An Easy Way To Get Copywriting Clients In A New Niche
I’m trying to break into a new copywriting niche. I haven’t ever written anything like the companies I’m targeting look for before, and so naturally I’m not just jumping in and saying, “I can do it!”
You can do that and I have done in the past, but it’s better to exercise a little caution.
Here’s my plan, which you can follow if you want to break into a new market.
Plan for Copywriting In A New Market
Find a list of companies that you want to work with. Make sure that they actually need copywriters before you do. Especially if you’re doing direct response copywriting (i.e. sales letters) you’re best off targeting companies that already have them.
Read a few of their sales letters and watch a few of their videos. There’ll be some exceptional examples and some terrible examples of copy. There’ll also be middle-of-the-road examples that you think you can improve on, but you’re not sure.
Either way, watch those and make a note of what they include – this is what a company looks for. Make notes on this.
Get a feel for the general ethos of the company while you’re at it. It’ll be helpful when you come to write your pitch.
Finally, go through your swipe file and find some good examples of copy that has similar structure and similar language to what you’re seeing from the company.
Now we move on to the real stuff.
Either find an affiliate offer in the niche or make up a product out of thin air. It might be an ebook about personal finance or an online workout program. It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that you’re going to create your own examples of work that mimic the exact style and structure of the companies you have been studying. You’re going to research the market, study the sales letters and create your own unique version.
Only when you’ve done that do you work on your pitch.
It should be pretty obvious why, but you’re going to use the examples in your pitch.
Something like
“Hi Bob,
I’m a freelance copywriter and I’ve heard you’re looking for freelance copywriters. I’ve just checked out everything I could find on you – congratulations on the recent launch of X.
I’d like to help with your next one… here are some samples and here’s a list of pretty obvious reasons you should hire me.
Thanks,
Jim”
Doing this simple step will give you a taste of writing for that market. If you can’t write a single sales page without boring yourself to tears or crying because you don’t know anything about the niche, then you’re not ready to pitch to clients.
Also, it’ll put you above the myriad people who throw out spam pitches in a big way. The reason you write the sales letters is so that your would-be client gets a feel for your writing style. They’re probably going to like it too because you’ve basically created it out of their existing sales letters anyway.
So, there’s a quick way to create a pitch.
Finally, it’s unlikely that your new client is going to check that the project is for a real company. Obviously don’t lie and say, “This is a sales page that brought in $20 million dollars” when it’s not real, but what you’re showing them here is your writing style anyway.
In an ideal world, go to Clickbank or whatever and write a sales letter for one of those products. Bonus points if you throw it up, send some paid traffic to it ($10 or whatever) and see how many conversions you get. Then you could honestly say, “This sales page converted at 9%.”
Final Thoughts
I could conclude here, but the article is pretty basic. It’s a step-by-step that’s literally hot-off-the-presses. I’m going to use this exact method to pitch some clients next week.
It’s a method that’s simple to follow, but not so simple that it can be copy-pasted by any spammer or scammer within a global radius and pimped out to every contact form on WordPress.
(Fun fact: I once wrote an email for someone on Fiverr to help them get clients. For about six months afterwards it got spammed right into mine (and everyone else’s) inbox. Sorry guys.)
Most people aren’t going to do the above, yet it’s as easy and pain free as can be. (It’s cold emailing – but done better.)
Anyway, use this idea and let me know how you get on.