This is part two of a three-part series to help you become a freelance writer and achieve the freedom of self-employment and the ability to work from anywhere. We recommend reading the posts in sequence as each post builds on from the previous post. For part one click here. For part three click here.

In part one, I touched on how I followed a proven strategy by professional blogger Bamidele Onibalusi to land my first $1000 in two months on my quest to become a freelance writer and to help me realize my dream of self-employment and working from anywhere.

I also discussed the importance of laying a foundation for your freelance writing success and detailed all the steps involved, from deciding on your positioning (by niche or service) and the creation of your writer’s website to establishing an online presence. Today’s post will focus on how to create social proof (credibility) through guest posting.

Establish credibility through guest posting

The idea of getting featured in major publications is simple: you want to take advantage of the name and prestige associated with a major publication to increase your credibility and value. And nothing does this better than something that reads, “As featured in [Insert major publication].

Social proof will not only reduce the time it takes to become a freelance writer, but it’ll allow you to negotiate higher rates. If you don’t believe me, here are the words of Bamidele himself in an article he wrote at the beginning of the challenge:

“I’ve seen this in action several times in the course of my freelance writing career. Clients who insisted that they won’t pay half the rate I asked for suddenly started offering to pay more once they found out that I’ve been featured in a major media site.”

Guest posting works. It's as simple as that.

Before the challenge, I’d already written guest posts for a few publications e.g. Motivation Grid, Lifehack, and Daily Zen. So I acknowledge I had a slight advantage to start. But, I still bolstered my credibility using the techniques detailed by Bamidele to get featured in the Huffington Post.

How to get featured in major publications

Many beginners and established freelance writers fail to get a response from publications because they use online submission forms. The problem is: these websites receive many submissions, daily, and by many, I mean hundreds, if not thousands of applications. For small blogs, submission forms may prove effective as they receive fewer submissions. But I would still recommend pitching the editor as this shows you’re willing to go the extra mile. You will stand out! But, generally, pitching through these submission forms isn’t the right strategy to become a freelance writer.

But if this isn’t the right strategy, what is?

What you need to do is pitch the relevant decision maker. In most cases that will be the editor, and in others, the content manager, marketing manager, or even the CEO. But how do you find the decision maker?

Finding the decision maker

The editor's name is often listed on the website under team pages, contact pages, and about pages. You can find it by trawling blog content to see whose name pops up repeatedly. Or, use a Google search to yield the desired results i.e.[ Publication], [Category(if applicable)]. You can even use Linkedin by typing the company name and search for people. Now that you have the decision maker or editor’s name it’s time to find their email addresses.

Finding the editor's email address

Again a simple Google search might yield the results e.g. “[Editor's Name], email”. You can also find some editors details on the website. And if all else fails, make use of email finding apps. They work like an absolute charm. I used and continue to use this strategy in conjunction with a Linkedin search for best results. Many of the apps integrate with Linkedin, so a simple click of the button will do.

I used several apps such as Voila Norbert, FindThat, Lusha, Hunter, Rocket Reach, and Rapportive. Try them all to see what works for you. Because some have daily limits, consider alternating between them. I prefer Voila Norbert, Hunter, and Find That Email as they delivered the best results for me.

Deciding on ideas for your pitch

To decide what ideas to pitch you need to acquaint yourself with the material on the website.

Some helpful hints:

1. Analyze the site to see what type of content the publications publish.
2. If there’s a specific category of interest, research the current material to ensure you don’t pitch a similar article.
3. See what’s working. Analyze articles for the most share, likes, and engagement.
4. Read the guest post guidelines and adhere to them.
5. Publications will sometimes tell you what they want. Provide them with what they want and they'll most likely accept your article. It depends on a great pitch of course.

Crafting your pitch

Okay, so you believe you have a winning idea? Now you need to create your pitch. The success of your pitch will hinge on the title you use for your pitch. If you have a poor subject line editors won’t open your mail.

Here are a few tips to help:

1. Your title needs to be short and descriptive. On a desktop, you have between 50- 60 characters (not words) and on mobile phones, 25-30. For example [Guest Post] How To Land Your First Writing Gig. It’s short - 47 characters - and tells the editor it’s a guest post and what the proposed article is about.
2. The body of your email needs to be short and to the point. Editors receive lots of emails and if it’s too long, they’ll discard it.
3. Start with a short introductory sentence explaining what the email is about.
4. Launch straight into your pitch. Mention your title and outline your article.
5. Make sure you read and re-read for any grammatical errors. If your grammar is bad, how can you expect an editor to hire you?

I used a guest post pitch template Bamidele provided. Here is my pitch to the Huffington post:

Here is their response a day later:

Following-up

In the above example, I received a reply a day later. You won’t always receive a reply, so follow up. The formula I use is the 3-7-7 formula Bamidele uses. It works!

With this strategy, you follow up three days later (if you’ve heard nothing). If a week later there is still no response, follow up again. And if another week passes send one final email. If you hear nothing within two days after the final follow-up consider your pitch unsuccessful and move on.

What to do right now

1. Create a spreadsheet with 5-10 publications you want to guest post for e.g. Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Fast Company etc. Pitch them all. Because tracking is important for freelance writer success, create a spreadsheet. Include the name of the site, person pitched, e-mail address, date pitched, and three columns for following up (follow-up 1, follow-up 2, follow-up 3).
2. Find the relevant decision maker through the website, Google search or Linkedin.
3. Find their e-mail address via the website, Google search, Linkedin, and email finding apps.
4. Craft several pitches for the different publications, remember to keep them short and descriptive.
5. And always remember to follow up - the 3-7-7 formula works.

Follow these steps and it’s only a matter of time before you feature in a major publication. While attaining social proof is important to build your freelance writing career, there’s no reason why you can’t pitch for jobs in the meantime, either through scouring jobs boards or by cold-pitching. Cold pitching for writing clients is one of the best techniques to help you land high-paying clients and help you become a freelance writer.

Click here for part three to learn about cold-pitching.