My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Freelance Copywriters
May 6, 2010 • Glenn Murray
I get many emails asking for advice on how to become a successful freelance copywriter. I love helping, but I’ve always wished I had a better way of doing it. I think these videos are that better way.
In these two videos, I discuss my top 10 tips for becoming a successful freelance copywriter. Not just writing tips, but business tips too.
Part 1
Part 2
A great new copywriting course
Since recording the above video, my good friend and copywriting great, James Chatrand, has started what I believe is the best copywriting course available. If you truly want to break into copywriting, this is the course for you.
Links to copywriting resources mentioned in the vid
- ShadowProtect PC backup solution for data & system
- Carbonite online backup solution for data
- My streamlined copywriting quoting process
- Robin Hobb: ‘The Farseer Trilogy’
- Anne Tyler
- John Irving
- Patrick Rothfuss (forgot to mention him)
- My SEO copy ebook, ‘Practical SEO Copywriting’
- My SEO ebook, ‘SEO Secrets’
Please comment if you have any questions
Obviously there’s only so much I can cover in a vid post, so if you have any freelance copywriting questions, please feel free to ask. You can either comment here or send me an email (although I definitely prefer a comment, so my answers can help everyone).
Transcription
Hi, I’m Glenn Murray, I’m an SEO Copywriter. I own and run Divine Write Copywriting which is an SEO copywriting studio. I have been a freelance copywriter for eight years and before that I was a technical writer in the software industry for nine years. I write everything that goes out the door at Divine Write, so really it’s just me. Divine Write is my company name but I’m really just a freelance copywriter.
The reason I’m recording this blog post is because I get a lot of emails from aspiring freelance copywriters asking for tips on how to become a successful freelance copywriter and I love, don’t get me wrong, I love getting those emails and I love helping out, and I always do, I always do help out with quite detailed responses, but I find myself being asked the same questions and answering those questions with the same answers every time. So I thought I’d record a video blog post to house all my answers and hopefully it can be more helpful than each of my individual responses are.
My top ten tips, that’s what I’m going to go through today, my top ten tips for becoming a successful freelance copywriter, start at number one with cold calling. Always, you, when I started out in my first year of copywriting I made a thousand cold calls, and I mean cold calls on the phone, I didn’t go door-to-door because the geography is too vast, so I made a thousand cold calls not to a thousand different companies but, you know, a few were call-backs and that sort of thing, and it’s hard work and you’ve got to be prepared to take a few knockbacks and a few people will be rude to you but that’s the name of the game. It did result in a few clients and, quite a few clients, and some of those clients I still have to this day. So, the number one tip is to cold call.
Number two tip is to write stuff for free, and I don’t mean for other copywriters or really for agencies, ‘cause agencies will take you for a ride if they can, I mean for direct clients ‘cause they’re the ones who, who will value that free copy the most. A good example, when I started out, I wrote, I went through the local newspaper and looked at the property section and saw a house for sale and thought, “That copy sucks.” So I rewrote it and contacted the Real Estate Agent and said, “Look, I’ve re-written this copy, you’re welcome to it if you want. If you like it, give me $100, if you don’t I’m happy to go away.” They did like it, they did pay me, they called me in, we had a chat and then for nearly a year I wrote all of their property descriptions for their more upmarket houses for $100 a pop. In the end it just wasn’t sustainable for me because it was, you know, four or five hours worth of work and, including a site visit and talking to the owner and then writing up the copy and going through multiple versions of it, so I ended up giving that away. But it did get me my first client and it did give me a lot of experience and some good work for my portfolio.
Another example, if you don’t want to write property descriptions because they are, I believe they’re pretty low value for the actual Real Estate Agent, you could go through your local paper and look for a real estate bio, so, you know, some Real Estate Agents will include a full page ad of a bio of them, an ad for them, and if you find one of those and it looks poorly written then rewrite it and take it into them and see what they think.
Tip number three, don’t focus on qualifications. And this is one of the most common questions I get, “What qualifications, what courses would you recommend?” Well I don’t recommend any because I’ve never done any, I don’t have any formal writing qualifications.
I have a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Linguistics and have a Master of Arts in International Communication, but I don’t have any formal writing qualifications, I’ve always just been a writer. Even as a kid I was a writer and that’s just what I do. When I was looking at outsourcing work and employing people, when people sent me their resume I rarely looked at it, I didn’t care what qualifications they had, what I was only interested in was the quality of their work. I would ask to see samples and I would ask to know their rate. So I would look, I would assess their abilities by actually looking at their work, and I think that’s the most important thing.
