OOO messages for freelancers + and a brilliant marketing campaign

I’m back from a quick weekend camping (well, yurting) trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains with my family. I took off most of Friday and got back Sunday evening, which was the perfect amount of time to soak in the outdoors, read by the lake, and gaze at the stars.

📤 Upping my OOO response game

I normally don’t use an out-of-office message when I’m out of town. For one thing, I feel like as a freelancer, I’m not obligated to respond to emails in a specific timeframe. Plus, I often check emails when I’m away - but probably because I actually feel the need to respond to clients and leads even if I’m not “obligated.”

So I decided to make an OOO response for Friday because I had seen a neat idea going around the inter webs. In addition to stating that I was out and when I would respond, I also included three recent published works. Here's what it looked like:

I’m glad I turned the OOO message on because I had a dormant client reach out about a project for next month. And I do think it’s smart to respond quickly on availability requests, so that the client doesn’t move onto another writer. in this case, the client knew to expect a response on Monday, which I sent first thing in the morning.

🐉 Riding the Back of the Dragon

While I was in the Blue Ridge Mountains, my brother and his girlfriend discovered a nearby scenic overlook, which was part of an incredible marketing campaign in southwest Virginia:

The Back of the Dragon.

It’s a 32-mile scenic mountain route filled with curves and marketed as an incredible driving experience, particularly for motorcyclists. After digging into it a bit more, I found there’s another route called The Claw of the Dragon.

I think it’s a brilliant marketing idea to bring in visitors to the area. I can imagine that the end of the route has t-shirts and camaraderie for not just having an adventure but even for conquering a beast.

Sometimes a little wordsmithing makes a huge difference in experience, don’t you think? I found it inspiring as a writer, and hope you do, too.

I’ll leave you on that note and as always, I’m wishing you client requests in your inbox and invoice payments deposited into your bank account. 😊

Happy freelancing,

Lauren