, keep in touch with current and former colleagues and redefine how you present yourself to the world. In the read world, you can attend writer-only networking events like the all-media parties that Mediabistro holds around the country, or similar events sponsored by business groups in your area.

7. Join writer’s groups. Sometimes freelancing feels like solitary confinement, so it’s great to hook up with other writers, whether in person or online. My favorite isn’t really a group at all. It’s Freelance Success, a subscription-based Website and newsletter with a very active discussion forum. There are scads of groups for writers, including American Society of Journalists and Authors, Online News Association, American Society of Business Publication Editors, Society of Environmental Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the list goes on and on.

8. Attend conferences. Go to writers’ conferences to meet other freelancers and editors: it’s a great way to showcase what you do, and come back feeling reinvigorated about work. Many writer’s groups mentioned above have annual meetings, and Freelance Success is cooking up its first annual gather, which will take place later in 2008. If you cover a certain topic or field, there’s no better way to meet sources and promote yourself than attending a professional conference or industry convention. The work’s hard, the crowds are brutal and your feet will hurt by the end of the week, but your bank of new contacts and story ideas with runth over.

9. Visit editors. Since I just started writing again after a long hiatus, it’s on my personal to-do list this year to visit editors I write for regularly. I’d have to fly, so this would be a big unreimbursed business expense. But it’d be worth it if face time with my existing clients led to more work, and if I could set up meetings with new-to-me publications while I’m in the area.

10. Be the best at what you do. Be the go-to writer editors love working with. Stick to word counts. Double check grammar and spelling. Write your own headlines; even if you know they won’t be used, it shows you’re thinking. Turn in stories on time. Turn in the story the editor was expecting, or if you run into trouble, let them know well in advance, not the day it’s due. Be willing to do the little extras that editors appreciate, like getting a source to email photos.

Ultimately, you could do all kinds of marketing, but for any of it to work, you’ve got to back it up with your writing.

Reality check time. Do freelancers heed such advice? Or do they use other strategies for beating bad times? To find out, I posted those questions on LinkedIn, the business networking site. What I got back was very concrete and creative directions from writers and other freelance professionals about what they’re doing to cope. Here’s what they said:

Keep regular clients happy – Cultivate a core group of clients and work hard to keep them happy. The best way to do that: deliver above and beyond what’s expected. “Happy clients return no matter what,” says Flip Wiltgren, a freelance writer and game designer in Linkoping, Sweden. Marijke Vroomen-Durning, a Montreal freelancer and author of the HelpMyHurt blog, emails clients every so often with updates on her work and asks outright if they have anything they need done. “Sometimes, your email lands in their inbox at exactly the right time,” she says.

Market yourself as a virtual employee - Down times can be good times for independent contractors because clients can use them without adding to payroll, says AnnaLisa Michalski, a virtual assistant and writing support specialist in Norfolk, Virginia. Susan Emmens, a Richmond, Virginia, freelance marketing strategist, contacts companies looking for full-time employees to offer her services as a contractor. “Some have reasons that make freelancing a bad fit, but many are open to the idea that having a fresh set of eyes who isn’t mired in the company stuff might be just what the doctor ordered,” she says.

Change your thinking about where work comes from - Think outside the box, says Kathee Brewer, a Houston freelance writer. “There are quite a few ‘little’ jobs out there for talented writers who don’t let their egos get in the way,” Brewer says. “It’s hard not to appreciate the benefits provided by small, recurring assignments that, perhaps aren’t career builders, but nonetheless provide a bit of budgetary breathing room while one works on the things that really capture the imagination.”

Vroomen-Durning, the Montreal freelancer, spends time ever day combing freelance job boards, including Craigslist. “I know it has a bad rep, but if you take the time to look, you do find some real gems,” she says. “Two of my best clients have come from there. One in terms of high pay, another in terms of fun and enjoying the work.”

Measure projects by hourly not per word rates – Freelancers sometimes pass up work because the per-word rate is low. But projects should be judged on their merits and not just on per-word rates. Vroomen-Durning takes jobs based on how how well she knows the subject. An $800 project that she can do in 8 hours is a good hourly income. “If I’m offered that same amount for a shorter article but it involves a lot of research and reviewing back and forth, it may take a lot longer than 8 hours so it’s not worth my while,” she says.

Change how you think of yourself - If you want new types of work, create new ways to describe what you do, says Robert Dolezal, a Sacramento, California, publisher, content architect, and content provider. “If you’re usually a copywriter, step up into an editor’s role and re-brand yourself. It’s an excellent way to get new conversations going,” he says.

