Website: http://www.rothcopy.com

Specialty: Print, Interactive, Annual Reports

Rates: 100/hr

Add a compelling voice to your marketing and corporate communications. Engage expert copywriter Robert Roth.

Hiring a copywriter is like finding a new friend. There has to be a connection. Something has to click. And with me, it does. I’ve clicked with clients like Neenah Paper, Polo Ralph Lauren, Equifax, the U.S. Marine Corps, Capital One Bank and Newell Rubbermaid. I’ve also clicked with many small businesses and startups. Whether your objective is to persuade, influence, educate, change a perception, build a brand or close the sale, I can articulate your message—convincingly.

Here are some tips on how to find freelance copywriting jobs, online or off.

1. Improve your search engine rankings. — If a client is looking for an SEO copywriter (common when the copy is written for the Web), they’re not just looking for someone who understands marketing or PR or sales. They’re also looking for someone who can write search engine friendly copy. The easiest way to land these clients? Practice what you preach. If your own professional site doesn’t rank well when they’re searching for an SEO copywriter, why should they trust you to do better for their own site? Even if you’re not writing SEO copy, you’ll increase your chances of landing freelance copywriting jobs if people can find you more easily when they’re looking for a writer just like you.
2. Reach out to your network. — Let existing clients know you’re available for more work (you might even send them an idea, such as for a holiday or seasonal campaign piece). You can also ask them if they know of any colleagues that might be able to use your services. Good clients breed more good clients — you might be surprised by how willing they can be to send other work your way. Going back to colleagues, don’t forget about your own! If they don’t know what you specialize in, and you aren’t staying visible enough to be fresh on their mind, they’re not likely to think of you if a job comes along that you’d be perfect for. Your colleagues aren’t always interested in the offers they get, or those offers might not be in line with what they write. It’s in their best  interest to send a qualified referral (like you!) so that client knows they’re looking out for them, and they’ll sometimes go back to that other writer when they do have a project in their specialty area.
3. Showcase your knowledge. — Whether it’s releasing a free report, adding a blog to your business site, or just participating with tips and advice in communities where people want to learn about what you do as a freelance copywriter, sharing your knowledge can attract clients. When you discuss what you know, you show that you know what you’re doing and that can be attractive to people looking to fill freelance copywriting jobs. They might be looking for someone to step in quickly for a project, where they don’t have time to try to figure out if you know what you’re doing. The job will go to someone who clearly does. Be that writer.
4. Make that pitch. — Just because I don’t personally choose the querying approach, that doesn’t mean it can’t work. Look for companies that might need you (even if they don’t realize it yet), and pitch them on your services. You can do that through email, cold calling, direct mail, or any other method that would be effective with your target market. You can do this for offline projects (calling local businesses), or on the Web (identify a company with awful Web copy and offer to help them improve it — tactfully of course).

There is no single way to find freelance copywriting jobs that necessarily works better than others, but these tips will point you in the right direction. You need to determine what marketing style is going to work best for the types of clients you’d like to work with.

Of course, writing a successful sales letter is not something you will do on a whim. In fact, it takes a lot of practice to get good at this. Again, you are doing more than writing basic content that is meant to inform. Instead, your job is to sell the reader on whatever the target product or service may be.

Here are several tips for writing effective sales letters that convert:

1. Ask the client for details. When writing web content the client may say something like, “give me an article on anything that has to do with green living.” The same cannot be done with a sales letter. You need to collect the minimum amount of details to at least start the job.
2. Know the product or service you are trying to sell. How can you write about something if you do not know what it is? Try this tip: ask the client if you can test out the product or service for free. You will be surprised at how many are willing to do this. In fact, I have only been turned down a few times.
3. Hard or soft sell? There are two types of “sales tones” for the most part. The hard sell is when you go over-the-top and do everything you can to push the buyer into making a purchase. The soft sell is when you are more subtle with your words. Both can be effective, but only your client knows which one they are looking for.
4. Format. A sales letters can be formatted in many different ways. You should never assume that your next client wants the same format as the last one. For instance, some will ask for many headers followed by bullet points. Others, especially those who are not using an online letter, may opt for more of a paragraph form. If the client does not know what they want you are free to get creative.
5. Web or print? This goes along with the collection of details. Writing a sales letter for the web is much different than one that will be sent out via direct mail. Web pieces are often times very long and full of titles, bullets, images, and much more. On the other hand, print sales letters are straight to the point and “clean” in most cases.

These five tips should help you successfully write sales letters, no matter what the client is looking for.

