A Quick Guide To Writing in Competitive Copywriting Niches
If you’ve browsed copywriting forums or read copywriting newsletters, there’s no doubt that you’ve heard news of legendary niches within copywriting that are massively lucrative.
If you want to break into these competitive copywriting niches, you might be worried: After all, you don’t know anything about the law, you don’t know your backside from your elbow when it comes to medical knowledge and your financial knowledge consists of being happy every time you find an extra pound coin in your wallet that you never realised was there.
So, how do you go about writing for these competitive copywriting niches, with their technical requirements and jargon and knowledge?
Simple, you write the material they ask for. Sure, you’ll need to research, market and stick to the three rules of successful business, but you can do it. You can do very well at it with these tips.
Research
I’ve touched on this topic before here. I won’t repeat myself, so read the article. Essentially though, I break down complex subject research into two steps:
- Long term research and general knowledge.
- Short term research which is project specific.
If you’re a copywriter, then you should consider it your job to get a good general knowledge of everything. That’s the gist of long term research, and you’ll do it by getting books and taking an interest in the world.
Do not think you need to know everything about a field in minute detail before you pitch for jobs. It’s stupid.
You might hear of a legal company looking to hire a writer for their blog. You might think, “but I don’t know enough about the law they specialise in to write regularly about the latest changes!”
That’s bad thinking. Let me tell you a secret: Nobody in that law firm knows every aspect of the laws that will come up in their work. It’s simply impossible – and it’s why legal costs are so high; they have to do a ton of research and interpretation of an incredibly complex system. The idea that a legal blogger is going to know everything about the law is absurd.
Instead, think of this example as a research project. A doctor hires you to write about the importance of seeing a doctor after a vehicular accident right away, because in Florida, where their firm is based, you only have two weeks after the accident before you can no longer claim on the insurance.
You don’t know anything about this law. You don’t know anything about Florida. You don’t know anything about the medical or legal aspects of this hypothetical scenario. How are you going to learn? By researching the specific problem and finding relevant information for that specific scenario!
I know that this is possible, because the above is a real-world example from my copywriting life.
Assuming you’re writing a 1,000 word article that’ll get people to pick up the phone and call their doctor to register an appointment, there’s only so much information you’re going to need. You don’t need to know about the law in its entirety, nor do you need to know much about the medical field.
Sure, you’ll want to be diligent; refer to the law and why it works like that. Refer to common complaints and why most people don’t seek help until it’s too late. For instance, most people don’t see a doctor because they feel fine, but then it turns out a couple of months later when they try and lift a box that they’ve actually damaged their spine.
Include those details, but don’t enrol for medical school.
Jargon
For better or worse (and usually worse) a lot of competitive copywriting niches will involve you working with clients who want to rewrite your human-sounding copy into something that sounds like a cross between an alien language and a manual for working your microwave.
What they tend to be looking for is jargon. As a lay person, you won’t know the jargon of specific industries on your first try. You’ll get used to it. However, here are a few things you can try:
- Read a single blog in each industry you work in regularly. It might be “legal news” or “medical news” it doesn’t matter. Just pick a reputable and regularly updated news source and internalise the language.
- Occasionally go on forums and subreddits and the like. Don’t waste loads of time on this, but forums and subreddits are where you find the most jargon, stereotypical examples of members of a profession/field anywhere, because they base their identity around their field; otherwise, they wouldn’t be on a forum for it.
- Go undercover in one of these places as a “student of the field.” It’s only slightly lying and people tend to be happy to help.
Pitching For Jobs and Marketing Your Service
Alright… you know a bit about your field. You can write a reasonable article (and you should – write some portfolio pieces to get yourself sounding natural) and you want to get some jobs in the field.
Start with Fiverr using this article. Seriously.
If you don’t want to start with Fiverr, then you can test yourself in the markets of other freelance sites or, gasp, the real world. The way to get yourself copywriting clients in competitive copywriting niches is to remember a few things:
- Research what other copywriters are doing for businesses, and find a way to do it better.
- Demonstrate this through a “big idea.”
- Go where the market looks for service providers… not where gurus and people selling you on providing the service live.
- Remember the three keys to a successful freelance business.
For those of you who don’t know what the keys are, they’re here again:
- Provide a relevant service that fills a need.
- Provide it to a high standard.
- Provide it promptly without any complications.
That doesn’t matter if you’re making a flyer for your nephew’s football team or working on a marketing campaign for a global brand. Those three things are the backbone of any freelance service.
Final Thoughts
No matter how complicated the task or field you’re trying to work in, you follow the same basic steps.
I’ve spent the last few articles talking about business mistakes. The biggest mistake you can make is making something more complicated than it needs to be. A lot of competitive copywriting niches are that way because various industries have had hundreds of years to make things more complicated than they need to be, and so their requirements for knowledge create a high barrier to entry.
If you reverse the trend and concentrate on providing high quality services with a lack of complexity at their core, then you’ll do well, regardless of how competitive copywriting niches might seem to an onlooker.