Happy birthday to us! Freelancentral turns 4 in February and since we launched, we've now got over 4,400 freelancers listed with us and are the go-to site for many clients and agencies. So we're marking our birthday with two big things: First is our 4th birthday sale, where we're offering our biggest discounts ever on portfolios. Secondly, we are launching our new division, Peppermint Source, which offers comprehensive outsourced marketing management to clients. More about both of these is below. Thank you to all our freelancers, clients and friends for your support over the last four years - we're looking forward to the next four!
issue 41 ::
January 2010
YOUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION
We have recently upgraded our newsletter system. If gremlins have crept in and you're getting this newsletter when you asked not to, please accept our apologies and simply click on the UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom.
FEATURED SITE:
Clients from Hell
We've all had them - those clients who expect the impossible... Read what other creatives (particularly designers) have to deal with, or add your own horror story. very entertaining!
Got a resource you'd like to recommend to the Freelancentral community? Send your favourite blog or website links, book titles or software recommendations to info@freelancentral.co.za.
GET THE LATEST SENT TO YOU
Want the latest news, new member listings and placement ads sent to you as they are uploaded to Freelancentral? Simply sign up for our RSS feed - click on the link on our home page. If you don't already use a feed reader, we recommend Google Reader as an easy way of aggregating the latest posts from all the sites you read regularly.
SITE STATS FOR
JANUARY 2010
Freelancers registered: 4,435
From Google Analytics:
- 1,909 visits
- 11,013 page views
- 5.77 pages per visit
- 38.45 % bounce rate
- 6:05 mins average time on site
- 54.27 % new visitors
PORTFOLIO CRITIQUE SERVICE
Are you selling yourself effectively in your Lite or Full portfolio? Wouldn't it be great to have someone give you an honest critique of your portfolio, and tips on how to improve it? For just R350 we will review your portfolio and send you a personalised report on how you can make it more appealing to clients. Just call the Freelancentral team on 021 780 1364 or email us.
GET 25% OFF YOUR NEXT FULL PORTFOLIO
Don't forget that if you send us your Freelancentral success stories and we publish them in our newsletter or on the site, you'll get 25% off your next month's Full portfolio. Submit your stories by sending us a mail.
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OUR BIG 4th BIRTHDAY PORTFOLIO SALE!
To celebrate our birthday, we're giving our freelancers a gift - a massive 40% discount on three-month portfolios!
We've created a one-off special 3-month Lite portfolio which will cost you just R135. And depending on your Full portfolio price (it's linked to your hourly rate) you can save hundreds on a 3-month Full portfolio.
This offer is valid when you buy Full or Lite portfolios for three months in advance only and runs until the end of February 2010. You can pay for these via our online credit card payment facility or contact us if you'd like our bank details for an EFT purchase.
Peppermint Source: minty fresh marketing assistance
We're expanding! Our new division, Peppermint Source, now offers clients full outsourced marketing services. So if you're a client who knows you need to do some marketing, but don't know where to start or how to manage it, take a look at www.peppermintsource.com - 'a fresh take on outsourced marketing'
From strategy, planning and budgeting to sourcing and managing creatives and rolling out marketing plans, we can help clients to up their marketing game. The best part is that we can tap into our huge pool of Freelancentral's creative talent to find just the right creatives for the job.
Read more about Peppermint Source here.
Want to be our new columnist?
After 3 years of sharing his real-life freelancing experiences with us, Gareth Pike is taking a break from his Freelancentral column - and we're looking for someone to replace him. If you're interested, please send a sample column (max 300 words) to info@freelancentral.co.za with 'Columnist' in the subject line, and telling us a little about you. We may also feature guest columns from a range of different freelancers instead of a regular column from one, so if you're just interested in writing a one-off, that's OK too.
Remember, what you write needs to appeal to freelancers and/or clients, and we're looking for something light and humorous, but useful. While we don't pay for columns, we do give you a free Full portfolio for 1 month for every column of yours we publish. So send over your thoughts today!
Updates to the Freelancentral website
Have you checked out our improved FAQs yet? We've collated all the questions we've ever had in the last 4 years into one place, so you're pretty much guaranteed of finding the info you need. If you can't, mail us on info@freelancentral.co.za and we'll be happy to help.
We've also just launched a newsletter archive, so that if you missed a newsletter, or want to refer back to one of our awesome issues, you can simply click here to access the back copies.
CHRISTINE ONLINE: 2010: The year "online" takes off in SA?
2010 promises to be an exciting year! The soccer World Cup in June/July is not only going to be a fantastic event, but it's doing wonders for the country's infrastructure, with new roads and transport systems being constructed, cities and stadia being upgraded, ICASA and Telkom upping their communications game. And, finally, the advent of proper high-definition digital TV.
For those of us who spend a lot of time online, the SEACOM broadband cable is probably most exciting. This fibre-optic undersea cable promises to deliver faster and cheaper internet to South Africa at last and will no doubt make a remarkable difference to the online landscape here.
But how will this impact on how companies market to people? Click here to find out.
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Read how Freelancentral is helping South African freelancers
on our Testimonials page.
If Freelancentral has connected you successfully,
whether you're a client or freelancer, we'd love to hear from you.
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