There’s loads of discuss in regards to the potential of AI, however how do you use it as a freelancer?

There are two fundamental use instances for AI for freelancers:

1. Automate administrative duties
2. Develop your corporation (advertising and marketing)

I examined many frequent AI use instances for freelancers and located that whereas the executive duties had been pretty simple, the AI advertising and marketing use instances had been just a little trickier.

Many advertising and marketing AI instruments enhance effectivity on the expense of high quality, so I’ll share the use instances I discovered handiest at enhancing effectivity whereas sustaining (or rising) high quality.

I’ll additionally share some administrative AI instruments freelancers can use to function extra effectively. 

Advertising AI For Freelancers

#1. Automate Shopper Outreach

Chilly e-mail continues to be an efficient solution to get new purchasers, but it surely must be customized, ship worth, and goal prospects who completely match your perfect consumer.

Whereas loads of AI instruments will let you blast generic e-mail instruments, the best consumer outreach technique I examined is utilizing Apollo.io for lead analysis and mixing it with Smartlead.ai to ship the emails.  

To begin, open up Apollo.io and create a Persona primarily based on the job title, business and key phrases, location, and worker rely.

Then, it gives you a listing of people that match that standards.

Now that you’ve got a listing of right-fit prospects, you possibly can create and ship an e-mail. Apollo affords an AI instrument that writes an e-mail template for you primarily based in your prospect’s ache factors and your resolution.

​​Nevertheless, watch out when sending mass emails, as you may get your account flagged and banned. To be secure, begin by sending not more than 20 weekly emails. 

I truly want to obtain the listing of leads generated by Apollo after which add it to Smartlead.ai, as Smartlead lets you purchase a very new area to keep away from risking your main area and automates the e-mail warmup course of.   

Whereas importing the prospect listing to Smartlead isn’t as seamless as sending emails instantly in Apollo’s platform, it’s a lot safer and nonetheless lets you scale your outreach effectively. 

Smartlead is understood for its glorious e-mail deliverability, so regardless that you should use different e-mail platforms, it’s one of many high rated options.

An alternative choice is to make use of a platform like Manus.ai to automate your prospecting and outreach course of.

Manus not too long ago confirmed a case research of how an area marketer uploaded an in depth doc outlining his perfect buyer. Then, Manus used it to generate a listing of prospects and robotically uploaded the listing to an e-mail automation instrument:

After confirming the marketing campaign overview, it generated customized touchdown pages for every prospect:

Manus additionally wrote and despatched all the outreach messages.

You’ll be able to see an entire breakdown of the method on this video right here:

The disadvantage with Manus is that it’s nonetheless in beta and hasn’t been launched publicly. 

You can too take a look at instruments like Lindy.ai, although I discovered that their lead prospecting requests weren’t at all times correct (e.g., in the event you ask for B2B SaaS corporations, a few of the corporations added to the listing had been B2C or ecommerce). AI brokers like Lindy will be extremely efficient, but it surely takes time to discover ways to use them.

I in the end discovered that utilizing Apollo.io and Smartlead collectively produced one of the best outcomes, even when it took just a little extra time. 

#2. Create a Web site  

You don’t want a web site to be a profitable freelancer, but it surely definitely makes you look extra skilled.

If you’d like a easy one-page web site (like a touchdown web page), you should use a instrument like Canva. 

They’ve loads of touchdown web page templates you possibly can select from to customise:

Whereas the templates are all pre-made and customizable by way of drag-and-drop options, you possibly can generate your personal movies, graphics, and pictures with Canva’s AI generator, Magic Media.

For instance, I generated a number of Google Analytics graphics that I might add to my touchdown web page:

Then, you possibly can join it to your personal area identify and publish:

Canva additionally affords full web site builders, however the options and adaptability are restricted. 

Alternatively, you should use an AI web site builder with extra flexibility, like Wix. 

Wix’s AI web site builder begins with a chat interface that asks about your corporation and clients. Then, it generates a web site primarily based in your responses.

Right here’s an instance of the preliminary draft it generated for a advertising and marketing company web site:

After producing the preliminary draft, you possibly can ask it to tweak the theme, web site construction, web site description, or structure.

For instance, I didn’t just like the preliminary structure, so I requested it to generate a brand new one:

Notice that this web site requires rather more enhancing than a easy touchdown web page, and I’d rewrite a whole lot of the copy myself if I had been to make use of this as an actual web site.

Alternatively, you might choose a template you already like, after which use Wix’s AI author to generate the copy for you.

If you’d like a extremely skilled web site, you can even look into Relume. Relume connects with Figma and is right for skilled designers who’re comfy making web sites however wish to automate extra of the design course of.