It may be, qualifications may be more important to non-writers, so if you’re approaching clients directly it may be more important but any, most creative agencies and all copywriting agencies will be able to assess the quality of your writing by simply looking at it and qualifications will make no difference to their opinion of you. So I wouldn’t bother.
I mean that’s not to say those qualifications are unimportant but they’re certainly, and they can help and I’m sure they will help, but if you don’t have them, I would start at other places; I wouldn’t say that’s your starting point for getting into a freelance career as a copywriter.
Tip number four, SEO, search engine optimisation is where it’s at. You have to have a website obviously, and I’m taking that for granted. If you’ve got a website it has to rank and then you can, you can stop spending money on, or time, on attracting clients. As I said, in my first year, I cold called a thousand clients, then I figured out how to rank my website. After I’ve, since ranking well, for all of my key phrases, I’ve not spent a single cent on promotion in the last seven years because my clients all come to me through my search engine presence. So spend every spare moment you can on search engine optimisation. And you’re in a good position; as a writer, you have the ability to write lots of content and content is half the battle in the search engine war. So focus on SEO, so spend every spare moment.
The next tip, what are we up to, tip number five, while you’re spending every spare moment on SEO, spend every spare dollar on web design. Again, you’ve got to have a web design, you’ve got to have a website and, if you’re going to have a website you’ve got to make it good. Your website reflects the quality of your service and it reflects your professionalism and it reflects your value. And if you have a poor website people will think that your service is poor and your value is negligible. So make sure it’s really good. Get a good web designer to do your work and don’t cheap out; it just, in the end, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Tip number six, back up your work. Don’t, you don’t need a fancy computer but you do need a good Internet connection, but whatever you’ve got, back up your work because there will come a time when your computer will crash – guaranteed. My computer has crashed a number of times and I’ve been saved by back-ups numerous times. And I would recommend that you back up and back up your back-ups. I back up locally to a USB hard drive and I use a product called, what’s it called, I can’t remember the name of it at the moment, Shadow Protect, that’s what it’s called. Shadow Protect, it’s a very good back-up solution; I’ve tried numerous back-up solutions including Microsoft supplied ones, and Shadow Protect is undoubtedly the best. It’s quick to back up and quick to restore and it all happens automatically.
So every day, eight times a day, my computer is backed up. For any changes that have occurred are automatically backed up. Actually these days I just do it to, I’ve got a second drive in my computer and I back up from my D drive to my E drive. Periodically, I’ll back up that back-up to an external drive and I will also back up – that’s all data, so business data – I will also back up periodically my system partition, which is actually my installed version of Windows and all my applications – you can’t back that up just by copying it, you have to do a system back-up – and again I use Shadow Protect for that and I back that up to a USB drive and I store that offsite.
Now, back to the data, I back up, I have a secondary back-up of all my data off, in an online location, so I use Carbonite, it’s carbonite.com. I think in Australia now there’s carbonite.com.au – it’s the same service, it’s just the Australian version. The US version, which is the one I originally set up on, it’s US$50 per year for unlimited space; it automatically backs up all your data, so whenever you make a change to a file it sits there and it waits for you to be inactive. After making that change it identifies the change and then waits for you to be inactive and it will then back that, back that file up and copy it across to Carbonite so that the latest version is on Carbonite. And if you lose your computer you can always download all that data from Carbonite directly, and it will save you.
Tip number seven is just write. Write, write, write, write, write all the time. Practise your writing and don’t stop; it’s really important to practise, to hone your skills. The more you write, the more you’ll find you are doing wrong, the better you’ll get, the more objective you’ll get about your writing, the more things you’ll learn about what you’re doing and what you’re not doing, the quicker you’ll get, the better systems you’ll develop. So just keep writing.
Tip number eight, read out what you write out loud. Pretend you’re, it sounds cheesy but pretend you’re a radio announcer, you know, read out your copy with the sort of inflection that you would expect a radio announcer to use because, if you can’t read it with that sort of contrived excitement – I know it’s contrived but there is a level of dynamic excitement in the way that a radio announcer reads copy – if you can’t generate that sort of dynamic excitement from your copy then it’s probably missing something; the rhythm’s probably wrong, the balance is probably wrong, so use that sort of tone and you’ll quickly find where the flaws in your copy are.