Here’s what Angela had to say:

On How She Started in Copywriting…

“By accident. In the early 1980s I was writing romance novels for a British publisher (MacDonald Futura) and running a business as well. I considered myself a novelist. When I was growing up, I thought that all “real” writers wrote books, so I wasn’t interested in other forms of writing. The happiest day of my life was when I received a phone call to tell me that my first book had been accepted.

So I was happily writing novels, and running this business; it was a dog training operation. We were spending way too much money on straight advertising. I decided we needed publicity, and wrote some press releases, which brought in lots of customers. From then on, business colleagues and acquaintances asked me to write their publicity and advertising, and my copywriting career was launched.

For many years, all my copywriting clients came to me by word of mouth. Looking back, this was a good thing, because I knew the people, knew what they sold, and knew their businesses. This made writing copy easy; doing research before I wrote was automatic; I just talked to my clients. That became an excellent habit. Many new copywriters skimp on the research phase and write copy before they know the product they’re selling, and the copy suffers for it.”

On Needing Specialized Education or Experience Before Starting…

“Formal education-wise, the best thing I ever did was to take a marketing course. It took a couple of years of evening classes.

Experience-wise, for many years, the only copywriting I did for others was copywriting I was doing for myself. In the early years (1980s), I wrote advertising and press releases; I was doing it for the business anyway, and did it for others too.

This helped me to get very comfortable writing copy and testing it.”

On How Writers can get Started in Copywriting…

“Start off by working out what kinds of copy you want to write. Copywriting is a huge field. I begin my “Seven Days Copywriting” product by saying that copy is all around us, from the time we wake in the morning (spots on the radio, commercials on TV and the Internet, product labels on toothpaste, copy on cereal boxes…) until we fall into bed at night. Therefore, a new freelance copywriter needs to work out what kinds of copy he wants to write.

Once you know what you want to write, you can get an education in that. If someone who wants to freelance as a copywriter is already a writer, that’s a big help. Then you can write your own copy (as I did and have always done), and once you’re happy that you know what you’re doing, you can write copy for others.

There’s a HUGE market for copywriting, but most business people have a limited understanding of copywriting — many aren’t even aware that they can hire people to write their marketing collateral.

The Internet means that just about anyone can get hired to write copy, so it’s just a matter of learning, and you can earn while you learn.

As well as being a huge market for direct-response kinds of traditional copywriting, the Internet’s throwing up new opportunities all the time, especially in the audio-visual field — you can get hired to write video and audio scripts, as well as to maintain pages on social media sites like Facebook.

Learn and earn — that’s the best advice I could give anyone who’s thinking about taking up freelance copywriting.”

On Things Prospective Copywriters Should Know…

“Firstly, get comfortable selling. I’ve always found this easy, because when I started, I was focused on something else — the business I was running. I knew we provided a great services, and was focused on telling people about it. Selling came easily. Then I was focused on helping other small businesses and writing copy for them — and again, it was easy, because I could see that their products/ services were brilliant, and I loved getting the word out.

So being comfortable selling [is] vital, but it’s easier said than done. I know this from my own experience. I’ve always been great at marketing for others, but for most of my career fought shy of marketing myself. I didn’t have to do it — until around 2001, I was always too busy (writing books, magazine articles and writing for my copywriting clients) to worry about it.

Then the tech wreck happened, and suddenly many of my magazine clients vanished. I decided I’d make up the difference in income with copywriting clients, and that meant marketing, but it was hard — I had a visceral disgust about saying to people “I’m a great copywriter, hire me!” Which was funny, in a way; I was happy to market others, but very reluctant to do it for myself. So I forced myself to do it, and do it, and finally it became fun.

That’s the secret: if you love writing and want to write copy, but hate selling, just face it, and do it anyway. I promise that it WILL become fun for you, and you won’t look back.

Secondly, realize that your clients NEED you, and that they’re intimidated by you. This is a revelation to most new copywriters. They’re comfortable with words, and don’t think it’s a big deal, but most business people are not comfortable with words. They struggle even to produce a brief, let alone write copy. So if you’re a new copywriter, realize that your clients can’t do what you do, and moreover, they’re leery of you. They think skill with words is spooky — it’s witchcraft. New copywriters get lots of confidence when they realize that their clients need them.

Thirdly, be honest. When you’re new to copywriting, admit it. People will help you. You should always be honest in your copy too — if you think a product stinks, don’t take the gig. If you’re lying in your copy, people will know. This is the reason people talk about “hard sell” and “cheesy” copywriting. They know that the copywriter’s lying. Real copy vanishes — it’s completely transparent. If people read your copy, and feel uncomfortable, it means that the copy is lousy. Your own discomfort shines through. Be honest — there’s no other way to write good copy.”

