Get the Gig! Marketing Basics for Freelancers & Solopreneurs

Identify and align your top values to shape your personal brand, guiding freelancers and solopreneurs toward an authentic marketing plan.

Discover your personal values to guide decisions, priorities, and branding; align beliefs with actions to shape authentic messaging and a clear marketing plan.

Identify ten core values, then select your top three and reflect on how they guide your business. Integrity often becomes the most important value, shaping client choices and authentic marketing.

Explore the marketing mix and the four Ps—product, price, promotion, and place—and learn how these controllable factors shape outcomes for freelancers and solopreneurs.

Explore the product as the first marketing mix element, defining tangible or intangible offerings that solve market demand and brainstorming diverse services and revenue streams for freelancers.

Set pricing by clarifying the value you deliver—saving time, easing professional life, or increasing clients' profits—while researching market rates and your costs, and aligning with your values.

Practice promotion strategies that inform customers about your offerings using push and pull marketing, advertising, PR, and sales, with networking and referrals as key drivers.

Discover how 'place' in the marketing mix shapes where and how you offer your services, from remote delivery to in-person setups, including exploring other distribution areas.

Explore the BREAK positive framework, a five-action method for freelancers and solopreneurs, including busy, résumé, expertise, accept, and keep in touch to drive authentic marketing.

Staying busy keeps your freelance and solopreneur skills fresh, confidence high, and energy up, while expanding your network, learning new skills, and turning downtime into opportunities.

Turn your résumé into a media kit—a press pack—by assembling a marketing tool-kit with must-have items like a bespoke résumé, bio, website, and photos, while building an online presence.

Discover your expertise to gain a competitive advantage as a freelancer or solopreneur by using a SWOT analysis and a concise elevator pitch aligned with price, product, place and promotion.

Identify your expertise or unique selling proposition to differentiate your freelancer brand and align the four aspects of product, price, promotion, and place for a focused marketing plan.

Identify your expertise through a SWOT analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; align internal values with market opportunities to shape your personal marketing plan.

Craft a concise elevator pitch by drafting a tagline for your products and services that fits into 140 characters or less as the bonus task.

Accept opportunities and say yes to expand your network and attract positive things as a freelancer or solopreneur. Use push marketing to put your product or service out there.

Keep in touch to strengthen relationships and expand your network, increasing your chances of gigs and contracts through ongoing dialogue and authentic engagement.

Stay informed on industry news and newsletters to connect with your network through timely emails and shared insights, using LinkedIn for contact management and proactive outreach.

Consolidate exercises into the Break framework grid—busy, résumé, expertise, and accept and keep in touch—to craft an actionable marketing plan. Set a realistic timeline and follow through with small steps.

Apply insights from marketing basics to define your freelancing identity, map your goals, and build the tools you need for a long, successful solopreneur career.