Observe, tip number nine is observe other writers. So, if you like the work of other writers, read their portfolio, read the work that you know they’ve done and see, try and figure out why they’re doing it, what they’re doing, what their little tricks are, and observe their business practices as well because obviously running successful freelance businesses, if anything it’s half success, it’s half about the writing and half about the business. So observe what they’re doing that’s, within their business, that’s making them streamlined, that’s giving them more time to write and allowing them to focus less on their overhead, on their business administration and that sort of thing.
For instance, I’ve got a blog post that I recorded a while back with the screen cast of my streamlined quoting process, and I’ll link to it in this blog post, and it saves me massive amounts of time, and I can plug out quotes within, you know, two to five minutes with a 15 odd page proposal, fully personalised with the details of the client, the company, the quote amount with an approval of quote form, testimonials, payment details; all those sorts of things are all in there and I can do that in a couple of minutes, and it’s all because of the technology and the system that I use. So, observe the systems and the business approach of copywriters who you admire and, or who you think do a good job, and see what you can learnt from them.
And, of course, number ten is, just as I’ve advised you to write, write, write – read, read, read, and I don’t necessarily, I don’t just mean read other copywriters – we’ve already discussed that – I mean read anything, anything that you think is good quality. And, again, I don’t, that might be reading texts on how to become a good copywriter or reading texts about what’s involved in advertising or, you know, you’ll see – I’ve got a few books here along those lines – and I’ve read some or all of some or all of them. But it’s not just about reading how to copywrite, to write copywriting, it’s about, it’s about reading examples of good writing, whether it’s copywriting or not. You know, you’ll get plenty of examples of copywriting by following your favourite copywriters and seeing what they do, but I find a lot of copywriting is a little bit too formulated, a little bit too, maybe a little bit too cynical, a bit too salesy, so you don’t get a lot of variety in writing and my experience has been that a lot of my clients come to be because they like the originality of my writing; they like my fresh approach, they like the fact that I don’t always follow those rules that a lot of copywriters have been following for years. So, right or wrong, that’s what a lot of my clients like.
So read other things, like read novels. Fantasy novels are a great example – Robin Hobb, she writes brilliantly, really easy-flowing writing. Anne Tyler is a novelist, not in fantasy, and she writes beautifully from the heart, you know, everything is heartfelt; she’s able to capture emotion and that’s really important in copywriting. She’s able to capture emotion succinctly and so beautifully and, if you can do that and if you can gather what tips, gather, glean from her work and Robin Hobbs’ work and John Irving’s work and whoever you feel really captures emotion well, read their work and really deconstruct it and see what they’re doing that is really capturing emotion because, again, I can’t stress it enough, when you’re copywriting, capturing emotion is what it’s all about.
So they’re my top ten tips. You have to know you can do it, obviously, and bear that in mind at every step of the way. If you do want to buy a book that you think will be helpful, I sell two; one is a specialist SEO copywriting book, so if you’ve, if you want to learn how to become an SEO Copywriter – the techniques involved, that is, not the business but the techniques involved in SEO copywriting, how to balance the needs of Google against the needs of readers – then that’s the book you can see here on my screen. It’s Practical SEO Copywriting and I think that’s usually, it sells at US$39 odd. And I also sell a book called SEO Secrets and that’s about SEO generally, and again SEO is search engine optimised copy, search engine optimisation; SEO copy is search engine optimised copy. SEO Secrets is about SEO generally and it’s about how to, what SEO is and how to make your site rank well. SEO copy is a subset of SEO generally. So, SEO Secrets retails at US$79 I think and you can buy them both from my website.
So they’re my top ten tips. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, maybe in a comment on this blog post, that’s fine, or email me if you’ve got something longer or you would like to keep it private. I will, I will endeavour to answer your questions as best I can and be as helpful as I can. So, good luck with your freelancing copywriting career and I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.
Thanks, bye.
Brian V. Hunt wrote on May 6th, 2010
Great stuff as always, Glenn. I especially liked the baby and dog in the background. You really did a terrific job with this video but you look like the little one has been keeping you up nights, mate. Thanks for the great content. I'm digging through your e-books too.
