7 Great Tools to Manage Clients for Freelance Content Creators

By Ray O’Donnell

The content marketing industry in itself is an immensely competitive field. And for freelance content creators, the climb is even harder. As a freelancer, you're a one-person team. You have to manage everything single-handedly, from building a brand to generating new business to creating content that meets their expectations to managing your client relationships, so they keep coming back.

Also, you need to write high-quality content for the high competitive topics such as how to start a blog, and how to make money online to get ranked in the SERPs.

Unless you're really great at multi-tasking, it isn't surprising if your clients often leave frustrated and never come back. Client satisfaction is paramount for any freelancer and you cannot afford to disappoint them if you wish to build a loyal, returning client base. For this, you need to write high-quality content that helps your client's content marketing strategy in getting high content ROI.

On top of it, the Covid-19 pandemic has been both a blessing and a curse for freelance content creators. While freelance job postings have increased since the second quarter of 2020, 67% of freelance writers also say that their workload has increased during this time. This makes it even harder to devote enough time and ensure customer satisfaction.

Freelance writers can build their strong writing portfolios by using the right digital writing tools.

Creating a best responsive website builder for their own work is a good option.

Thankfully, there are content creation tools that can manage most of your client-facing tasks even if you are a solopreneur. You need to avoid multiple tools to manage your client's content. You can choose the best fit available tool that provides the solutions of unique passwords to secure your multiple passwords for different clients in a single place.

In this way, freelance content writers can manage their content-related tasks such as keyword research, researching topics, and content writing and deliver the content as per their client's requirements. The right content at right time and in the right format helps content marketers to develop a strong content marketing strategy to get maximum ROI from their content.

They can use different AI-powered writing assistant software to write an essay for their client.. These software helps them to correct grammatical errors, increase the readability of the content and optimizations of the key phrases, and many more. For instance, many providers of will writing software employ cloud-based technology to facilitate easier management of sensitive information for their clients.

Be it managing your clients' content projects or generating contracts and invoices, or providing security through cloud VPN there is a software solution for almost everything you need. The only challenge here is finding the right ones.

To make your job easier, we've curated a list of 7 awesome white-label solutions that will help you with different areas of client management in your freelance content projects.

1. Narrato - Content creation and collaboration tool

As a freelance content creator, your client's primary concern when working with you is how you create content. Be it good copywriting for a business or everyday social media content, quality and consistency are the key requirements. 

Clients would want to share their own content briefs, keep track of their project statuses, review the content you create, suggest modifications, and more. But unless you have a single platform to manage your content creation process, this would mean a lot of back and forth over email, Google Docs, messenger apps, and a host of other disconnected tools. At some point, it can get chaotic and frustrating for both of you.

This is where a tool like Narrato fits in perfectly.

Narrato is content creation and collaboration software built especially for content process owners, including freelancers. The platform has some very useful collaboration features that help you share content with clients easily, gather feedback, and even publish content on their sites/blogs. Your clients can also share their content briefs which can be added to the 'Brief' tab on each content task you create for them.

There is a custom client user role on the platform using which you can give clients access to their projects on the platform and control what they can or cannot view. You can also give clients access to your content calendar so that they can track their content projects.

Some of the key features of the platform include:

·         A powerful content editor offering content optimization suggestions and plagiarism checks

·         AI writing assistant to help with outlines, conclusions, intros, content improvement, and more

·         On-content comments and messages for sharing inputs and collaborating with stakeholders

·         Content calendars and workflow boards to keep track of projects

·         Publicly shareable links to easily share completed content tasks with clients/stakeholders

·         WordPress publishing integration for directly publishing to the client's blog/website

·         Projects and Folders hierarchy to organize all your various client projects on the platform

·         Custom user roles and access

There are other features that can prove to be quite handy as well, such as SEO content briefs, free image search, AI topic generator, and more.

New features are being added to Narrato very often, making it a must-have in every freelance writer and marketer's tool stack.

If you are looking for some additional freelance writing work, you can also register on Narrato Marketplace which is their content marketplace for skilled and experienced freelance writers.

2. Calendly - Appointment scheduling tool

Working as a solopreneur or freelancer, it can be difficult to keep track of all your client meetings, calls or follow-ups for your cold email outreach. There is so much on your plate, that it is easy to miss an appointment or a call every now and then. But this can have a serious impact on your reputation and your bottom line.

Scheduling a call and not getting on it reflects very badly on your personal brand. Clients would be skeptical about trusting you if you set up an appointment, no matter how busy you are.

This is why you need to maintain a calendar and also set reminders for all your upcoming client interactions.

A calendar tool like Calendly can be very useful for freelance content creators in this regard. Scheduling your client meetings on Calendly is extremely easy. 

All you need to do is share your Calendly link with the client and let them pick a date and time according to availability. You can keep only those dates and times open for scheduling on which you will be available, ensuring that there are no clashes or overlaps.

Calendly will also send you a reminder before the call so you don't forget about it on a busy day. In fact, the platform can also send automated Thank You notes to your clients after a call if you need to.

3. Agorapulse - Social media management tool

If you are creating social media content for your clients, managing content on all their social accounts can be a painstaking task. Especially if you are planning to do it manually. Making sure that you are posting content regularly on all channels, besides creating content, is an added challenge. 

