So,
You’re a freelance copywriter. You’ve built up a portfolio. You’ve started a website. You’ve landed some actual clients (real life paying ones!). You’re in the land of milk and honey. The only question is, where do you go from here?
The short answer is: anywhere you want!
One of the first things you’ll learn as a copywriter is that the range of business opportunities and projects available to you is practically endless. Want to work with top-flight agencies doing copy for prestigious brands? Call them up! Want to write sales letters for small entrepreneurs? You can make that happen just as easily. Feel like specializing in writing web copy for sex toy companies? Well, if that’s what floats your boat, I’m sure you can make a great living doing just that.
But, since you’re probably reading this for specific advice and not to hear “go get ‘em cowboy,” I’ll provide a few, more specific tips on how to expand after getting your first paying clients.
1. Keep In Touch With Your Initial Clients
Yes, it seems obvious, but it’s often overlooked. Studies have shown that it’s MUCH easier to get more work from an existing client than to get new clients. The solution? Keep in touch with any clients you’ve worked with! Send them a letter of appreciation after every job. Hit them up to chat every once in a while. Keeping your face in front of your clients will guarantee that they won’t forget you, and that’s half the battle when it comes to getting new work.
2. Promote Your Website.
If you read my last post, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of promoting my website in my signature file at various forums. That’s one good way to keep generating new leads, but hardly the only one. Here are just a few more options you have to get your website (and your portoflio content) in front of more prospective clients:
- Hire an SEO company to run an SEO campaign for you (or, if you’re feeling adventurous, read up on the subject and try to run one yourself).
- Run a pay-per-click campaign using Google Adwords.
- Hand out business cards.
- Speak at conferences and plug your site.
Really, the sky is the limit when it comes to promoting your site for expanded business. And of course, the more clients you get, the more portfolio samples you have, so you’ll find that a certain “snowball” effect starts to take shape when it comes to generating leads with a website.
3. Build An E-Mail List.
One great way to get repeat business is to create a “free report” and offer it to anyone who visits your site after they opt in with their e-mail address. Then, using an autoresponder, you send them a weekly “newsletteter” with an article or two and maybe a few links. The point here isn’t to give away all this value for nothing; it’s to keep you #1 in their mind whenever they think about hiring a freelancer.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
And thus concludes my three part series on copywriting as a career.
This series will hopefully serve as a good preview of the content that will be featured on my next blog, the tentatively titled “Freelance Focus.”
If you have any questions or want to know anything about that project, feel free to contact me at button.andrewj@gmail.com
That’s all for this week!