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Glenn (Owner) wrote on May 6th, 2010
Hey Brian. Thanks mate. No dog; that's all baby wailing! The joys of working from home (wouldn't swap it). You're right, it's been a tough few weeks. The kids have had colds non-stop for about 3-4 weeks. And when kids have colds, they don't sleep, which means no-one sleeps. Plus I don't do video very often, so when I do, it's always a re-learning process. The two days prior to recording this post, I recorded two video interviews. And the first of those, I had to record three times. The first time I stuffed up the exposure, and the second time, the sound. Grrr. Which, of course, meant working late into the night on client work! Sorry. But you asked...! ;-)
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Garrett Mossberg wrote on May 7th, 2010
Glenn, I too feel your producing this relaxed style video was far more engaging as well as 'gone the extra mile' informative, in contrast to just print. Your little ones in the audio background was a stroke of genius, to give your video a down to earth, crackling fire in the hearth of the home, sort of feel. :o Technically, this video's audio and exposure is 98% "right on the money". Coming from a photographer's passion background, my only advice to newbie video makers would be the use of soft auxiliary lighting onto the face, which rather than going to a pricey photo supply store, one can get inexpensive bulb sockets w/ metal reflectors and 'daylight color temperature' (approx 5500K) compact fluorescent bulbs in various wattages, at a home /building supply store. One other inexpensive method would be to create fill lighting using soft folding photographers reflectors, purchased quite reasonably online on ebay. Portable lighting & reflectors are the photographers basic tools to get the most pleasing effects, and these tools can be used individually or together. Then, one just needs to invest some time to experiment with placement and results, before doing the actual video shoot. Of course, when shooting the final video, hindsight dictates it is wise before producing an hour or so recording, to early on playback the footage already on the vid-cam, in order to check for acceptable results, and make adjustments --saving the grief of a total re-shoot later. Hope this helps others reading this post who do video or still photos. PS. My partner just ordered your Mums Day Special pkg of SEO ebooks: Outstanding information. Keep these personable videos & the premium instruction rolling out, Glenn, in-between that hectic writing & filming schedule of yours! Cheers.
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Glenn (Owner) wrote on May 7th, 2010
Wow! What a helpful comment. Thanks so much! Actually, I've tried messing around with lighting, using much the same techniques you've described. I'm sure it reflects my own inadequacies more than anything, but I simply couldn't get it to work well. It always looked terrible (e.g. http://www.divinewrite.com/blog/copywriting/fix-client-supplied-copy/ ). I also tried with bright sunlight and my camera's 'Snow' setting, and that worked OK, but it's hit-and-miss, depending on the brightness (http://www.divinewrite.com/blog/copywriting/web-copy/seo-copy/copy-clip-choosing-keywords-theming-site/ ). I've found I get better results (98% ain't bad!) by letting the camera do the thinking for me. I used no lighting on this most recent vid, and had the camera set to 'Easy' mode! lol Re the kids, yeah, I like it now too. I wasn't too impressed at the time though! Thanks again for the comment. Great stuff. And I hope your partner enjoys the books.
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Garrett Mossberg wrote on May 7th, 2010
Ahh, I'm going to revise my technical grade of your video to a 99% (A++) --just because your visual composition, your delivery, babies embedded into the audio track and the content were so good, Glenn. The only other point I might make here for everyone reading is to keep mind about photography equipment, whether it is a point-and-shoot camera, a professional Digital SLR or high tech HD pocket video cam is this: All cameras are in fact "color blind" and their built in exposure light meters only see in variable tones of a gray scale. A standardized average of 18% gray to be exact, is what all camera light meters have been indexed to, since first invented. What this means is that as highly sophisticated as cameras are now, camera meters can still be fooled into over or under compensating exposure, with less than stellar results. Simply put, one has to rethink for the camera sometimes, in order to hit the exposure bullseye. Either by manually resetting camera compensation controls or repositioning lighting or subject or both, thereby controlling the contrast balance results. In this video on "My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Freelance Copywriters " your strategic placement of the highly reflective white book on SEO, though excellent in composition, (not to mention genius marketing !) had caused the vid-cams auto meter to slightly underexpose the foreground and face --though not overly so. A bright light source such as daylight windows or indoor lamps, in the background, would have had the same counter effect. Conversely, if you shot the video (or still photo) against a very dark or black background, the built in exposure meter in a camera, almost regardless of make or model, would over expose the foreground --to some degree. Adding fill in lighting or /and changing the angle of the white book cover (or removing it all together) would have restored the contrast balance results, in this particular case. Finally, there are post production video editing software programs available, if one is inclined to seek perfection, and some are at very low or no cost (open source) on the internet. Still a top notch video, Glenn. Rock on.
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Glenn (Owner) wrote on May 7th, 2010
Aha! That makes sense. So is that why my eyes, for instance, look grey, when they're actually fluoro pink? (Well, blue, really...)
