There’s plenty of talk about the potential of AI, but how do you use it as a freelancer?
There are two main use cases for AI for freelancers:
- Automate administrative tasks
- Grow your business (marketing)
I tested many common AI use cases for freelancers and found that while the administrative tasks were fairly straightforward, the AI marketing use cases were a little trickier.
Many marketing AI tools improve efficiency at the expense of quality, so I’ll share the use cases I found most effective at improving efficiency while maintaining (or increasing) quality.
I’ll also share some administrative AI tools freelancers can use to operate more efficiently.
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Marketing AI For Freelancers
#1. Automate Client Outreach
Cold email is still an effective way to get new clients, but it needs to be personalized, deliver value, and target prospects who perfectly match your ideal client.
While plenty of AI tools allow you to blast generic email tools, the most effective client outreach strategy I tested is using Apollo.io for lead research and combining it with Smartlead.ai to send the emails.
To start, open up Apollo.io and create a Persona based on the job title, industry and keywords, location, and employee count.
Then, it will give you a list of people who match that criteria.
Now that you have a list of right-fit prospects, you can create and send an email. Apollo offers an AI tool that writes an email template for you based on your prospect’s pain points and your solution.
However, be careful when sending mass emails, as you can get your account flagged and banned. To be safe, start by sending no more than 20 weekly emails.
I actually prefer to download the list of leads generated by Apollo and then upload it to Smartlead.ai, as Smartlead allows you to buy a completely new domain to avoid risking your primary domain and automates the email warmup process.
While uploading the prospect list to Smartlead isn’t as seamless as sending emails directly in Apollo’s platform, it is much safer and still allows you to scale your outreach efficiently.
Smartlead is known for its excellent email deliverability, so even though you can use other email platforms, it’s one of the top rated solutions.
Another option is to use a platform like Manus.ai to automate your prospecting and outreach process.
Manus recently showed a case study of how a local marketer uploaded a detailed document outlining his ideal customer. Then, Manus used it to generate a list of prospects and automatically uploaded the list to an email automation tool:
After confirming the campaign overview, it generated personalized landing pages for each prospect:
Manus also wrote and sent all of the outreach messages.
You can see a complete breakdown of the process in this video here:
The drawback with Manus is that it is still in beta and hasn’t been released publicly.
You can also check out tools like Lindy.ai, though I found that their lead prospecting requests weren’t always accurate (e.g., if you ask for B2B SaaS companies, some of the companies added to the list were B2C or ecommerce). AI agents like Lindy can be highly effective, but it takes time to learn how to use them.
I ultimately found that using Apollo.io and Smartlead together produced the best results, even if it took a little more time.
#2. Create a Website
You don’t need a website to be a successful freelancer, but it certainly makes you look more professional.
If you want a simple one-page website (like a landing page), you can use a tool like Canva.
They have plenty of landing page templates you can choose from to customize:
While the templates are all pre-made and customizable through drag-and-drop features, you can generate your own videos, graphics, and images with Canva’s AI generator, Magic Media.
For example, I generated several Google Analytics graphics that I could add to my landing page:
Then, you can connect it to your own domain name and publish:
Canva also offers full website builders, but the features and flexibility are limited.
Alternatively, you can use an AI website builder with more flexibility, like Wix.
Wix’s AI website builder starts with a chat interface that asks about your business and customers. Then, it generates a website based on your responses.
Here’s an example of the initial draft it generated for a marketing agency website:
After generating the initial draft, you can ask it to tweak the theme, site structure, site description, or layout.
For example, I didn’t like the initial layout, so I asked it to generate a new one:
Note that this website requires much more editing than a simple landing page, and I would rewrite a lot of the copy myself if I were to use this as a real website.
Alternatively, you could select a template you already like, and then use Wix’s AI writer to generate the copy for you.
If you want a highly professional website, you can also look into Relume. Relume connects with Figma and is ideal for professional designers who are comfortable making websites but want to automate more of the design process.
