Marketing as a freelancer, having a perfect memory and more – notes from our 24th September 2025 meet up
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 24th September, 12 freelancers met up in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things freelancing and tech.
- Do you really want a perfect memory?
- PyCon
- Putting on events in VR
- Analysing adverts to learn marketing
- Books for learning marketing: ‘Ogilvy on Advertising’ and ‘Tested Advertising Methods’
- Christopher Lash: Culture of Narcissism
- The good and bad of using AI tools
- Trump tariffs
- The hell of housemates
- Good and bad agencies
- Caring about the craft of your work
- There should be MOTs for rental properties
- How did/do you find work?
- Don’t decompress for too long after redundancy, some stress is useful
- What aren’t you already marketing?
Learning marketing
If you’re trying to learn marketing, the books Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples and Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy are two standards in the field that are well worth reading even though they have been out a long time. Tested Advertising Methods in particular was written a long time ago but has had several updates, you won’t be missing much by getting an older copy via Ebay.
Fundamentally, marketing is about understanding who your clients are and how to get yourself in front of them, preferably at the right time. If you can work out a way to do that, you can have a long, successful career as a freelancer.
Ways to market yourself as a freelancer
- Work on the projects of other freelancers who effectively become your marketing & sales departments
- Have a good LinkedIn profile
- Post in relevant groups and comment on relevant posts on LinkedIn
- Help people in forums related to something you do as a service, make sure your posts mention you are available for work in the area
- Use a Facebook ad to send people to your profile / website / LinkedIn page
- Attend networking events
- Go to trade events for an industry you have worked for before and talk to people
- Blog about what you do, regularly. Tell people about your posts on social media
- Use Search Engine Optimisation to make your website come up high for relevant searches (hard)
- Contacting everyone who has ever asked you to work for them or through their companies and tell them you’re available for work and what you do
- Register with recruitment agencies who work in the industry you want work in
This is a list of different ways people in the Farm have got projects as freelancers. This is not a comprehensive list of ways to market your services as a freelancer, if the way you get work is not on the list, that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. There are a huge number of ways to market yourself, try several and hopefully you will find the one that works well for you. I’ve found work through at least four of the ways above.
Doing marketing
If you are a freelancer, you should always be marketing even when you are fully booked with work.
If you are a freelancer who is out of work, you should be spending many hours a day marketing yourself. The economy is tough in many sectors at the moment, doing marketing is how you help work find you. Don’t think about doing it. Get on with it.
Memory
You may think you want a perfect memory, but people with extremely good/perfect memories can suffer from it. The book The Mind of a Mnemonist is a study of someone with a perfect memory. The short version is: the ability to forgive by forgetting arguments can give you a better life than the ability to always remember where you’ve parked and your bank PIN.