Right here’s an instance of a Relume web site:

#3. Create and Optimize Weblog Content material

Even in the event you don’t have a web site, you possibly can nonetheless create weblog content material and submit on different business blogs to construct credibility as a freelancer.

For instance, in the event you’re within the search engine optimization business, you might pitch a weblog to Ahrefs, Search Engine Journal, the Content material Advertising Institute, or different business leaders. 

Even when business publications don’t settle for your weblog submit, you might submit it on Medium or LinkedIn.

There are a number of methods AI may also help with this course of.

Content material Ideation

Most individuals use AI to find key phrases. 

Right here’s an instance of how Eric Siu used Manus AI to research a competitor’s excessive buy intent key phrase frameworks. 

You’ll be able to then use these key phrase frameworks and apply them to your corporation. 

Along with doing key phrase analysis, you can even use AI that will help you craft thought management content material. 

For instance, creating knowledge research is likely one of the finest methods to earn consideration, shares, and backlinks. 

The secret’s creating a knowledge research that solutions a controversial or trending matter that offers entrepreneurs actionable insights to enhance their technique. 

So I took this knowledge research from Kevin Indig, pasted it into ChatGPT, after which gave it the next immediate:

Then, it gave me a handful of fairly glorious ideas, like the thought of testing the prevalence of actual phrase matches in Google: 

You’ll be able to then ask the LLM find out how to take motion and truly seize the information. 

For those who don’t have entry to proprietary knowledge, you might rent a VA on Upwork to manually gather knowledge or associate with a SaaS firm that has knowledge. 

For instance, Brian Dean partnered with ClickFlow to research 4 million search outcomes (they later refreshed the research and used the information from Semrush).

So, relatively than simply utilizing AI to generate content material for you, use it to create a extra fascinating angle on a trending matter or generate knowledge.   

Semantic Key phrases

There are additionally loads of AI search engine optimization instruments that make it straightforward to optimize your weblog content material by together with semantic (associated) key phrases.

For instance, instruments like Surfer search engine optimization offer you a listing of different semantic key phrases to incorporate in your weblog submit as you’re writing:

Surfer search engine optimization additionally offers you a normal content material optimization rating and even lets you “Auto Optimize” the content material. Auto optimization instruments will be useful, however double-check the AI’s work because it isn’t at all times correct and will lower the standard of the content material itself. 

Inside Hyperlink Options

You can too get automated inner hyperlink ideas utilizing a instrument like Surfer search engine optimization:

Instruments like Hyperlink Whisper are designed to automate inner linking, although I’ve discovered that instruments that attempt to automate the complete inner linking course of often aren’t totally correct. In my expertise, it’s nonetheless finest so as to add inner hyperlinks manually. 

Moreover, I don’t suggest utilizing AI to generate the content material itself, as Google introduced that AI generated content material that exhibits little to no originality is taken into account “lowest high quality.” 

And, whereas informative content material can rank and get individuals to your web site, these readers gained’t bear in mind you or purchase your merchandise/providers if there’s nothing memorable about your content material.

#4. Write Social Media Posts

Constructing a private model on LinkedIn is a perfect technique for freelancers to draw purchasers.

There are many AI writing instruments to generate posts for you, however be sure you inject your personal private expertise and knowledge into the submit to make it distinctive.

For instance, I used MagicPost to jot down a LinkedIn submit for me:

This could nonetheless require fairly a little bit of enhancing to make it publishable, so there are two different choices. 

First, I might additionally select the “import submit template” choice. 

For instance, in the event you see another person write a productiveness submit, you might import that template after which amend the content material itself to suit your productiveness ideas:

The truth is, you might make a listing of a few of the LinkedIn TopVoice consultants after which make templates utilizing their high performing posts.

For instance, I used Favikon, a B2B influencer advertising and marketing instrument, to seek for LinkedIn Prime Voices.

Then, you may make a listing of those LinkedIn Prime Voice accounts in a instrument like Feedspot after which use their high performing posts as templates in MagicPost.

The hook can also be vital, so I used MagicPost’s Hooks generator to create hooks for my posts:

MagicPost may also repurpose weblog content material for you. 

For instance, I had it create a LinkedIn submit summarizing the weblog submit Kevin Indig wrote on SEJ relating to Google’s AI overviews.

The outcomes had been fairly good:

The truth is, that is most likely my favourite method as a result of it takes a chunk of unique knowledge after which organizes it right into a LinkedIn-friendly construction.

Do not forget that what makes an important social media submit isn’t the content material construction – it’s the expertise, opinions, and concepts – the substance of the content material. 

So even in the event you’re utilizing a instrument like MagicPost, embrace your personal private expertise and concepts throughout the immediate. 