Here’s an example of a Relume website:
#3. Create and Optimize Blog Content
Even if you don’t have a website, you can still create blog content and post on other industry blogs to build credibility as a freelancer.
For example, if you’re in the SEO industry, you could pitch a blog to Ahrefs, Search Engine Journal, the Content Marketing Institute, or other industry leaders.
Even if industry publications don’t accept your blog post, you could post it on Medium or LinkedIn.
There are several ways AI can help with this process.
Content Ideation
Most people use AI to discover keywords.
Here’s an example of how Eric Siu used Manus AI to analyze a competitor’s high purchase intent keyword frameworks.
You can then use these keyword frameworks and apply them to your business.
In addition to doing keyword research, you can also use AI to help you craft thought leadership content.
For example, creating data studies is one of the best ways to earn attention, shares, and backlinks.
The key is creating a data study that answers a controversial or trending topic that gives marketers actionable insights to improve their strategy.
So I took this data study from Kevin Indig, pasted it into ChatGPT, and then gave it the following prompt:
Then, it gave me a handful of pretty excellent suggestions, like the idea of testing the prevalence of exact phrase matches in Google:
You can then ask the LLM how to take action and actually capture the data.
If you don’t have access to proprietary data, you could hire a VA on Upwork to manually collect data or partner with a SaaS company that has data.
For example, Brian Dean partnered with ClickFlow to analyze four million search results (they later refreshed the study and used the data from Semrush).
So, rather than just using AI to generate content for you, use it to create a more interesting angle on a trending topic or generate data.
Semantic Keywords
There are also plenty of AI SEO tools that make it easy to optimize your blog content by including semantic (related) keywords.
For example, tools like Surfer SEO give you a list of other semantic keywords to include in your blog post as you’re writing:
Surfer SEO also gives you a general content optimization score and even allows you to “Auto Optimize” the content. Auto optimization tools can be helpful, but double-check the AI’s work as it isn’t always accurate and may decrease the quality of the content itself.
Internal Link Suggestions
You can also get automated internal link suggestions using a tool like Surfer SEO:
Tools like Link Whisper are designed to automate internal linking, though I’ve found that tools that try to automate the entire internal linking process usually aren’t entirely accurate. In my experience, it’s still best to add internal links manually.
Additionally, I don’t recommend using AI to generate the content itself, as Google announced that AI generated content that shows little to no originality is considered “lowest quality.”
And, while informative content can rank and get people to your website, those readers won’t remember you or buy your products/services if there is nothing memorable about your content.
#4. Write Social Media Posts
Building a personal brand on LinkedIn is an ideal strategy for freelancers to attract clients.
There are plenty of AI writing tools to generate posts for you, but be sure to inject your own personal experience and data into the post to make it unique.
For example, I used MagicPost to write a LinkedIn post for me:
This would still require quite a bit of editing to make it publishable, so there are two other options.
First, I could also choose the “import post template” option.
For example, if you see someone else write a productivity post, you could import that template and then amend the content itself to fit your productivity tips:
In fact, you could make a list of some of the LinkedIn TopVoice experts and then make templates using their top performing posts.
For example, I used Favikon, a B2B influencer marketing tool, to search for LinkedIn Top Voices.
Then, you can make a list of these LinkedIn Top Voice accounts in a tool like Feedspot and then use their top performing posts as templates in MagicPost.
The hook is also critical, so I used MagicPost’s Hooks generator to create hooks for my posts:
MagicPost can also repurpose blog content for you.
For example, I had it create a LinkedIn post summarizing the blog post Kevin Indig wrote on SEJ regarding Google’s AI overviews.
The results were pretty good:
In fact, this is probably my favorite approach because it takes a piece of original data and then organizes it into a LinkedIn-friendly structure.
Remember that what makes a great social media post isn’t the content structure – it’s the experience, opinions, and ideas – the substance of the content.
So even if you’re using a tool like MagicPost, include your own personal experience and ideas within the prompt.
