Three Tips For Getting Copywriting Work

I often get many ques­tions. Of those, the most com­mon is when aspir­ing copy­writ­ers ask me how to get started in the copy­writ­ing business.

It’s not about how to write copy specif­i­cally but about the mar­ket­ing aspect of the free­lance copy­writ­ing business.

There are three things I rec­om­mend if you are just start­ing in the copy­writ­ing field. In fact, I did these three myself when I first started out, which spring­boarded my career.

1. Pick a Niche

Niche mar­ket­ing is extremely pow­er­ful. Peo­ple often have the erro­neous assump­tion that by nar­row­ing their focus to a spe­cific mar­ket, indus­try, or spe­cialty, they are less­en­ing the chances for more busi­ness. It’s para­dox­i­cal, I know.

But noth­ing can be any more wrong.

Niche mar­ket­ing cre­ates instant cred­i­bil­ity because you spe­cial­ize in a spe­cific field, indus­try, client type, etc. You’re a spe­cial­ist, and there­fore you’re per­ceived instantly as an expert. Not by expe­ri­ence or edu­ca­tion, but by exper­tise. By specialization.

Take a mechanic. Rarely would you call a gen­eral mechanic an “expert,” unless she has invested a con­sid­er­able amount of resources in brand­ing her­self that way, or in edu­cat­ing her­self deeply in the world of mechan­ics, backed by many years of experience.

On the other hand, it would be easy to dub a mechanic — even a new one just start­ing out — that spe­cial­izes in imported car brakes as an “expert mechanic.”

A side ben­e­fit is, clients with unique needs will pre­fer to go to a copy­writer with a spe­cific under­stand­ing of their needs or indus­try, rather than going to a gen­er­al­ist or a one-​​size-​​fits-​​all copy­writer who may not nec­es­sar­ily appre­ci­ate their unique situation.

Plus, non-​​targeted clients will refer clients to you when they come across some­one who falls into your tar­get mar­ket. Why? Because you come to mind instantly!

The more clients you tar­get, the more generic you are and the broader your copy must be in order to tar­get every­one. The broader your mes­sage is, the more peo­ple will think you don’t under­stand them, their needs, their goals, their unique circumstances.

But since you don’t have to cater to every­one, your mes­sage will be more spe­cific, tar­geted, and mean­ing­ful to your tar­get mar­ket. As a result, your con­ver­sion rate will increase tremen­dously, because you have devel­oped a cer­tain affin­ity with your market.

Do you want 10% or more of 100 tar­geted prospects? Or less than 1% of 1,000?

A copy­writer spe­cial­iz­ing in in alter­na­tive health will get more busi­ness than a gen­eral copy­writer will. A copy­writer spe­cial­iz­ing in online soft­ware will get more clients than a stan­dard web copy­writer will. (These are not just exam­ples. They actu­ally exist.)

For exam­ple, there’s a copy­writer I know who spe­cial­izes in mar­tial arts schools. He not only gets a ton of busi­ness, but also he calls him­self “The Black Belt Copywriter.”

Yanik Sil­ver spe­cial­ized in cos­metic den­tistry early in his career. When I first started, I focused on cos­metic sur­geons. I called myself the “Suc­cess Doc­tor,” because I helped doc­tors become suc­cess­ful. (Today, The Suc­cess Doc­tor, Inc. is a busy agency.)

Like­wise, by tar­get­ing a spe­cific niche, over time your reach will expand as did mine.

2. Create a Portfolio

A port­fo­lio is one of the most effec­tive mar­ket­ing tools in your arse­nal. It will help com­mu­ni­cate who you are, how you work, what you do, and what kind of expe­ri­ence you have — all in one fell swoop. So start devel­op­ing a port­fo­lio as soon as you can.

Your port­fo­lio is your key to get­ting real busy and com­mand­ing higher fees.

If you’re new, then start with the three “F’s.” Start by writ­ing either copy:

• For free,
• For friends, or
• For fic­ti­tious companies.