This is where a free social media scheduler or a full-blown social media management tool can help. Agorapulse is a social media management tool that offers you a host of features to help manage your client's social accounts. It supports Intuitive Publishing which allows you to easily plan and schedule content for all social channels, adding the right images to each post and text to customize posts for each channel. 

It also has a Social Listening feature using which you can gain insights into the latest trends on social, mentions of your client's brand and competitors.

Other useful features include Analytics that show you which of your content is working and which isn't. 

The platform also has a unified social inbox for managing all social messages, comments, and mentions in one place, in case you are responsible for completely overseeing client social accounts. The platform offers a free trial too.

4. Canva - Visual content collaboration tool

When it comes to content creation, you need to create not just text-based content but visual content too. Whether you're creating content as a freelancer for a client's blog or their social media accounts, you will need all kinds of visual elements to go with it. From infographics to explainer videos to blog feature images, there is a lot of graphic design involved in content creation.

Though managing the entire process single-handedly, you may not have expert graphic designing skills and there is nothing wrong with it. But clients will always look for a freelancer, often classified as an independent contractor, who can give them the benefits of a writer and designer combined, instead of hiring two.

 It also places you in a better position to price your services higher for the added skills that you bring along. This is where a visual content collaboration tool can help.

Canva is the perfect tool for this. It has thousands of templates for every kind of visual content that you might need, starting from social media posts/videos to presentations to flyers and brochures. 

The user interface on Canva is absolutely seamless, so anyone can design a stunning graphic without any expertise in design. All you need is an eye for aesthetics. You can share your design with your clients as links with viewing or editing access. They can also comment on the design to share feedback.

The free tool itself has hundreds of templates, stock images, and graphics. With the pro version, though, you can have access to many more high-quality assets.

5. Bonsai - Contract management and accounting tool

With no one to manage your finances and client contracts, it can be hard to keep track of things. Right from building your proposal to sending out invoices and managing business expenses, there is a lot you have to do apart from just content creation for clients as a freelancer. 

Since hiring an assistant or an accountant is usually out of question for freelancers just getting started, a good contract management tool, invoicing tool, and accounting tool can come in really handy. 

Bonsai combines all of these capabilities and more into a single platform. Bonsai is a complete freelance product suite that helps with everything from Proposals to Contracts to Expenses and more. 

The platform has several contract templates, invoice templates, quote templates, and others for you to choose from. It also offers Task Tracking, Client CRM, and Accounting and Tax management features.

The platform works great both for budding freelancers and starting freelancing businesses. So it can scale with your growing business and client base.

6. Harvest - Time tracking and invoicing software

If your freelance content creation business works on hourly charges and time-based invoicing, then it is extremely important that you have a proper system in place to account for the hours worked.

 It is critical not just to ensure that you get the right compensation for your time, but also for bringing transparency to the whole process and keeping your clients in the know.

A time management app can accurately measure the number of hours you have spent on a project, so you can create an appropriate invoice based on the pre-agreed rates.

Harvest is a time tracking and invoicing tool that offers simple and intuitive time tracking. It allows you to track time from your browser, mobile, and desktop depending on where you spend your working hours. 

It also integrates with your workflow tools to ensure that you can capture the time spent on these tools too.

Harvest can also automatically convert your tracked time and expenses into invoices. Integrated online payments allow you to easily collect payments from your clients as well.

7. Visme

Visme isn't merely a content creation platform for freelancers and content creators—it's a powerhouse that streamlines operations with a variety of creation, management features, and templates.

Explore a diverse range of professionally designed templates including invoices, contracts, project updates, reports, strategies, and more. Gain access to thousands of high-quality assets and royalty-free visuals and media to add to your content.

Within Visme, you can create a wide range of content including static graphics, dynamic reports, video creation, and 3D animation. Its intuitive tools cater to both non-designers and seasoned creators, providing reliability without the need to switch between software.

Utilize workspace features to manage user permissions for projects, and control viewing, editing, commenting, and assigning tasks. Plus, real-time analytics offer insights into client interactions with your content.

Visme also hosts a suite of AI tools—AI writers, Image Touch Up Tools, Image generator, a Document generator, and a social media scheduler—all helping you to work smart and not hard.

This platform meets the needs of growing content creators and established freelance agencies or companies, offering scalable plans to align with your growth.

Outreachboard

Outreachboard accelerates the guest post submission process, enabling blog owners to publish posts faster and more efficiently. With personalized checklists for guest authors, the platform streamlines article publication. Blog owners can effortlessly manage various requests, including topic ideas, sponsored content, ready articles, and general inquiries. Authors take the lead, customizing content as needed, while Outreachboard handles routine checks like plagiarism, word count, formatting, and more. The blog owner's role? Simply review and publish with ease, without granting WordPress editor access.

Summing up

Freelance content creation can be a tiring job. Though there are several positives to it, including the fact that you are your own boss, the challenges are equally tough. 

Having the right productivity and client management tools in your arsenal ensures that your clients have a seamless experience working with you. 

It also ensures that most of the rules-based and monotonous tasks are taken care of while you can work on the more important areas of your freelance content business.

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