On Angela Booth…

Angela Booth is a top copywriter, writing teacher and author. She’s been writing copy for around 30 years. Her writing blog at http://www.angelabooth.biz/ discusses copywriting and other forms of writing. If you’re a writer, and would like to begin a freelance copywriting career, Angela can help you to do that, in just seven days, at http://abmagic.com/Copywriting/copywriting.html

I have several other interviews confirmed, so I’d like to announce those interviewees so you have an idea of what’s coming up:

• Freelance Blogging – The corporate blogging authority, Debbie Weil
• Copywriting – The always-awesome Angela Booth
• Magazine Writing – Coming back for her second AFW interview, Linda Formichelli
• Playwriting – The not-so-one-and-only Jennifer Mattern (What can I say? If you want to be a writer, apparently it’s a good name to have!)
• Fiction / Novel Writing – The Marshall Plan creator Evan Marshall (soon to release his 10th novel!)
• Screenwriting / Writing for Television - Xandy Sussan, who has written for television shows for Disney, the WB, and Cartoon Network, stops by to talk about writing for the big (or small) screen
• Trade Publication Writing - Christa Miller will be sharing some thoughts on getting started writing for trade publications

I also have feelers out to folks for interviews covering Web content writing and technical writing. I’ll update this list (rather than posting another) as confirmations come in. I’m still looking for a freelance medical writer to chat with. If you know someone, please ask them to shoot me an email at jenn@allfreelancewriting.com.

If there are other types of writing you’d like to see covered in this series (they don’t have to be specifically freelance-related), leave a comment and let me know. I’ll do my best to track down a writer in the field to come and share some of their thoughts for you. :)

1. Promote the one you enjoy doing the most.
2. Promote the one that pays the most per project.
3. Promote them both equally.

They understood they would be working with two different target markets (and that’s a great start — a lot of new writers don’t get that in the beginning). In cases like that, promoting them both equally from Day 1 might not be the best option. It could lead to the writer spreading themselves too thin. After all, at that point you need to start building a reputation around the service(s) you’re offering, and it’s easier to do that when you narrow your focus.

Here’s what I suggested:

1. Forget about what you like most. It doesn’t mean there’s a big enough market for it. That’s not to say you won’t focus on that service, but that liking it shouldn’t be your primary reason for picking it. If you don’t like one of the options at all, then why are you doing it in the first place? It’s reasonable to assume that as a freelancer you like all of the options well enough that you won’t start to hate your job by focusing on any one of them in particular.
2. Forget about per-project rates at this point too. Instead think about your overall income potential with each service. That includes not only your rate, but the average time it takes you to complete each type of project and the size of the market for that project.
3. Give added emphasis to the type of writing you’re more qualified to do. If you don’t have any education, experience, or other credentials that would demonstrate value to clients, then what’s your selling point going to be? (Remember, price is not a smart selling point for services!)

Let me use myself as an example. The bulk of my income right now comes from press release writing and blogging. Professional blogging is something I fell into as clients found me through my own blogs. Press release writing, however, is what I initially chose to focus on. I had good reasons: I knew what I was doing, there was a huge growing demand for online press release writing and not many people specializing in it when I started, I had a degree in PR and ran an online PR firm at the time, I had training in “white hat” SEO principles, and I had plenty of experience. Even if I wanted to focus on blogging then, it wouldn’t have made sense. My selling points fell more in line with press release writing.

Two of my favorite types of projects are actually white paper writing and ghosting feature articles for clients to pitch to trade publications. Yet I don’t even mention those services on my business site. Why? First, those projects have longer lead times where you really need to get to know your client’s business in depth — therefore I choose to only pitch them to existing clients I’ve worked with (it improves my bottom line significantly when I already know the company, products, and services well). Another reason is that even though I may charge more for those projects, they take much longer to complete than something like a press release or a blog post. Therefore I can actually earn more blogging at $100-200 per article in a month than I could earn with a $2000+ white paper, while putting in fewer billable hours (white papers can certainly take more than 10-20 hours).

Please note: That is not to say you should use that excuse to justify taking on low paying jobs (saying “but I can write four of them per hour”). That’s another topic entirely, where you need to consider your reputation, the burnout factor, and other issues.

There really is a lot to consider. First and foremost remember that you’re in business. You need to make money. But you should also enjoy what you do (otherwise, why not just work a 9-5 job for someone else?). You need to strike a balance.

So tell me… what service do you promote most heavily, and why did you choose it?