#5. Generate Videos For Personal Branding
Tools like HeyGen allow you to create AI avatars of yourself, and Reply.io’s CEO, Oleg Bilozor, proved that this approach works.
He created an avatar of himself in HeyGen and also dubbed his voice (I don’t know which tool he used to dub his voice, but you can use something like ElevenLabs).
Below is a real video he posted on his TikTok account that currently has over 2,000 likes:
The hand motions don’t quite align with the expressions, and when I played with the tool myself, I noticed the sentence phrasing wasn’t always perfect (though you can edit it).
For example, you can still tell that this isn’t quite a human:
However, this is an exciting alternative if you don’t have time to be on camera.
You can log into the platform and then upload multiple pictures of yourself:
Then, you can write your video scripts, and your AI avatar will perform them for you.
CapCut also offers similar options. Given that the AI avatars aren’t perfect, I like that CapCut offers other AI editing options that allow you to use real video footage, but speeds up the editing process with AI tools.
You can also take written text and ask it to summarize it into a short. For example, I took a long form blog post, and it created the following video:
I find that the tool was most accurate if you used a shorter text (like a LinkedIn post or Tweet) rather than long form text.
You can also upload long form videos and ask it to transform them into shorts for you:
Plenty of other tools, like Opus Clip, can also repurpose long form videos into shorts for you.
#6. Improve Email Marketing Efficiency
Building an email list is critical for freelancers because you own the audience. On the other hand, social media and even blog content is essentially a borrowed audience.
Even if people follow you on social media, you can’t be sure that the social media algorithms will show your content to all your followers, and you could be banned at any moment.
Even if you’re just getting started, build an email list.
AI can help you grow your email list in a few different ways.
First, you can use AI to create lead magnets.
For example, here at Copyblogger, our paid offer is Copyblogger Academy, a community that also contains a variety of courses on marketing related topics, including personal branding.
Therefore, I used Replit to code a LinkedIn post template that allows you to paste in a top performing post from another person’s account (ideally from a different niche), which will strip it down to a template.
Here’s the prompt I gave it, along with the post I inserted.
Then, users can select a post style (industry insights, expert roundup, etc.) and the tool generates a template:
Below the template, you can even insert your own industry keywords or titles.
Then, I could deploy this template and use it as a lead magnet that people can give me to build our email list. As people using this are obviously actively building their personal brands, this would attract and capture perfect prospects for Copyblogger Academy.
You could also use Replit to build calculators and even dynamic checklists.
To promote the lead magnet and get it in front of new potential customers, I could even use Favicon to generate a list of LinkedIn influencers and then use Smartlead.ai to send out a campaign asking them to try out my lead magnet and provide some feedback.
If they like it, ask them to share it on social media.
After you build your email list, you need to send subscribers content to keep them engaged.
Many marketers use AI tools to write emails for them, but similar to blog content, I feel that content that doesn’t stem from your own thoughts, opinions, or data usually isn’t very valuable.
One option is to repurpose your long form content in your emails.
This is Eric Siu’s strategy:
You can use any AI writing tool to describe the content you’re sending to the list and ask it to summarize it into a 200 word email.
For example, let’s say I wanted to promote this blog post to our email list:
Enter the following prompt into the LLM of your choice. I also gave it the example from Eric Siu’s email so that it knows the format that I like:
Then, I told it exactly what I liked about Eric Siu’s email format and then pasted the full data study below the prompt:
Here’s the resulting email it generated:
This email is pretty good, but I felt it didn’t really capture the essence of the data study, so I tweaked it more:
The following result was much better. If you feel that the LLM didn’t really get the main point of your research, tell it what the “main point” of your post is and tell it to focus on that in the email:
Another option is to create a newsletter around certain industry topics.
If you chose this approach, you can use a tool like Buzzsumo to alert you of the most popular content related to a specific topic:
You could then copy and paste the most recent trending content into an AI writing tool or free LLM and ask it to summarize the post (similar to the strategy above).
