Holly Vanderwal, who provides small business content marketing services, says the seed for her career was planted during her college years when she worked in the admissions office of Valparaiso University and gave tours to prospective students and their families.
After graduation, Holly moved to Madrid to study Spanish and ended up at a content marketing firm there using her bilingual skills. That led to progressively bigger marketing roles at the academic publisher MacMillan for their operations in Europe and then at Routledge publishing in New York.
A move to Greenville, South Carolina two years ago first led Holly to considering a transition to freelancing, as she explains below. Now her business, Cloud Nine Marketing, specializes in small business content marketing. You can learn more about Holly and Cloud Nine on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Tell us about your small business content marketing services.
I help with strategy and implementation, specifically customer engagement emails (newsletters, event invitations, reporting, etc.), social media (set-up, content planning, paid ads, reporting) and blogging (SEO, planning, etc.)
Most of my clients don’t have a lot of time or money to spend on marketing, so I’m able to come in and identify where to focus their efforts, report on campaign outcomes and make sure their strategy, branding and messaging is consistent. While I don’t have a specific industry niche, I tend to work with a lot of B2B clients.
What are small business clients usually looking for when it comes to content marketing?
Most of my clients are startups who have just launched and are looking to establish an online presence, attract leads and retain current customers.
Related reading: How Smart Consultants Network Less and Make More With Current Clients
Often small business owners don’t have enough time (or marketing know-how) to effectively engage on social media, write informative and educational web content or write effective email newsletters to engage with current customers. That’s why they hire me; together we identify two or three ways to solve their particular problems.
Then they can rest easy knowing that I’ll follow-through and implement the established plan and report back on its success. They can then turn their energy into their passion, which is either operations or sales.
When did working as a freelance marketer become a viable career path for you?
Contrary to my usual cautious manner, I jumped right into freelancing without any clients or projects lined up.
Part of this drastic change stemmed from a geographic move to Greenville from New York City. Though my team at Routledge worked hard to keep me on as a remote employee, ultimately it wasn’t meant to be. (Tax reasons!)
I’d always wondered if I could make it as a freelancer, so I took this change as a sign to give it a go. I had enough money set aside as a cushion for start-up costs and gave myself a deadline of a year to see if freelancing would be a viable option. Turns out everything went great, and I couldn’t be happier!
Related reading: How to Start a Freelance Business In One Step? Why Reckless Is Best
What observations do you have about how the gig economy is trending?
Good question! The idea of “building a career” corresponds to the concept of “climbing the ladder.” At each rung, there is a new learning curve that teaches a new skill. If you do it well, then you move up to the next rung and learn something else. (Theoretically.)
As an independent contractor, you are simultaneously managing every rung of your business. There are constant learning curves in everything you do: new software to facilitate client work, legal forms to make sure your company is compliant, new industry trends, adapting communication styles/formats that best suit various client personalities, etc.
Related reading: 6 Essential Client Facing Skills You Need For The Gig Economy
The necessity to constantly educate yourself about your industry and adapt to client needs forces faster growth spurts than a traditional office job might require.
That said, I truly believe you can learn a lot from the experience of working in a traditional office environment, especially if you have awesome mentors like I did who were willing to share their knowledge and expertise. However, if you are a hands-on-learner, you’ll grow faster professionally as a consultant or freelancer who needs to grow and adapt in order to survive.
In 2018, it’s important to recognize that the concept of “building a career” is no longer standard. Very few professionals stay in the same company for longer than five to seven years. While careers were once seen as vertical, now they are horizontal and involve a lot of job hopping and personal reinvention and re-branding.
Being a successful independent contractor will teach you how to adapt to changing needs and circumstances, which is vital for career success, whatever it may be.
What are you planning to try in the next year to grow your content marketing business?
In 2018 my three goals are:
• Hire a professional to redesign my website and improve its lead-generation functionality.
• Strengthen my brand identity by writing out and documenting specific brand guidelines.
• Stay consistent and continue writing articles for my blog that clients and potentials would find helpful and even entertaining!
Related reading: How To Make A Great Consulting Website
What would you advise your younger self about growing a business as a freelancer?
I would have told pre-freelance me to keep track of measurable professional accomplishments. What was the email engagement rate of the newsletters you sent? How many followers did you attract for the Facebook channel? Did you spot an increase in renewals/purchases that can be attributed to your engagement campaigns?
Potential clients are looking for measurable results. If you have information on how you helped your company improve customer engagement, web traffic or direct revenue, you can use that data to demonstrate how you have been valuable to previous companies and how you can be valuable to small business owners.
Related reading: Advice for My Younger Self — Independent Contractors Share What They Wish They Knew Starting Out
