Have you ever wondered, how do people land jobs in copywriting and make money?
If you check around, you’ll find that the median salary for professional copywriters is right around $49,000 a year.
Not bad, considering that it is a way to make money sitting on your butt.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to land a job in copywriting so you can make money regularly.
The best part?
I’m not going to tell you to go to highly competitive freelance sites to do it.
So, let’s get started.
Getting Jobs in Copywriting Isn’t Hard – If You Can Do This First
I’m not going to take you down the same path as other advice posts you find online.
Other posts will tell you to go to Fiverr or Upwork to get clients.
I think that advice sucks.
Those sites are OK if you want to make some fast cash to buy a candy bar or a cheap piece of jewelry for your better half.
But for a long-term career where you can make a living, those sites are a waste of time.
To get copywriting jobs that pay enough to live comfortably, you need a different path.
You only need two things to get started:
- The ability to write sentences clearly in English. (Or the language of your country.)
- The courage to market yourself.
That’s pretty much it.
If you don’t know how to read and write clearly, here are some cheap resources you can learn from:
Udemy Courses on Writing in English
Jump into these courses and put some serious time in daily.
Once you learn to write sentences, it will be time to move on to the most vital part…
How to Land Your First Copywriting Clients
(If you need to make money immediately, here is a different path you can take: Make money fast in copywriting – otherwise, keep reading the rest of this post.)
The way to make solid money writing for clients takes time. It is not an overnight process.
Yes, you could get lucky and nail a client or two in a week. But to get the kinds of clients you’ll need to make good money will take some time.
Most copywriter newbies fail miserably because they do not understand how businesses are built.
But think about this for a minute.
On average, it takes 2 to 4 years to build a profitable business. (Please go back and read that again.) Yes, you will be making money along the way. But to make money every month will take some time and effort.
However, if you work hard, you can have a full-time business in about six months. But honestly, you’ll need to bust your butt to get there that fast.
You Need to Become an Expert at Client Acquisition
The first thing you need to think about is how to attract clients.
It is something you should think of all the time – 24/7/365.
(I didn’t come up with that idea on my own. I got it from studying the book Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Conrad Levinson.)
But to get started, let’s keep it simple. Because a simple system you can execute day after day is better than using 500 different ways to get clients.
So, let us break down the process:
Client leads are interested prospects who you have already contacted in some manner. There are at least six different ways you can do this.
Six Ways to Attract Your Clients (From the Most Effective to the Least Effective)
#1 Talk to Them or Call Them
Calling or talking to prospects is the most effective way to land jobs in copywriting.
Why?
For one thing, you know for a fact you have talked to them and whether they are interested in your copywriting business. There are a few ways you can connect with people in person.
The best way is to call prospects with a prewritten script. I have a short, five-sentence approach I use to call them. You can write one of these in 10 minutes.
Just briefly introduce yourself and tell your prospect what you do and how you can help their business. Then, ask for a date and time to call back and talk further.
You’ll find this works well. You’ll save yourself and the people you are calling a ton of time.
The other way to talk to prospects is to meet them face to face.
There are several ways you can get jobs in copywriting, and here are some of them:
- Join local business clubs and people
- Go into their businesses and meet prospects where they work
- Go to trade fairs where like-minded people congregate (take a ton of business cards and pass them out)
- Call and tell all your friends about your business and ask them to spread the word
- Hand out your business card to anyone you do business with
#2 Networking and Referrals
Everyone thinks that networking is about going to a luncheon and handing out business cards. You can also network by phone or on an online social media site like LinkedIn.
One of my favorite methods is to send messages and ideas to my target market on LinkedIn. I’ll offer suggestions on how to get more clients and business by using better content. I’ll also mention one or two of the categories I have been writing in, like cryptocurrency or coaching.
The fastest way to get clients through networking is by finding people in your target market. Once you do that, you should try to get to know them.
Here are a few ways I have used to get clients for myself:
- Writing well-thought-out questions and responses to blog posts
- Sending direct mail pieces to individuals in businesses I am targeting – suggesting we do a zoom call
- Participating in online communities
- Staying in touch with former clients
- Volunteering to help charities
- Contact swapping
- Sharing information and resources – sending helpful material to prospects
- Giving referrals – always try to help others
#3 Public Speaking
I don’t get people who are afraid of public speaking.