However, there are plenty of newsletters, so to make yours truly unique, include either:
- Your unique take on the matter or
- Actionable steps related to the news so that people can take action on the news rather than passively consume it
For example, this is an interesting, popular piece of content on LinkedIn:
I could use AI to summarize the post and then incorporate my own take (why I agree or disagree with this person) along with specific examples of how other industries could duplicate this marketing stunt.
There are also plenty of email marketing tools that offer AI features for segmentation, A/B tests, and personalization.
Administrative AI For Freelancers
Here are some of my favorite ways to automate basic administrative tasks with AI.
Automate Calendar and Meeting Scheduling
One of my favorite tools is Reclaim.ai, a meeting scheduler with advanced AI features.
For example, the Smart Scheduler allows you to set your availability and preferences for meeting times.
Then, Reclaim considers the other members’ availability and preferences and finds the best time slot that works for everyone, even across different time zones. It can also schedule recurring client meetings that fit with everyone’s schedules.
You can also connect it with project management tools like ClickUp, Asana, and ToDoist to set deadlines and prioritize tasks.
The Habit feature is also useful, as it lets you set specific habits (like meditating, going to the gym, etc.), and then AI finds specific times throughout the week to make sure you get them done.
Additional Calendar AI Tools:
Automate Finances
There are plenty of invoicing software solutions, but several new AI-powered platforms make automating tasks, like expense tracking, easier.
For example, Invoicer.ai allows you to do everything you’d expect from traditional invoicing software and has AI powered features like an assistant and expense tracking.
Another tool that can help you with taxes is FlyFin. This AI platform analyzes your income and expenses and then finds every tax deduction you’re eligible for, which can save you thousands of dollars.
FlyFin also has real CPAs that can handle your taxes from start to finish to double check the AI’s work.
Additional Finance AI Tools:
Automate Project Management
Most of the project management platforms you’re already familiar with are incorporating AI to make freelancers more efficient.
ClickUp is one of my favorite project management tools, and here’s an overview of some of the AI features it offers:
- AI Writing Assistant: You can use this feature to write emails, social media posts, blog drafts, and project briefs with options to adjust tone, length, and improve grammar. It can also generate tables and templates.
- Summarization: If you have a long meeting or need to analyze a document or web page, the summarization makes it easy to quickly get the main points from lengthy content.
- AI Project Management: As ClickUp is primarily a project management tool, it’s no surprise that it allows you to generate project summaries and status updates without manual reporting. This is particularly useful if you’re collaborating with other freelancers or client team members.
- Smart Chat: You can ask AI questions about your tasks, projects, and documents to get quick answers and insights without having to search extensively. It can also help create tasks from chat conversations.
- Smart Docs & Knowledge Management: ClickUp AI can answer questions based on your workspace Docs and wikis, acting as a centralized knowledge base assistant. It can also help draft documents and SOPs.
- AI Automation Builder: You can just type out what tasks you want to automate and it will create a custom workflow.
- Translation and Localization: If you’re working with an international team, ClickUp will automatically translate text.
- Email with AI: I love that this feature lets you draft and reply to emails directly inside ClickUp.
- Connected Search: You can connect external apps (like Google Sheets) and this feature allows you to ask questions regarding those sources.
Additional Project Management AI Tools:
Get More Help Increasing Your Efficiency As a Freelancer With AI
Many traditional software tools for freelancers incorporate AI features, and while some tasks can be fully automated, I still found that producing truly high-quality work usually requires some human touch.
However, AI is continuing to become more and more effective, and freelancers who learn how to use it to streamline operations will have an edge over their competitors.
If you want more help learning how to effectively leverage AI, consider joining Copyblogger Academy, a community of freelancers and entrepreneurs. In addition to the community, you’ll also have access to multiple marketing courses, from personal branding and copywriting to SEO and email marketing.
Copyblogger Academy is operated by myself and seven figure entrepreneur and personal branding coach, Charles Miller.Inside, you can ask for feedback on your work, attend accountability sessions, and collaborate with other community members to share what’s working in AI.
Get instant access to Copyblogger Academy today and start growing your income as a freelancer.
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