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Shae wrote on May 8th, 2010
Hi Glenn Thanks for the tips. They are very useful. I am a copywriter (SEO) in training and earlier this year I asked another SEO web copywriter to mentor and coach me. This is one of the best investments I have made and will continue doing this - something I recommend that other newbies do. I am also writing the copy for my friend's two websites (she is a small business owner) as a way to gain experience but also to use these as a platform to launch my own business later in the year/new year. And while this may not be copywriting specific, I am also currently completing the Certificate in Digital Marketing through ADMA, which has provided me with some great knowledge about SEO. And finally, not to blow your own trumpet LOL, your e-books have been extremely beneficial and I refer to these constantly (although I purchased them long before the Mother's Day special). :)
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Sally, Snappy Sentences wrote on May 10th, 2010
Hi Glenn Nice tips - totally agree with all of them (though I am much more a crime/mystery reader). The only other point I'd like to add is to spend money on getting professional business cards printed and go to some networking events. Not only do you get out of the house to speak to people (always nice for freelancers), but you never know what work you'll pick up.
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Glenn Murray wrote on May 10th, 2010
Thanks Shae and Sally for your nice comments. @Shae, yeah, mentoring is great, if you can get it. I'd actually like to do a bit of it, but never have the time! And yep, I've heard good things about ADMA. @Sally. Agree -- business cards are important. For me, in the early days, they were more for handing out to clients than for networking. But either way, very important.
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timely copy wrote on August 13th, 2010
Great stuff and good tips to all aspiring copywriters.
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Perry wrote on November 1st, 2010
I liked the tip on contacting realitors, and to go through the newspaper to look for businesses in general. Glenn, do you have any other tips for finding clients? I think that is the main thing many copywriters need help with. Thanks for the video.
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Glenn (Owner) wrote on November 4th, 2010
@Perry I'm actually in the (slow) process of preparing a resource for freelance copywriters. I originally planned to make it an ebook, and it may stil ltake that form. But there's also the chance it'll become some sort of online program. You can sign up to be notified when it's ready here: http://www.divinewrite.com/freelance-copy-ebook.htm
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Terence wrote on November 16th, 2010
Glenn, Very nice piece, thanks. As a writer trying to move beyond the slaveships of Odesk and Freelancer.com, I find your words encouraging. They strengthen my resolve to do what I must to find the juicy bones. Will be ordering your SEO books soon. Terence
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Glenn (Owner) wrote on November 16th, 2010
Thanks Terence. "the slaveships"... I like that. And I think you're right about that. There's plenty of work out there if you market yourself right, and you're good. Trouble is finding the time to market yourself when someone's whipping your back! Best of luck, mate.
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Glenn (Owner) wrote on May 25th, 2011
Just discovered this list of 50 writing books. Looks very useful. http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/2011/05/22/50-books-that-will-make-you-a-better-writer/
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Interview with Glenn Murray | ProjectCopy: Not Your Ordinary Copywriting Blog wrote on January 31st, 2012
[...] Know you can do it. Go with your gut and write what you feel you should. Use your head to plan and edit, but use your heart to write. Oh and watch My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Freelance Copywriters video. [...]
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Drew wrote on August 30th, 2012
Hi Glenn, I found that video really useful, thanks! One quick question (I bet all the questions you're asked are `quick`), I've just closed the classroom door as an English teacher for the last time and I've done a bit of research into copywriting. Starting completely from scratch, would you says its important to have all the company name, website etc set up before I try approaching people? This is completely new for me, and I'd rather not throw money at websites unless I have to. I'd like to think I could just get writing and use that to sell me at the moment. What do you think? Enjoying the blog! Drew
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Glenn Murray wrote on August 31st, 2012
Hi Drew. Thanks for your comment. IMHO you should definitely get your website etc in order ASAP. I don't think it's necessary to do before approaching people, but it certainly helps. One thing you DO definitely need before approaching people is samples. To be honest, if someone wants to freelance for me, I don't care if they have a website or not. All I care about is the quality of their work. That said, the lack of a website suggests you're either too green to be hit with something important, you're just dipping your toe in the water and/or you're not going to stick with it long... Clients who are after a long-term relationship think that way.
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Matthew Setter wrote on May 15th, 2014
Hey Glenn, thanks kindly for the detailed information. It's a really good balance of technical and business; plus I like the no nonsense approach. Matt
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