#5. Generate Movies For Private Branding

Instruments like HeyGen will let you create AI avatars of your self, and Reply.io’s CEO, Oleg Bilozor, proved that this method works. 

He created an avatar of himself in HeyGen and likewise dubbed his voice (I don’t know which instrument he used to dub his voice, however you should use one thing like ElevenLabs). 

Beneath is an actual video he posted on his TikTok account that at the moment has over 2,000 likes:

The hand motions don’t fairly align with the expressions, and once I performed with the instrument myself, I observed the sentence phrasing wasn’t at all times good (although you possibly can edit it).

For instance, you possibly can nonetheless inform that this isn’t fairly a human:

Nevertheless, that is an thrilling different in the event you don’t have time to be on digital camera.  

You’ll be able to log into the platform after which add a number of photos of your self:

Then, you possibly can write your video scripts, and your AI avatar will carry out them for you.

CapCut additionally affords comparable choices. Provided that the AI avatars aren’t good, I like that CapCut affords different AI enhancing choices that will let you use actual video footage, however hastens the enhancing course of with AI instruments.

You can too take written textual content and ask it to summarize it into a brief. For instance, I took an extended kind weblog submit, and it created the next video:

I discover that the instrument was most correct in the event you used a shorter textual content (like a LinkedIn submit or Tweet) relatively than lengthy kind textual content. 

You can too add lengthy kind movies and ask it to remodel them into shorts for you:

Loads of different instruments, like Opus Clip, may also repurpose lengthy kind movies into shorts for you.

#6. Enhance E-mail Advertising Effectivity

Constructing an e-mail listing is vital for freelancers since you personal the viewers. Alternatively, social media and even weblog content material is basically a borrowed viewers. 

Even when individuals comply with you on social media, you possibly can’t ensure that the social media algorithms will present your content material to all of your followers, and you might be banned at any second.

Even in the event you’re simply getting began, construct an e-mail listing. 

AI may also help you develop your e-mail listing in a number of alternative ways.  

First, you should use AI to create lead magnets. 

For instance, right here at Copyblogger, our paid supply is Copyblogger Academy, a group that additionally incorporates quite a lot of programs on advertising and marketing associated subjects, together with private branding.

Due to this fact, I used Replit to code a LinkedIn submit template that lets you paste in a high performing submit from one other individual’s account (ideally from a unique area of interest), which is able to strip it all the way down to a template. 

Right here’s the immediate I gave it, together with the submit I inserted.

Then, customers can choose a submit type (business insights, knowledgeable roundup, and many others.) and the instrument generates a template:

Beneath the template, you possibly can even insert your personal business key phrases or titles.

Then, I might deploy this template and use it as a lead magnet that individuals may give me to construct our e-mail listing. As individuals utilizing this are clearly actively constructing their private manufacturers, this may appeal to and seize good prospects for Copyblogger Academy.  

You might additionally use Replit to construct calculators and even dynamic checklists. 

To advertise the lead magnet and get it in entrance of recent potential clients, I might even use Favicon to generate a listing of LinkedIn influencers after which use Smartlead.ai to ship out a marketing campaign asking them to check out my lead magnet and supply some suggestions. 

In the event that they prefer it, ask them to share it on social media.

After you construct your e-mail listing, you might want to ship subscribers content material to maintain them engaged. 

Many entrepreneurs use AI instruments to write emails for them, however much like weblog content material, I really feel that content material that doesn’t stem from your personal ideas, opinions, or knowledge often isn’t very beneficial. 

One choice is to repurpose your lengthy kind content material in your emails. 

That is Eric Siu’s technique:

You should use any AI writing instrument to explain the content material you’re sending to the listing and ask it to summarize it right into a 200 phrase e-mail. 

For instance, let’s say I needed to advertise this weblog submit to our e-mail listing:

Enter the next immediate into the LLM of your alternative. I additionally gave it the instance from Eric Siu’s e-mail in order that it is aware of the format that I like:

Then, I instructed it precisely what I preferred about Eric Siu’s e-mail format after which pasted the complete knowledge research under the immediate:

Right here’s the ensuing e-mail it generated:

This e-mail is fairly good, however I felt it didn’t actually seize the essence of the information research, so I tweaked it extra:

The next outcome was a lot better. For those who really feel that the LLM didn’t actually get the principle level of your analysis, inform it what the “fundamental level” of your submit is and inform it to give attention to that within the e-mail:

An alternative choice is to create a publication round sure business subjects. 

For those who selected this method, you possibly can  use a instrument like Buzzsumo to warn you of the preferred content material associated to a particular matter:

You might then copy and paste the latest trending content material into an AI writing instrument or free LLM and ask it to summarize the submit (much like the technique above).

