I recently talked with friend of the blog and freelance copywriter Dennis Demori. He’d messaged me about this article on leapfrogging your freelance competitors and had some great questions which I hadn’t thought of. I figured I’d answer some of those questions in a general sense for other freelance guys and copywriters.
Let me summarise them here.
Dennis told me about the niche he’s in – a pretty good one, where he targets a niche of companies doing business in the seven-to-eight figure range (i.e. people with money to spend on a copywriter) who also use direct-response copywriters. (So you aren’t convincing people who have no idea about copywriting that they need you.)
Fantastic start.
He said that he’s targeting these companies on Facebook groups and on websites where the companies congregate. This is obviously fantastic – I’m not a big Facebook guy (my mistake) but if you find relevant Facebook groups, then they’re a great place to find buyers. Absolutely.
He then pointed to my example in the article I linked above: A quick blog post where you target a specific concern and grab leads from there. He rightly said that companies who are doing seven-figures per year with their product line aren’t just searching “where to get a copywriter” or “how to sell a product.”
This is true and it’s something I overlooked in the example. Firstly though, let’s talk about getting in between clients and their sales process.
Get Between Your Clients And The Decision
SEO is an easy way to do this, but so is Facebook and talking to actual people in actual life.
Everyone – from the big CEOs at billion-dollar companies through to your mum at the supermarket deciding what she’s having for dinner – goes through a process before they buy something.
Let’s assume you’re more interested in the CEO for now, which is good because the more complicated the decision, the more complicated the process of deciding what to do is.
The more complicated a process, the more “weak points” you can exploit.
Essentially, selling is getting in between your target and their decision making process.
If there’s a Facebook group where doctors go and share marketing advice and it’s full of people asking questions like, “Where do I get my doctor website built?” then you’ve got a potential place to slot yourself in.
When you’re looking at big companies for their marketing needs, there’ll be tons of these places – you just have to recognise the questions their asking, why they’re asking them and then know how to respond.
If that sounds tough, read Scientific Advertising or any of the classic direct response marketing texts. They’ll show you the way.
Now, the first and invisible step with the above process is being where the clients are. For a lot of clients, the SEO route is a waste of time. Not because SEO is a waste of time, but because it’s not the best place to find clients and you’re better off going to wherever they are and saying, “Hi.”
That said… blogging isn’t just about SEO.
Blog =/= SEO
A lot of people equate blogging with SEO.
This is a bit of a mistake, because blogging is just a collection of words on a screen.
You can get SEO benefits from blogging, but you can also use it for a lot of other stuff.
Stuff like:
- Building authority
- Answering questions
- Customer Support
- “Branding” – Whatever that means
SEO is a way of getting people to your blog. You can use your blog for whatever – and aside from this site, I don’t even think of any of my sites as “blogs.” They’re just a store of articles.
Now, SEO is a way to get people to your site. That doesn’t mean it’s a key ingredient and you don’t have to get people to your site through SEO.
By far the quickest and easiest way to get people to your site is to directly link them to it.
Let’s say you see a guy on a Facebook group. He wants to hire a freelance web developer.
Just imagining this scenario I can see the hundreds of replies play out in my head of all the freelancers jumping on this imaginary post.
“Hi we do web design PM me for quote”
“Hey man what are you looking for?”
Or some other pretty weak responses. Remember always that you should avoid being like everyone else.
Some of the better people will have better strategies. They’ll give some honest advice and leave their contact details or whatnot.
A blog article is a way of being better than that.
“Hey, I see your question and it’s funny because I happened to write this article about that six months ago because it was a common problem some of my clients have. Here’s the link. Give it a read and let me know if you have more questions.”
Final Thoughts: Pitching Without Pitching
You don’t have to do any of this. I like the content approach for a few reasons:
- It’s easy to show you know what you’re talking about
- Most competitors don’t do it (Or, arguably know what they’re talking about)
- It doesn’t cost anything (You can create a simple 500 word blog post on a specific topic in way less than an hour
- It demonstrates social proof, authority and friendliness
- You get to pitch without pitching
In the italicised sample I provided above, which I made in ten seconds, there’s a definite call to action that doesn’t even look like a call to action. There’s social proof that doesn’t look like social proof, there’ll be reciprocity and you can add in authority and all the hook points in your short blog post.
None of it is a “pitch” in the sense that an Indian freelancer or guy fresh off a “five figure consultant e-mastery course” is going to spam send out, yet it’s pure direct response marketing. Obviously if you took a couple of minutes to write a tailored message it would be better, and if you wrote a 500 word blog post (and if you’re sneaky, backdate it and do all that good blog stuff) then you’ll provide something great for your client.
If that looks like a lot of work… bear in mind nobody else does this (even in big niches) yet it’s 600 words and if it’s a common question, you can rephrase and use it again and again and again.
Anyway, that’s how you can use blogging or simple articles to get in between a client and their decision making process. So part two of a simple two-step solution; find client, give them a reason to pick you over everyone else.