Digital marketing freelancing is all about the online strategies we adopt to achieve our marketing goals. Let’s face it – the life of a digital marketing freelancer is quite appealing – work on your terms, your own time, work from your favorite coffee joints, or just never leave your room – what’s not to like? But like everything pleasing, this life does not come without any complications! As you can see, entering the digital marketing freelancer world is not as easy as ABC. But this is no news: the same goes for any other new career. Getting started is always daunting! And to be honest, marketing is not for the soft-hearted.
For a digital marketing freelancer, things can get even more challenging. One of the biggest problems freelance marketing specialists face is burnout. That's why managing your time and maintaining a healthy work and life balance is important. Let’s get rolling! Jack of all trades If you honestly believe that digital marketing freelancer have it easy because they get to choose what they want to do then think again because most of our time goes on doing things we don’t want to! As a digital marketing corporate training, they have to take care of everything by yourself; right from finding work to dealing with clients, chasing them for payments, handling your finances, the list is endless. They are the marketing intern; they're the brand manager and the finance guy in the department! They're the owner and the employee, of every department, and while that is very rewarding, they sometimes do end up wishing for a singular, focused role! Melting the ice More often than not, a digital marketing freelancer is working with new clients, clients they have no prior relationship with, and have met over the internet or on a digital platform. These clients, whom they know only by name, will want them to work at a bare minimum price, on awfully unrealistic deadlines, and delayed payment terms. To put it bluntly, it’s irregular, unstructured, unpaid work for (usually) ungrateful clients! Unrealistic demands and deadlines Freelancers get an assignment, they start working on it, they submit the assignment, but the client does not want it anymore because there has been a “minor change” in the campaign. And why was that not communicated to them? Let’s not get into that argument, can’t you just change this here and that there and write something new from scratch to accommodate our “minor change”, while I still pay you for just one assignment? NO! For any given new assignment, there is a bidding war being waged in the inbox of the client. And as much as they like pretending to focus on the quality of work, it’s usually the cheapest bet that wins the game! It’s not even funny how decent to high-quality work is being procured at such ridiculously low prices, sometimes even for free. Office Office? We all hate the nine-to-five grind! Now, what if that’s not a concept anymore? What if you have no office timings? No nine-to-five? No Monday-to-Friday? No TGIF! No Saturday and Sunday! No Diwali breaks or Christmas holidays. No bonus, no increment, no promotion, and, to add insult to injury, you now have huge dark circles! As a digital marketing freelancer, you don’t just leave your office; you also leave all the benefits that come with it! Teamwork "Not having an office to go to", the fascination of this concept starts and ends after freelancer's extended morning nap! Freelancing is a lone man’s struggle! The inevitable, torturous payment follow-up Easily the one universal problem of a digital marketing freelancer! No matter what line of work you’re in or how experienced, professional, or systematic you are, payment follow-ups for work done and submitted months ago are every freelancer’s nightmare! When clients expect a marketing presentation within a day but take a month for a minute’s NEFT transaction, you tend to lose faith in humanity! Staying focused! It's not that distractions don’t touch people working in an office, but the struggle is even more real when your home is your office! It could be your favorite movie on the television, your closest friend visiting the town, or your baby niece down with a fever, you will notice that reasons for procrastinating with work come to aplenty, but reasons to keep you motivated and stay focused hardly do! Devil at work!
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