Nevertheless, there are many newsletters, so to make yours actually distinctive, embrace both:

1. Your distinctive tackle the matter or 
2. Actionable steps associated to the information so that individuals can take motion on the information relatively than passively devour it

For instance, that is an fascinating, fashionable piece of content material on LinkedIn: 

I might use AI to summarize the submit after which incorporate my very own take (why I agree or disagree with this individual) together with particular examples of how different industries might duplicate this advertising and marketing stunt.

There are additionally loads of e-mail advertising and marketing instruments that supply AI options for segmentation, A/B checks, and personalization.

Administrative AI For Freelancers

Listed below are a few of my favourite methods to automate fundamental administrative duties with AI.

Automate Calendar and Assembly Scheduling

One in all my favourite instruments is Reclaim.ai, a gathering scheduler with superior AI options. 

For instance, the Good Scheduler lets you set your availability and preferences for assembly occasions. 

Then, Reclaim considers the opposite members’ availability and preferences and finds one of the best time slot that works for everybody, even throughout completely different time zones. It may additionally schedule recurring consumer conferences that match with everybody’s schedules. 

You can too join it with venture administration instruments like ClickUp, Asana, and ToDoist to set deadlines and prioritize duties.

The Behavior function can also be helpful, because it enables you to set particular habits (like meditating, going to the gymnasium, and many others.), after which AI finds particular occasions all through the week to ensure you get them executed.

Extra Calendar AI Instruments:

Automate Funds

There are many invoicing software program options, however a number of new AI-powered platforms make automating duties, like expense monitoring, simpler.

For instance, Invoicer.ai lets you do every part you’d count on from conventional invoicing software program and has AI powered options like an assistant and expense monitoring.

One other instrument that may provide help to with taxes is FlyFin. This AI platform analyzes your earnings and bills after which finds each tax deduction you’re eligible for, which may prevent 1000’s of {dollars}. 

FlyFin additionally has actual CPAs that may deal with your taxes from begin to end to double test the AI’s work.

Extra Finance AI Instruments:

Automate Undertaking Administration

Many of the venture administration platforms you’re already acquainted with are incorporating AI to make freelancers extra environment friendly. 

ClickUp is considered one of my favourite venture administration instruments, and right here’s an outline of a few of the AI options it affords:

• AI Writing Assistant: You should use this function to jot down emails, social media posts, weblog drafts, and venture briefs with choices to regulate tone, size, and enhance grammar. It may additionally generate tables and templates.
• Summarization: In case you have an extended assembly or want to research a doc or net web page, the summarization makes it straightforward to rapidly get the details from prolonged content material.
• AI Undertaking Administration: As ClickUp is primarily a venture administration instrument, it’s no shock that it lets you generate venture summaries and standing updates with out guide reporting. That is notably helpful in the event you’re collaborating with different freelancers or consumer workforce members.
• Good Chat: You’ll be able to ask AI questions on your duties, tasks, and paperwork to get fast solutions and insights with out having to go looking extensively. It may additionally assist create duties from chat conversations.
• Good Docs & Data Administration: ClickUp AI can reply questions primarily based in your workspace Docs and wikis, appearing as a centralized information base assistant. It may additionally assist draft paperwork and SOPs.
• AI Automation Builder: You’ll be able to simply sort out what duties you wish to automate and it’ll create a customized workflow. 
• Translation and Localization: For those who’re working with a world workforce, ClickUp will robotically translate textual content. 
• E-mail with AI: I like that this function enables you to draft and reply to emails instantly inside ClickUp.
• Linked Search: You’ll be able to join exterior apps (like Google Sheets) and this function lets you ask questions relating to these sources. 

Extra Undertaking Administration AI Instruments:

Get Extra Assist Rising Your Effectivity As a Freelancer With AI 

Many conventional software program instruments for freelancers incorporate AI options, and whereas some duties will be totally automated, I nonetheless discovered that producing actually high-quality work often requires some human contact.

Nevertheless, AI is continuous to turn out to be increasingly more efficient, and freelancers who discover ways to use it to streamline operations can have an edge over their rivals.

If you’d like extra assist studying find out how to successfully leverage AI, contemplate becoming a member of Copyblogger Academy, a group of freelancers and entrepreneurs. Along with the group, you’ll even have entry to a number of advertising and marketing programs, from private branding and copywriting to search engine optimization and e-mail advertising and marketing.

Copyblogger Academy is operated on my own and 7 determine entrepreneur and private branding coach, Charles Miller.Inside, you possibly can ask for suggestions in your work, attend accountability classes, and collaborate with different group members to share what’s working in AI.

Get immediate entry to Copyblogger Academy immediately and begin rising your earnings as a freelancer.