The 25 Secrets of freelance copywriting success

by Nicky on December 27, 2008

For most Direct Response Copywriters Bob Bly needs no introduction. I have his books among my must-read reference tools and several of his practical excellent down to earth reports – many of which I use to build my own business.

I’ve been on Bob’s newsletter mailing list for a couple of years now and invariably he provides refreshingly down to earth, practical information to his readers.

Best of all, I find Bob’s internet marketing approach is completely “sans hype” and sans “BS.”

Bob’s latest email newsletter on December 26th gave me so many “yes!” moments that I immediately emailed him back and asked if I could share it with you on my blog – he said yes. While I already use several of these excellent tips, I found some new ones and some timely reminders.

If you’re a freelance copywriter (or an aspiring freelance copywriter), I hope you find the list as useful as I did.

Here goes.

1- Work with clients whom you genuinely like – or at least have good personal chemistry with.

2-Your freelance copywriting business exists to serve your clients. Without them, you’d starve.

3- If you want to have the final say on your copy without being told what to say and how to write it, market your own line of products, and make yourself your primary copywriting client.

4- Do not promise your copy will generate a specific result. It is unethical and not true: no one can guarantee a particular response rate.

5-Proofread every piece of copy before you send it to the client. I recommending hiring a freelance proof-reader; it is difficult to proof your own copy well.

6 -When can you raise your fees? When you have so much business that you can afford to lose clients who are not willing to pay the higher fees.

7- Use a standard PC with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint,and other standard software packages. Don’t write on oddball word processors, use antiquated software, or send nonstandard file formats that your clients can’t open and read.

8 -Number each page in your copy manuscript, so that if the pages get separated, you can easily put them in order. Also, in a discussion, it lets you and the client reference sections on specific pages.

9- The easiest way to prevent yourself from getting ripped off by deadbeats is to get half your fee in advance before you even start the job.

10- Never work without a written contract that the client has signed off on. Verbal go-aheads are not enough.

11- Trust your instincts. If you have a bad feeling about a client or a project, turn it down. Your gut feelings are right 95% of the time.

12- Be humble, not arrogant. If you are a nice person and your copy doesn’t work, the client will give you another chance. But if you are a jerk and your copy flops, you’re out.

13- Find a peer or someone else whose judgment you trust. Give the headline and lead of every promotion you write (the first page or two will usually suffice) to that outside reader for a second opinion. Never send out copy that at least one person other than you, even your spouse, has read and commented on.

14- Use more charts and graphs in your copy to support your key claims. Even when the reader doesn’t really understand a chart or graph, the fact that there IS a chart or graph helps convince them that what you say must be true.

15- Keep up-to-date in your field – both in marketing as well as the topics (e.g., health, investments) you write about.

16- The only way to become a better writer is to read and to write. Read and write every day. Read magazines, newspapers, and books during your leisure time.

17- Get up early and dive into your toughest copywriting assignment first thing in the morning, without delay. Work until you tire. In the afternoons, you can tackle less demanding tasks like reading background material or answering e-mails.

18-Create a workspace that is comfortable, isolated, and quiet. Barking dogs, ringing door bells, TV in the background, and screaming kids all harm your productivity.

19- Give yourself small rewards throughout the day for accomplishing various work-related tasks; e.g., going out to a coffee shop for lunch instead of eating at your desk.

20- While negotiating the work agreement with your client, ask for at least a week more than you need. As a corollary, never accept jobs that must be started and finished overnight.

21- Don’t take it personally when a client calls and says “I don’t like the copy.” Instead say: “I want to make it as strong as we can. Tell me your thoughts and suggestions.”

22- Should you argue with changes your client suggests if you think they are wrong? Only if you think they will depress response. If the client does not change his mind, acquiesce pleasantly and make the changes. But send a polite e-mail noting your objection and keep a copy in the file.

23- Get adequate rest. If you are not rested after a night’s sleep, start going to bed an hour earlier. You need to be mentally sharp to write copy, and you won’t be if you’re tired.

24 – Read your copy aloud at a normal speaking pace. Doing so will reveal awkward constructions that you would otherwise gloss over when reading copy silently.

25 – Write in a conversational manner, using words that your prospects would use to help create rapport with the people you’re selling to.

Reprinted on Nickyjameson with the kind permission of Bob Bly

How Much Do Top Tier Bloggers and Social Media Consultants Get Paid? We Asked Them!
Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / October 9, 2008 12:17 PM / 69 Comments

The media world is changing and its jobs are changing too. The rise of the blogger is an often-told story, but are the lucky few bloggers who do it for a living well paid? We did a survey to find out.

We asked 20 top-tier tech bloggers and social media consultants to tell us how much they get paid, by the post, by the hour or by the month – however their rates are set. Half of them told us, on the condition that we wouldn’t disclose who they were or where they worked.

The end result is an anecdotal overview of what some of the top tech bloggers and social media consultants are making. These aren’t the founders of big blogs, these are their employees and people who get work writing, doing trainings or consulting for tech companies.

There are a handful of people in tech blogging that make even more than this but the vast majority of people who get paid to blog get paid far less. To be honest we have no idea what it’s like outside the Web 2.0 world. (Honestly, is it raining?) We hope that no one will be too angry with us if these numbers lead their employees to feel newly shortchanged and protest. These folks are at the top of their field.

