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Of course, copywriting is something that you want to do because you love it and you’re good at. But if you’re only doing it as a hobby, it can get frustrating when you don’t have enough clients to keep yourself busy or make much money.
You may be better off focusing on things that pay more than writing – teaching people how to write, for example. There are also lots of other ways to contribute quality content to your industry.
Content marketing is all the rage right now. However, rather than investing in this technique, start with one simple step:
Ask questions. Do not be shy about asking others who work in an organization about updates to their website, social media, products, etc. Keep notes on these conversations and next time you have someone talking about their stuff, ask them ten question regarding to content strategy.
This way you’ll know exactly what kind of content they produce and how often. Before you think up specific content ideas and strategies, you need to understand your audience and what matters to them.
A good writer knows how to focus on the topic of a story or article. You will ask questions like “What is the most important thing you would want to know about this subject?”
Your answer to that question will tell you what topics need to be covered in your writing.
You can then write an article or web page focusing on each of those topics. For instance, if your first job interview was with a company seeking to learn more about their competition, you could cover why they are losing business to other companies and suggest ways they could improve their image among their customers.
Or you could provide them with helpful advice after reading their current problem pages.
Whatever you choose to do, just being able to put words on a page or screen tells businesses something about you. It also tells them something about your potential as a copywriter which makes you a valuable asset to have on their team.
Given the amount of work available, there’s probably someone out there who wants to pay more money than you asking yourself the same question. Find them!
There’s no sense waiting around for the perfect opportunity to come along. If you’re looking for a chance to earn extra money, now’s the time to make it happen.
When potential clients contact you to ask about your business, provide them with a copy of your printed content (whether it be an article or another form of marketing)
After they have read what you have provided, let them know if there is more that you would like to add to your content or if you may need their information corrected or updated.
Client feedback can help improve your writing, formatting, and grammar skills. You can also use feedback to make changes to your other marketing materials (like flyers, posters, website layouts, etc.).
Getting input from others will make your material better because people who are reviewing your content will also tell you where there is missing wording or confusing parts. This helps after some initial editing has taken place as well.
The more people talk about your content, the more likely it is that someone else will give you good comments. By having members of your team edit one piece of content you’ll be sure to grow your online presence.
It also keeps you up to date on new developments in your field. Maybe someone accidentally puts out plagiarized content and you catch them before things get ugly.
By giving away free samples of your work, you attract followers, customers, and fans. They trust what you say and believe that you are an expert. If this sounds familiar, then you already have the foundation for a career writer.
As mentioned earlier, not every writing project requires you to start from scratch. Many times, pre-made templates are offered that require only minor edits to fit your content.
There is a reason more and more businesses are using blogging as an advertising tool; it’s because blogs help consumers identify with the brand and allow the creation of insider knowledge articles.
Since many bloggers begin their journey as hobbyists, they use this platform to share tips and stories with other members of the community. More often than not, these same strategies work for business purposes too.
The best way to prove this strategy works? Google yourself, and see how much free, quality traffic comes from “organic” sources (no paid ads). You’ll be surprised by just how high those numbers are.
Now, let’s talk about how to establish your copywriting rate. First, you need to know what people in your market are willing to pay for professional-looking content. Then, you should include that cost in mind when you write your article.
Your research will also help you understand whether your writing is worth it. For example, if you find one piece of excellent content with a particular audience size but with much effort, then it might be more worthwhile to create several articles rather than just one.
However, all writers must realize that quality writing takes time. So make sure to factor in the amount of time you have to put into each project as well.
There are two ways to price your copywriting services, you can charge by the job or per hour.
If you’re good at writing short copies, then charging by the job is going to be very difficult.
You will need to have a process in place where you estimate how long each task will take you, and factor in your cost into that time frame.
Also, since it’s hard to calculate an hourly rate, don’t even think about trying to get people to pay you by the hour. It’s not easy and it won’t give you much money.
The best way to price your service is by asking what other companies offer and how they compare. You also want to make sure you have a fair pricing structure so people know how much you cost.
Pricing your work according to how expensive it is to produce is another way to go. The problem is that there’s no real way to learn this without paying clients.
When you start getting paid, you’ll be able to show studies and comparisons between the costs of production for similar products and your own fees.
For example, if you see something that costs $10 for production, try to find out who manufactures it and try to get permission to print those samples. Then put in some extra work to figure out what their cost of goods is and include that in your bid.
Sowing your seeds of creative copy is one thing, but it’s hard to reap great results if you don’t have a clear idea of how much people are willing to pay for content like yours. When writing price quotes for services, make sure that you detail what each task will cost.
You can also estimate costs by looking at how other businesses charge for similar tasks.
Keep in mind that pricing software code or articles requires different skills than writing an original piece of text. Pricing software code is very math-oriented and requires technical expertise, while article writing is subjective since you are always trying to convince someone to buy.
The better you get at both, the more valuable your contributions to this industry will be.
You should be charging more for copywriting services if you are good at it. If you know how to use words to convince people to buy or do something, then you can write copy for others and earn a living from it.
However, writing ad copy or creating promotional materials is another matter entirely. For this work, you should charge according to your own abilities and what they pay for.
You could give yourself a bonus rate that you don’t normally charge for. Or you could offer to work for less money than you would in normal circumstances.
The only way to find out what you should charge is by starting out with a lower price and adjusting up when you have enough experience to promote yourself as a writer.
Maybe you can get by with a lot of word processing skills but if you can create meaningful ads and promotions using words, you can save time and energy for higher-paying tasks.
If you are charging money for web design, then you probably already have customers (and clients) looking to hire you or your team to do business development work. You need to make sure that you advertise effectively on your website so people can find out about what you offer.
Your homepage should feature most of the information that way anyone who lands on your page from a search engine is quickly guided into understanding what you do and how you help.
The next important step is to optimize your product pages. These are all the details that people will need to know if they want to buy anything from you. When someone has landed on one of your product pages by either searching for something or through an ad, they should be able to easily see what you offer and decide if it’s right for them.
Product marketing pages take a lot of effort on their own, but there are plenty of places on the internet that can help you create great content. Support links in other articles may lead users to more content like this, or maybe show where they could learn more about creating an article themselves.
