It takes work to become a successful copywriter. You’ve got to put in plenty of time and hard work to not only become good at it, but to get more clients and grow your business.
There are three essentials, I think, to becoming a successful copywriter. While you can get by and even make a living without following all of these things, once you really grasp them and put them in place you’re going to find success is chasing you, rather than you chasing it.
Over the past five years, as I’ve built up my copywriting business to a stable and successful enterprise, there are three basic ideas I keep coming back to, over and over again.
Hone Your Craft
Becoming a successful copywriter means being a good copywriter. By the time you’ve been in the writing business for a couple of years, a healthy percentage of your business should be repeat business. When I look at my books for last month, for example, I can see that 60% of my income came from previous clients.
You don’t get repeat business if your work is crap, if you don’t meet the client’s expectations or if what you write doesn’t give your client the desired results. Sometimes, this is as simple as taking the time to review and edit your work before you send it to a client. In other cases, you might need to spend some time learning more about the particular type of writing you’re wanting to do.
Being able to identify the areas you’re weak in is essential here. One of the best ways to do that is to take a look through your list of past clients. For example, do your blogging clients keep coming back while your sales letter gigs seem to be one-offs? Then maybe you need to spend some time getting better at writing sales letters.
Build Your Portfolio
One of the biggest assets you have in terms of getting new clients is a strong portfolio. When you’re first starting out, your portfolio is probably going to be pretty thin. It’s important, as you go through those first couple of years, that you set aside some of your best work and include it in your portfolio. Make sure, of course, that the client for whom you did the work is all right with you using the piece for your portfolio.
I don’t advise writing material solely for your portfolio, unless you really want to break into one type of copywritng and can’t seem to land any gigs in that area without a sample. The reason is simply this: it’s untested. Until you’ve given the work to a client who has said, “hey, this is exactly what I was looking for,” you can’t be sure it’s enough to entice a new client.
Learn from the Experts
One of the reasons many of my readers visit my humble little blog is because they want to learn something from someone who’s already in the field and doing well. Spending time reading writing blogs and books can only help you improve your craft and get more sales. You might even benefit from a writing coach, or a mentor of some sort.
In 2008, one of the most amazing experiences I had was going through the material from the Copywriting Success Summit. There was so much here that I could barely digest just a small percentage of it, but what I learned has been invaluable.
The 2009 Copywriting Success Summit is coming up in just a couple of months. This live event is being held in October, and is something you must not miss. I promise you that attending this summit and putting the things you learn into practice will add fuel to your copywriting fire and help you grow your business.
None of these three things are easy, and none can be done overnight. That’s why they pay off so well. In the end, a copywriting business is only as successful as the hard work you’re willing to put into it.
3 comments ↓
Thanks for spreading the word on the Summit. I stumbled upon this and it sounds great.
Good luck writers — Jill Dearman, author, Bang the Keys: Four Steps to a Lifelong Writing Practice (Penguin/Aug 2009)
I have to disagree with just one part of this article:
“While you can get by and even make a living without following all of these things…”
I don’t think you can make a living without having a good portfolio, honing your skills, or learning more and more. I think those are kind of essential to any trade.
Hey Bob,
I really like this article. I think that anyone who is looking into the copywriting market could learn a lot from these tips.
it is something that I’ve always wanted to try but I never seem to find the time. I know that some of the writing that I’ve done for Textbroker is probably being used in a copywriting way by the clients, but I never get the chance to receive feedback after publication.
George
.-= Tumblemoose´s last blog ..The Concentrated Writer =-.
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