Reader Q: I’ve Learned Copy, What To Do With It?

Reader Q: I’ve Learned Copy, What To Do With It?

A Twitter follower and reader writes in:

Learning copywriting is the first best step for all online business things.

But what do you do once your apprenticeship is over?

I can help you there.

So for everyone reading, here’s the path I suggest.

This will depend on three things:

• Your budget
• Your timeframe
• Finally, your goals

If you want to make money quickly, then creating a content-based business is out. If you want to make money with no money down, then ecommerce is out. Passive income is another thing entirely because you need either capital or time: So freelancing isn’t your best bet.

Here’s the path I took to online riches, and it’s the best path for getting from $0 in the bank through to multiple successful businesses.

Freelancing

There are two types of freelancing so far as “copywriting” goes.

The first, and what most people talk about online, is basically content writing. You write articles and general purpose content.

This is the quickest way to make easy money, but there’s a hard limit on what you can command. I started here and if you’re a student with a limited budget who wants to take their first steps into freelancing, start here.

The second is what I’d call “actual copywriting.”

Direct response copywriting is great as a skill and can be a freelance business all on its own. When people say, “You can only make so much freelancing” they obviously aren’t talking about direct response copywriting.

Some direct response copywriters make millions per year based on their writing fee plus royalty rates.

This is writing copy in the form of sales letters for direct response marketing companies, and funnels and sales letters for affiliates (and other folks.)

There are of course other routes to take: You can start specialised freelance writing services which can sustain you – especially if you work in more services and expand.

For instance, you could start an online “medical marketing company” which focuses mostly on funnels but also writes white papers for medical companies.

Big companies will pay thousands for a white paper, but you need the technical knowledge.

There are tons of other businesses you can run just with freelance writing as a skill because tons of businesses and individuals need to sell through the written word.

The lack of autonomy will get to you in the end and you’ll get burnout, but you can make a lot of money before that happens. It’s also the best place to start if you need money quickly and you have time on your hands.

Building Content-Based Businesses

If you don’t have much time, (and probably if you do) then you should think about content-based businesses.

Websites, email lists and book publishing is a great way to make money with a little money down. The issue with this business model is that it takes time to accumulate content which works for you.

So you can’t just start a blog and expect to be rich by the end of the month. But with basic content writing skills, you can make a living in the long-term and unlike freelancing, you’re building assets for the future.

For instance, yesterday I unexpectedly couldn’t work. Today I probably won’t be working aside from this article either – and honestly my schedule for the next while is up in the air.

That’s not great if you’re freelancing or running a hands-on business.

But I woke up to the good news that I’d been paid out on an affiliate program that I haven’t written about in months, so I’m hundreds of dollars richer even though I haven’t done anything for ages.

I haven’t even checked any other accounts or my books sales for the weekend, but there’ll be sales.

This is the major benefit of starting content-based businesses.

If you have learned copywriting, you can sell anything passively. Get on affiliate programs, write some ebooks and special reports and write some sales letters. (If you’ve studied some great copywriting, then your technical skill should easily be enough to run a content-based business online.)

But if you want the really big money, you’ll want to put your skills towards what most folks would call real business.

Building Big Businesses

The biggest money in copywriting is to use it to sell goods that you own.

This can be digital goods, physical goods or other services.

The good news is that if you’ve mastered direct response copywriting, you have a lot of advantages over the countless businesses that don’t know what they are doing.

Essentially though, you’re selling stuff.

You need a budget to do this, and there are more skills involved than just copywriting. Therefore, I’d recommend you try this last after you’ve built a bit of capital and the skills necessary.

For when you’re ready to start with physical product business, James Holt’s course Start Dropshipping Stuff is a good one, and it’ll teach you how to build a store, run paid traffic and fill in all the blanks that you’ll have as a copywriter starting in ecommerce.

You can also take your direct marketing skills offline and help a ton more businesses.

Final Thoughts

So that’s how I’ve progressed really: Freelance, expand to other service businesses, expand to content businesses, expand to physical/unrelated businesses with direct response marketing knowledge as the competitive advantage.

Finding your own way and getting started is obviously the best course, but the path I’ve taken allows you to add to your skills and get paid to learn whilst allowing you to start with $0 in capital and build towards having passive income, working capital and everything else that’ll allow you to scale up.

For more on the specifics of all these methods, stay tuned and get on the email list.