Our methodology was to email people we trust to be honest and who trust us to keep their identities secret, and ask them to post anonymously their rates and the rates they can confirm of co-workers or employees they’ve overseen within the last year. We realized after performing the survey that we should have asked our respondents whether the current US economic downturn was impacting their rates but to be honest, it didn’t occur to us to ask. Maybe that tells you something, too.

We were told pay rates for per-post blogging jobs, full-time blog and social media jobs and for hourly consulting.
Payment Per Blog Post

Most people who are paid to blog are paid per post. What kinds of rates are our respondents seeing? The low end of the scale was $10 per post for very short posts. Almost everyone else said they were paid $25 per post. One person said they were paid $80 per post! One respondent said they were paid $200 per item of long-form writing; bloggers often do other kinds of writing as well.

How does this work out long term? Based on our experience working for many different blogs, we believe that most per-post blogging gigs assume you’ll write an average of 3 blog posts in 4 hours. It often takes longer than that to write 3 posts but ambitious bloggers, like the ones we surveyed, know that at this stage you put in extra unpaid hours just to get ahead.

Let’s say these people are half-time pro-bloggers making $25 per post, writing 3 posts per day. That’s $75 per half-day, a little less than $20 per hour, about $1500 to $1750 per month for half time work. Take two of those jobs at once, do it for a year, and you’ll make about $40k. Everyone’s got different arrangements, though, so it’s hard to take these kinds of annual projections too seriously.

The world is full of people who would be insanely jealous of people who make $40k a year blogging, if it was widely known that you could do that for a living. The biggest rewards aren’t the money, though, but the thrill of writing and the ability to dedicate time to the subject you love.

The truth is, very few people are able to get jobs like this. A small number of those who are so lucky take the next step, financially, and move into a full time position with a blog or go in-house doing social media work at a marketing agency or software company.
The Wages of the In-house/Full-Time Blogger

Career minded bloggers coming up through the ranks of the per-post writers sometimes land full time jobs writing, managing other part time bloggers and performing other social media activities like events planning, promotion, etc. Sometimes this work is done as an employee, sometimes as an extended “consulting” relationship. Some of them get work at blogs, others do similar work for marketing firms and software companies. The founders of the big tech blogs now spend most of their time running the businesses they started. These second-in-command type social media positions have a wide range of pay rates.

Our respondents reported annual pay rates ranging from $45k and $55k with benefits (!) up to $70k, $80k and $90k with bonuses. We’re tempted to say, based on the anonymously submitted but descriptive replies we got, that the closer to pure journalism our respondents were doing the lower their wages were. That’s not always the case, but social media management and working for marketing firms were clear indicators of higher end pay rates. That makes sense.

Based on our experience and conversations in the industry, we can say that all of the people doing this work full time are putting in at least 50 to 60 hour work weeks, often longer. That means most are making the equivalent of $20 to $35 dollars per hour. One factor not taken into consideration here is equity, the full time bloggers and in-house social media pros who are working for startups are hoping to get a nice payday in the unlikely event that their company is acquired.

There are certainly a handful of full time bloggers making six figures, as well. Robert Scoble famously noted that even after everything he did to humanize Microsoft, they never paid him $100k annually, so we presume he’s making more than that at Fast Company. He’s barely a blogger, but Walt Mossberg is rumored to be paid $1 million per year. It’s safe to assume that some in the upper echelon of traditional media reporters now blogging for mainstream press are making more than anyone we surveyed as well.
Consulting – The Big Money

Social media consultants, expert practitioners with multiple years of success in the kinds of positions discussed above and in some cases in traditional marketing jobs, are the ones making the most money.

No one we surveyed named an hourly consulting rate below $150 per hour. $300 per hour was the most common rate named. Some listed monthly rates of $2k to $4k per engagement, which we assume probably means 20 to 40 hours per month.

Social media (or in many cases Search Engine Optimization) consulting is probably making a fair number of people six figures. What are these people doing? They are advising companies on how to set up and run blogs, how to reach out to and relate to bloggers, how to use Twitter (seriously) and how to make advanced use of RSS. The SEO work is probably the most technical, but degrees of technical challenge are all relative. A lot of this work is about communication skills.

It’s a new world online and people with experience succeeding in it are widely sought-after by businesses wanting to catch up fast. There’s a nearly bottomless need for and a strong demand for high-quality social media consulting – the big challenge is bridging the gap between living a Web 2.0 life and reaching out effectively to people.

We believe there are a fair number of snake-oil salespeople in the social media consulting field as well, but we didn’t survey any of those people.
Conclusion – This Part of the Economy Has Been Strong, if Small, So Far

We don’t want to claim that there are a lot of people making the kind of money discussed above for blogging or consulting. It’s still a very small sector. Between advertising and venture capital, revenues in this sector can’t be considered secure during a time of economic down turn.

There are far more people working in social media industries making less money than the people discussed above and the vast majority of participants don’t make any money at all in this economy. Making money isn’t really the point for most people, but there is an economy around social media and so some people are making money. We believe that this informal survey shows how much money some of the top people in the sector are making. Does this sound crazy to you? Compared to other professions does it seem like too little money? Far too much? Let us know what you think in comments below.

Illustration titled “Blogging Au Plein Air, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot” by Flickr user Mike Licht

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