Statistically, most people would rather die than speak in front of a group of people.
In contrast, I am extroverted and enjoy public speaking, so any opportunity to do some public speaking is fun for me.
In my opinion, public speaking isn’t the hard part, but getting the opportunity to do so is. The best way to get in front of a group is to look for one that is already organized. You don’t want to get in front of a group you’ve quickly built from scratch but an established group of people who are interested in what you have to offer.
Here are some ideas on how you can get in front of people so you can get more jobs in copywriting.
Workshops and classes – You can give sessions on copywriting to a group of interested people and educate them on how they can write their advertisements. You could also give them ideas on how they can improve the content of their websites, ads, or other marketing messages. Don’t worry about giving away your trade secrets because once they see how much is involved in the process of writing their copy, they’ll want to hire you.
Online live webinars – Zoom calls are all the rage right now, making it easy to get people together. Instead of meeting physically at a public place, you can meet online and give away valuable information or discuss how you can help clients with their content or marketing problems.
#4 Publicity and Article Writing
A lot of copywriter wannabees think that copywriting only entails writing advertising copy. Copywriting encompasses a lot of different kinds of writing; articles, blog posts, speeches, etc., are very common. There are many facets of getting jobs in copywriting that you could do.
So, if you are a writer, you should be writing to promote yourself. There are all kinds of ways you can do this with your writing, such as:
Starting a blog. If you don’t have a blog site, you can always use a platform like Medium to post on. Medium is a free platform, giving users the ability to post without paying for their blog. Having well-written posts online can generate interest in your services while displaying your writing talents.
Repurposing articles and blog posts. Once you have written some articles and blog posts, it takes little effort to get them rewritten. You can change them with a different title and subheads and switch up the content a little. After doing that, you can then send them out to different editors for publication.
Have stories published about your services. Every town has small publications that need stories. If you can somehow write an interesting article and attach a story about yourself to it, you can get excellent exposure. Find a local paper that has stories about businesses, and then write a story about how you helped a business increase its revenue.
Write guest posts for popular online blogs or sites. One of the easiest ways to get noticed is to write for a popular online blog. I’ve done this in the past, and it is astounding the amount of traffic you can get. Don’t get too cocky, though. The traffic comes in fast, but it won’t last unless you write more guest posts for other sites.
#5 Promotional Events
Events like trade shows, demonstrations, workshops, and online virtual events are other ways of attracting potential clients.
Most promotional events are like setting up booths at trade shows and events like that. However, those events are expensive to set up and not that practical for copywriters.
Virtual events are probably the best promotional way for copywriters to gain attention from prospects. The cool thing about a virtual event is that you can allow people from all over the world to watch it.
#6 Advertising
One of the biggest problems with advertising copywriting services is people will not know who they are dealing with. In other words, they won’t know you from the next person they read about. In advertising, everyone is the candidate prospects should choose. Therefore, it will be harder to get prospects to sign a contract with you.
Online Ads on Google or Facebook – If you write the ads properly, you can get some interest in your services. However, you’ll get a lot of people who want to look you over and waste your money when they click on your ads. This can be a very expensive prospect, and you will need to test and monitor your ads constantly.
Websites are another way to gain attention and let people see your professionalism. You can use your site as a brochure, displaying works you have written for clients in the past. If you know how to optimize your web pages and blog posts, you won’t have to spend an arm and leg getting people to go to your website.
Web directories are another great way to get your copywriting services noticed. All of the different websites have massive directories that you can list your business. It can be time-consuming filling in all the information these directories require you to fill in, however, they are well worth it. The exposure you can get in your local directory alone is worth the time filling in your copywriting business’s information.
Conclusion
I hope these ideas will help generate more clients for your copywriting business and help you get jobs in copywriting. It would be a good idea to remember that the entire process of client acquisition from start to finish may take up to 4 months. That might seem to be a long time, but when you deal with different people every day, it can be a lot of prospects.
It would be a good idea to remember to keep your focus small on your core clients. Focusing on the exact kind of clients you want is far easier than focusing on everyone.