While I talk a ton about marketing on this blog, the irony is that I actually believe that the secret to making a high income is to get to a place where you actually don’t have to spend too much time on actively marketing. Instead, potential clients continually approach you with opportunities instead of the other way around. The way to get to this point is through passive marketing, which means marketing that is working for you while you go on vacation, sleep or do other work. In journalism, editors are looking for you to pitch to them, and even high-profile writers still find themselves needing to constantly pitch stories. But with content marketing, clients need a specific type of writer and often go hunting for writers.

One of the challenges of looking for content marketing clients is that you have no idea which company is about to launch a new content marketing program or which agency just landed the perfect client for you. So the goal is that when a client needing your specific niche and writing skills starts hunting for new writers online, they quickly find you. No, this doesn’t happen overnight. No, this doesn’t happen when you are first starting your career. And no, this doesn’t mean that you can never market at all.

But honestly, I think that this should be the goal of each content marketing writer – having clients seek you out because you have a much higher chance of landing these clients than when you go looking for them. This is because they are in need of a writer and went searching for someone with your skills. They liked what they saw enough to contact you. So all this to say that last week, three different well-paying legitimate clients approached me with solid projects and wanted to share with you how each one found me.

Here is what happened last week:

An Agency Owner and Alumni from My College Searched for Me on LinkedIn – The day after I wrote about using “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” on LinkedIn to follow up with warm leads, I took my own advice. When researching someone who viewed my profile, I noticed that she was an agency owner with solid clients and lived near my hometown, and that we were alums of the same college. She had an upgraded LinkedIn account, so I was able to contact her through the OpenMail feature. I mentioned our connections, told her that I saw she viewed my profile, asked if she had any content marketing needs, asked if she wanted to talk on the phone and gave her my email address. The next day, she emailed me, and we have a phone chat scheduled for late next week. When we talk on the phone, I will ask what terms she searched for on LinkedIn so I will learn even more information to help me with SEO on my LinkedIn profile. If you do not already have your niches in your LinkedIn profile, stop reading this post until you do that. This is the key to getting found on LinkedIn.

A Nonprofit Searched for a Content Marketing Writer in Google – I also got an email from a marketing manager through the contact form on my website asking to talk about some blog and newsletter needs that her nonprofit has. We are talking on Monday. She mentioned that she found me through Google, and while I am going to ask for sure, I am betting that she searched for some version of the  keyword “Content Marketing Writer” and found my website that way. When I started the Content Marketing Writer blog and began blogging multiple times a week three years ago this month, I had no idea that a side benefit would be that my efforts would organically earn me the #2 unpaid spot on Google for the keyword. Not only have a considerable number of potential clients found me this way, but also if a client asks me whether I understand SEO, I have them type in “Content Marketing Writer” to demonstrate the ranking I organically secured for myself. Since many writers don’t think about SEO for their own website, I will be sharing an interview I had with a website designer with experience in writer website SEO in the next few weeks to help you take advantage of this passive marketing technique.

A Writer I Had Met through an Online Writers Forum Recommended Me to Her Client – Late Thursday afternoon, I got an email from a client whom I had been wanting for a long time, asking if we could chat on early Friday morning because she had an interesting opportunity for me. The next email was from a fellow writer whom I was acquainted with through several writers’ forums, telling me that her client asked if she knew someone who would be good for a project and she told her my name. The details are not finalized, but it appears that there is a very good chance that I will be starting work on one of my bucket list projects in the next few weeks, thanks to a very generous referral from this wonderful writer. This illustrates once again the importance of networking with other writers as well as referring other writers whenever you have a chance to pay it forward. If I had not been as active as I am in the writer community, this referral never would have happened, and I would have missed out on what is hopefully going to be a long-term fantastic client.

How have clients found you? What is your most effective passive marketing? Any tips you can share? Any questions about passive marketing?