The Mailshot That Launched My Freelance Career
Long before websites, LinkedIn profiles, SEO and social media, finding freelance work was a very different challenge.
After spending seven years at a highly respected creative agency, I decided it was time to go it alone. Looking back, I had absolutely no idea what I was letting myself in for.
The first challenge wasn’t finding clients—it was building an office.
I had to buy an Apple Macintosh, a drawing board, a desk, marker pens and all the equipment I’d previously taken for granted. My “studio” was a spare bedroom, but to me it felt like the start of something exciting.
Now all I needed were clients.
Marketing Before the Internet
This was well before the World Wide Web, so there were really only a handful of ways to promote yourself:
•Word of mouth
•Advertising
•Direct mail
Television advertising wasn’t exactly an option—I had around £1,000 in the bank, not £1 million.
So I listed my business in the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local (if you’re under 30, you’ll probably need to Google those!).
I also scraped together enough money to place a small classified advert in Creative Review, the industry’s leading publication at the time. Looking back, it was hardly award-winning. A piece of clip art, a few bullet points and a hopeful phone number.
The response?
Absolutely nothing.
Today we have SEO, PPC and social media targeting. Back then, you crossed your fingers and hoped the phone would ring.
It didn’t.
Enter… FREE-LANCE
So I decided to try something different.
Instead of talking about myself, I created a direct mail campaign called FREE-LANCE.
The idea was simple.
The mailer featured a chimpanzee called Lance, inspired by the famous PG Tips TV adverts that many people of my generation will remember. The message asked recipients to commission me for their next design project and, by doing so, help “Free Lance” from a lifetime of starring in tea commercials.
It was a simple play on words, a memorable visual and a light-hearted emotional hook.
Nothing complicated.
– Just an idea.
– 1,000 Mailers. 100 Enquiries.
– I invested what felt like a small fortune at the time in printing 1,000 DL mailers and buying 1,000 first-class stamps.
– Every one of them was sent to businesses across the Manchester area.
The results exceeded every expectation.
From those 1,000 mailers, I received well over 100 enquiries—an incredible response rate for a cold direct mail campaign.
Better still, many of those enquiries became clients.
Incredibly, one of the very first people who responded is still in touch today, and over the years we’ve worked together on some fantastic projects.
That’s the kind of return on investment no online dashboard can truly measure.
What It Taught Me
Looking back, the campaign wasn’t successful because it had a huge budget or sophisticated production values.
It worked because it connected with people.
– A memorable concept.
– A little humour.
– An emotional image.
– A clear message.
It reminded me that people don’t respond to marketing simply because it’s well designed—they respond because it makes them feel something.
That’s a lesson I’ve carried with me throughout my career.
Whether it’s a direct mail campaign, a website, a brand identity or a social media advert, the principle remains the same:
– Strong ideas will always outperform expensive execution.
– Technology has changed dramatically since those days, but creativity hasn’t.
Sometimes the simplest idea really is the most powerful.
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