“Is My Work To A Professional Copywriting Standard?”
A common question people have with copywriting is some variation on, “How good do I have to be to create professional copywriting?”
Let’s assume for a moment you ignore the heaps of terrible copy out there. I’ll also assume you’re someone who wants to be good enough at professional copywriting as opposed to someone looking to make a quick dollar ala the Tim Ferriss life-hack brigade.
There’s a simple solution to “What is professional copywriting?” and I’ll get to that at the end of this article.
Yeah I know… you probably want to know already. But if you scroll down, then you’ll miss how to get your writing to a professional copywriting standard, and you don’t want that. Here are a handful of things to bear in mind.
You Should Start Your Own Projects… Yesterday
One of the first articles I wrote for this site was “How To Get Writing Experience Without Getting A Job.”
Even though I’ve written 300 articles since starting this site, nothing I’ve said in the interim has conflicted with that article – the best way to learn copywriting is by doing it. If you want to get better at writing, then you need to write. Should you want to get into online business, then you need to build your own website and learn the ropes as you go along.
There’s no book, course or work placement that will teach you more than starting your own project will.
…Also, there’s no better professional experience than taking everything into your own hands and finding out what works and what doesn’t. As a freelancer, my first year of professional copywriting had me working with over 200 clients in every industry from Russian Oil to American popstar. How did I do that? By starting my own projects, finding what worked and then giving that to clients as a competitive edge.
I haven’t worked in a traditional advertising agency, but I can’t imagine many junior copywriters get that range of experience.
Learn By Doing …With Live Clients
I almost jumped the gun in the last section.
You have two choices when it comes to learning about professional copywriting; you can go to Amazon, buy the probably-limitless amount of books on copywriting and read for hundreds of hours. Then you can read a hundred blog articles about the best tactics for pitching clients and then read some internet marketing forum which’ll tell you to hire the hard stuff out to some virtual assistant somewhere.
That’s option one.
Option two is this: Get started.
Sure, you should probably read a book or two. Maybe you should get a feel for working online or approaching clients.
That said you’ll learn more by working with clients than you will by theorising and imagining working with them. There will be things you get wrong. You’ll get thrown in at the deep end the first time someone says, “By the way… can you do this?” And you’ll often worry that your copywriting skills aren’t up to scratch.
…For a while.
The easiest way to quiet the voice that says, “You can’t do it” is by doing it.
You’ll worry for your first handful of clients. Maybe you’ll accept low paying jobs to start with and that’ll make you feel underappreciated or stressed out. But keep going.
If you just get on with it, you’ll have learned more in the first month than the guy who does the other option will in years.
Find Other’s Mistakes
If you’re ever in doubt that you can work hard and produce professional copywriting services, look around for a while.
There are tons of examples of bad copywriting out there. You’ll find many blogs with poor writing. There are businesses with terrible websites. There are lawyers, doctors and other highly-paid professionals who don’t have the time or inclination to write well, and those things are holding them back. You can help them.
Even good copywriting can be done better. If in doubt, look back at your work from a couple of months ago. If you’ve committed to getting better and actually practising, then you’ll see holes in your copywriting that you could improve upon.
Commit To Constant Improvement
If you’re interested in producing professional copywriting and you want to offer that as a service to other people, then you need to understand that there’s always more you can learn.
You can always get better.
In addition to that, the world is ever-changing. There’ll be trends born today that’ll make huge money and change the world. You don’t know how to write about them yet. Neither does anyone else.
If you work at getting better at writing copy every day, then your writing will be unrecognisable (in a good way) in a couple of years. Trust me, I just found this out for myself.
If you’re looking for a daily copywriting routine to help you out, then read this article.
Oh, and wait – tomorrow I’m going to be writing again about this subject.
Conversion Is The Only Key
Copywriting is best delivered as direct-response marketing.
That means that your copywriting will lead directly to a sale.
There’s no jargon or marketing mumbo-jumbo involved – you don’t have to try and convince a company that your words will “build their brand” or “raise awareness.”
Direct-response copywriting is driven by conversions. You’ll know if your copywriting is professional copywriting because it will convert. The more you write copy, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more your copy converts. This is why you should have your own projects – it doesn’t take much to get a hundred blog visitors. If you get a hundred readers to read one of your reviews and someone buys a product, then you convert at 1%. If you can double that, then great! Create your own benchmark.
If you write a sales letter that converts at 5%, then you can straight up say, “My sales letters convert at 5%… and this will get you a positive return on your investment of X%.”
All You Have To Do Is Prove A Return On Investment… But You HAVE To Do That
Copywriting is simple.
All of marketing and advertising should be simple. Unfortunately, most marketing is based on abstract concepts.
Let’s forget that. You want to know about professional copywriting and the truth is that if you can provide a positive return on investment, then you’ll always have clients.
If you charge $100 and every time a client hires you they make $200… then they’d be a fool not to repeatedly hire you.
On the other hand, if you cost $1000 but don’t provide a positive return on that $1000, then you’ll have trouble getting hired. Plenty of marketers manage it, (That’s why we have abstract terms like “brand awareness”) but it’s easier and more profitable for you to aim for a positive return on investment.
Final Thoughts
We’ve come round to the end of the article, and determined that professional copywriting is copywriting at a level that provides a positive return on investment.
That’s the goal to aim for.
In the article, I’ve tried to help give you a framework for getting there. Build your own projects, get stuck in and learn as you go, and keep everything you do concerned with getting a positive return.
If you can do that, then you’ll most definitely reach the “professional copywriting” standard.