In the case of the lat­ter, always say it is fake when asked, of course, but use it to demon­strate your writ­ing abil­ity. “Mock” copy is aways far bet­ter than no copy to show off.

Do jobs at a dis­count in exchange for inclu­sion in your port­fo­lio. Offer to work for free or at a reduced rate in exchange for a tes­ti­mo­nial or addi­tion to your port­fo­lio. Prefer­ably the lat­ter (i.e., dis­counts). If you’re tar­get­ing a niche, the lat­ter is possible.

More impor­tant, write your let­ter for hir­ing… YOU!

Give them some­thing to chew on. Write a direct mail piece sell­ing your­self. If you have a web­site, write a saleslet­ter. Your web copy itself is a sam­ple of your work and a reflec­tion of your abil­ity. But also, start adding sam­ples and par­tic­u­larly tes­ti­mo­ni­als to it.

Granted, a port­fo­lio is impor­tant but not as impor­tant as a track record. So a great way is to mar­ket your­self to your niche and track every­thing, even your own test results.

Results speak for them­selves. There­fore, track and use every sta­tis­tic, every bit and piece of data you can col­lect, to your advan­tage. Because it’s all impor­tant. Even when the results are from your own mar­ket­ing efforts for your copy­writ­ing ser­vices.

For exam­ple, let’s say you’re a copy­writer spe­cial­iz­ing in chiropractors.

You can say, “I offered an infor­ma­tion pack­age to chi­ro­prac­tors in [state] for my copy­writ­ing ser­vices. Out of 456 doc­tors, my direct mail piece (see sam­ple attached) received a 34% response rate. In other words, 155 chi­ro­prac­tors called for the infor­ma­tion kit.”

3. Develop Strategic Alliances

Joint-​​venture with another busi­ness tar­get­ing a same mar­ket. Think of a ser­vice provider, retailer, or any busi­ness that tar­gets your mar­ket but with­out directly com­pet­ing with you. If you focus on a niche as expressed ear­lier, this will come eas­ier to you.

If you visit, say, a wed­ding plan­ner who also cre­ates invi­ta­tions, offer to write copy for the invi­ta­tions or thank-​​you cards at a dis­count in exchange for all her clients’ copy needs.

If you part­ner up with a local printer, become their copy­writer of choice when their clients need one, and in exchange you will refer your clients to them for their print­ing needs.

You can eas­ily do the same thing with a mail­ing house, a type­set­ter, a web designer, a graphic artist, a com­mer­cial pro­ducer, a pho­tog­ra­pher, a spe­cialty adver­tis­ing firm, etc.

Bot­tom line, you can cre­ate almost fully auto­mated refer­ral sys­tems between you and a non-​​competing part­ner in some way or another. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are endless.

For exam­ple, cre­ate ser­vice pack­ages. If you’re a web copy­writer, bun­dle your ser­vices with a web designer. For the client, it’s one price, one ser­vice, one place. But for you, the design is done by your part­ner, and you write the copy. You then split the profits.

When I first started out, I cre­ated part­ner­ships with con­fer­ence room rental com­pa­nies in exchange for offer­ing free sem­i­nars at their loca­tions — where I offered free sem­i­nars in which I pro­moted myself as a copy­writer and mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant to small businesses.

While at the same time dri­ving traf­fic to their con­fer­ence rooms, thus giv­ing users a taste of what my part­ner had to offer in terms of con­fer­ence room rentals, this arrange­ment cre­ated more busi­ness for me. It was a win-​​win oppor­tu­nity for both of us.

Extra Resources

• How To Carve A Niche By Dom­i­nat­ing One (Michel Fortin)
• Sell­ing Your­self As a $100,000 Copy­writer (Bob Bly)
• Well-​​Fed Writer (Peter Bowerman)
• Well-​​Fed Writer: Back For Sec­onds (Peter Bowerman)

About the Author

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