I’m going to over-simplify for the sake of clarity here, but there can occasionally be pieces that cross the lines. However, in most cases here is what content is / does, and the same for copy:

Content – Content is designed to inform, educate, or entertain in most cases. For example, a how-to article is content.

Copy – Copy, on the other hand, is generally designed to persuade or entice the reader to action. This can be blatant such as marketing copy telling people to buy your product or sign up for your newsletter or click on some link. It can also be much more subtle. For example, the homepage copy on a business website is copy rather than content, as would be the text on something like an “About Us” page. Why? Because that copy is designed to give a certain image of the company – you’re persuading them to trust you by giving background information that helps them make a decision put before them by your more overt copy. The overt sales-oriented copy might be referred to as direct response marketing copy, but not being direct response copy doesn’t make the rest any less copywriting.

To be a great content writer in a niche, your best assets are your knowledge of the subject matter, your credentials that make you a trusted source, and your research ability. On the other hand, to be a great copywriter, you not only have to be able to write, but you have to be able to persuade – you should have a solid grasp of basic marketing and consumer psychology.

I’ve been combing through posts for the last few days compiling this list, which is broken down into the following categories:

• Before You Become a Writer
• The Art of Writing
• Finding / Getting Writing Jobs
• Business, Management, & Finances
• Marketing / Promotion
• Portfolios
• Writing for Magazines
• Copywriting / Business Writing
• Web Content Writing
• Blogging
• Other Types of Writing (such as medical writing, technical writing, essay writing, etc.)

While many of the articles are tailored to freelance writers, that site actually is dedicated to both freelancers and full-time writers, so no matter what type of writer you are, I hope you find something useful there.

Do you think you have what it takes to succeed as a freelance copywriter? Before jumping into freelance copywriting, take some time to learn more about the following three things: marketing fundamentals, sales, and consumer psychology. Understanding these three things to a better degree will absolutely help in a copywriting career.

Marketing Fundamentals – You can’t write effective copy for a client if you don’t fully understand who their target market is. Not all clients can tell you that – they expect you to figure it out. So brush up on market research. This is also going to help you work with the client on using the copy in positioning them against competitors.

Sales – Take some time to look at existing sales and marketing materials (company websites, brochures, sales letters, landing pages, etc.). Find samples from sites you know are successful, and look for similarities, trying to understand why certain things work.

Consumer Psychology – You know your target market, and you’ve looked at lots of examples. Other than simply copying the copy of others, you need to understand at least a little bit about consumer psychology in order to go from being an average copywriter to a great one. What does this mean? You’ll want to understand why consumers do what they do, buy what they buy, and react to things in certain ways. For example, consumers react differently to different colors, and that knowledge is used in crafting marketing material all the time (so you might want to know what colors headings should be in a sales letter for example). This also goes back to market research. It’s one thing to identify who that target market is. It’s something else to really understand them and what motivates them to do what you want them to do (and what makes them decide against it). For example, if you’re writing copy for a company targeting parents of young children, you’ll need to understand what concerns those parents have, and what values they have when it comes to making purchases that affect their children.

You won’t become an expert on all three fronts overnight. But start early, and make it a point to continue learning. Here are a couple of resources to get you started:

• Principles of Marketing – free online “textbook”
• Consumer Behavior: The Psychology of Marketing

And it’s time for another Freelance Friday collection of blog posts for freelance writers! Yay for the end of the work week! Let’s go meet some new faces and say hello to some of our favorite bloggers. Here’s what’s going on lately in the blogosphere on freelance writing:

• Freelance Writing: Becoming a Commentary Writer
• New Ways to Earn More Money as a Writer
• How to Start Blogging for Money
• The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Freelancers
• 4 Steps to Create a Great Pitch and Sell Your Writing
• How Batch Processing Made Me 10 Times More Productive
• The Cost of Starting a Freelance Writing Career
• Social Media, Karma, and Coffee Breaks in the Business of Freelance Writing
• Freelance Writing: Sales Letters
• The Mistake a Web Content Writer Should Never Make
• How to Get Blog Jobs: You Need a Plan
• What Makes a Successful Blogger Successful?
• Tough Decisions in Freelance Writing
• What Can Writers Do in a Down Economy?
• Here is How Most Authors Approach Publicity
• How do You Tell People You’re a Writer?
• 100 Useful Web Tools for Writers
• Interview with Self Publishing Guru Peter Bowerman
• Want to be a Freelance Writer? Get Ready for Business!
• Magazine ‘Lead Times’
• Free Report: The Great Copywriting Conspiracy
• Get Your Headline Mojo Moving: 52 Idea Starters, No Excuses