Call in favors – Use clients or contacts to ask for referrals, advice, and suggestions. “Studies show that more (job) action takes place from casual acquaintances than from those close to you, so getting the word out is important,” Dolezal says. And don’t forget to return the favor.

Go back to old clients – “You’ve already worked for them. That takes away a lot of stress and hard work,” says Terri Maurer, a past president of the American Society of Interior Designers and author of an upcoming book on the interior design business from Wiley & Sons. But don’t call just to ask for work: touch base to see how they’re doing. “The idea is to remind them you’re out there. The odds are you’ll find a few who were just thinking about calling you, or you will have called at just the right time,” she says.

Specialize – If you specialize, dig even deeper into a niche so you become an expert on the subject. Maria Marsala, President of Elevating Your Business, a Seattle consultant that helps small and mid-sized businesses, went from marketing to small business owners to marketing to financial advisers and planners. “It’s working for me,” Marsala says.

Use down time to look for new work – Sue Kristoff, owner of The Kristoff Group LLC, a Boston area engineering and technical writing firm, uses down time to troll online portals for new work. She also publicizes her business by leaving comments on blogs and online forums.

Sell one thing – You might wear a lot of hats, but trying to explain all that to prospective clients is confusing. So sell one thing. For Richard Laurence Baron, who started freelancing after a 30-year career in advertising agencies, that one thing is copyrighting. “Only a portion of my marketing/communications revenue comes from copywriting, but I still SELL that one thing. All the other stuff comes when the relationship and the trust is built,” says the Houston-based freelancer. Read more on his blog, SignalWriter.

Schmooze – Get out of your office and attend a networking breakfast or other real-world function. “Meeting people face to face or (getting) a reference through a contact has yielded me pretty much every major client I’ve got,” says Wiltgren, the Swedish freelancer. Maurer, the interior design author, adds, “Getting to know people before they needed my services allowed us to have some very open conversations about their companies, their needs and how my services might or might not be a fit for them.”

Learn new skills – This is the third big economic downturn that long-time freelancer Marty Weil has weathered. This time, he hopes to differentiate himself from other freelancers by offering search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting in addition to his other writing services. To prepare, he’s taken courses and practiced on his own blogs. Weil is also using his blogs as revenue generators. “My blogs have become successful business units in themselves, and as I’d hoped, have led to some amazing and worthwhile freelance writing opportunities,” he says.

S.W.O.T. – Grant Plowman, owner of Interactive Media Publishing, a Medford, Oregon, e-learning tools company, suggests that freelancers can pinpoint where they are and what they could do better using an assessment technique called SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The steps: analyze your strengths, honestly evaluate weaknesses, examine opportunities with present or potential clients, look at threats to existing client relationships and whether the services you provide represent a value that exceeds their cost.

You can read the complete text of answers freelancers gave on this topic on LinkedIn’s Answer section here.

The publishing industry is in tumult. Publications are trying to do more with less – less advertising revenue, editorial staff and readers. Throw worries about a recession into the mix, and it means trouble for freelance writers who depend on magazines, newspapers and customer publishers for their livelihoods. Or does it?

Not necessarily. Hard times don’t have to be bad times, at least not for freelancers who have a plan for marketing themselves during a shaky economy. That’s the view of Keven Malkewitz, a marketing expert and assistant business professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Malkewitz earned his marketing chops as a brand manager and business unit manager at Adidas, before getting a doctorate and helping consumer and technology companies with their marketing programs.

I asked Malkewitz recently what independent contractors such as freelance writers can do to keep clients and paychecks rolling in during a bad economy. Here’s what he said:

If times are tough, should freelancers hang onto current clients or go after new work?

During bad times, companies hunker down, they put stuff on hold and they don’t do new projects. In that case, you’ve got to work with the hand you have, so work on building stronger relationships with existing clients.

What could freelancers do to make themselves more attractive?

The thing that makes people like writers and designers most attractive is having some type of core competency that most people who do what they do don’t have. New skills are always helpful. For instance, we have an active design community in Portland, so instead of doing general design, a designer could stand out by doing branding or another specialty.

Should freelancers increase their marketing efforts in bad times?

There are fewer marketing efforts in down times, so for the companies that do it, marketing can be more effective. Studies have shown that companies that advertise in down times rebound higher. So invest in yourself. Marketing efforts do make sense.

Any other suggestions?

It’s all about networking, people you talk to and the quality of your work over time. It’s a good time to re-evaluate what you’re doing, to think about new ways of doing things. Really, that’s good to do anytime. We’re creatures of habit. We do things the way we’ve always done then. But bad times provide a positive opportunity to change.