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.

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