How to Become a Successful Freelance Copywriter

Copywriting today is a lucrative field for a writer. With businesses around the world struggling to adapt to the changes brought about by Covid-19, copywriters have been quite productive working remotely. As more and more companies are learning the importance of a good copywriter for their marketing strategies, the demand for quality writers has increased immensely. 

It’s a well-known fact that freelancers generally charge more than you would pay an in-house writer. That means that if a copywriter works as a full-time freelancer, they can potentially earn way more than their in-house counterparts. 

Our guide below will help you understand the benefits of working as a freelance copywriter and earn a six-figure income developing incredible copies. 

What Does a Copywriter Do?

It’s a copywriter’s job to know how to develop the various types of copywriting. Basically, a copywriter creates content meant to promote and market a product, service, or business. It makes a copywriter an essential part of a marketing team. 

As part of a marketing team, a copywriter generates content in several formats, including:

• Articles and blog posts
• Brochures
• Landing pages
• Emailers
• Scripts for videos
• Product descriptions
• White papers

And more.

All of them are designed to do one thing – influence their readers to act a certain way and fulfill a particular task. 

Some copywriting types are developed to get instantaneous reactions, such as landing pages, social media ads, or product descriptions. These are known as direct response copywriting.

Other copywriting types focus on guiding the reader into a place where they are ready to take action. White papers, blog posts, and ads are designed to establish brand authority and count on the reader acting a little down the road. These are known as brand copywriting. 

Considering an average marketing scenario, both types of copywriting described above are necessary to a balanced and successful content marketing strategy. 

Perks of Being a Freelance Copywriter

If you are new to the world of copywriting, we suggest that you start as an in-house copywriter with a marketing team or agency. Working in close proximity to various marketing experts will teach you what is required of a writer like you and help you grow as a professional. 

While nothing stops you from starting your copywriting career as a freelancer, it’ll be twice as hard to gain new customers and earn a living. But for those with two or more years of in-house experience under their belts, starting a freelance career is the right shift. 

There are many benefits to working as a freelance copywriter, including:

• Dictate your working hours
• Be your boss
• Manage your creative process, your way
• Earn as much as you want
• Better employment security

Making the shift from full-time employment to freelancing may take a little getting used to. Still, once you are comfortable working at your convenience, you will be able to boost your copywriting career and earnings immensely. 

Now that you’re sold over the idea of working as a freelance copywriter let’s look at how you can earn a steady income valuing in the hundreds of thousands. 

How to Become a Successful Copywriter

Listed below are five methods that can help an aspiring freelance copywriter start their journey to earn a six-figure income yearly. While none of them are straightforward in their regards, they are the simplest ways to experience success as a copywriter.

Let’s find out what they are.

Learn to Influence Your Readers with Persuasive Copies

With copywriting being a way to attract and influence consumers the way you desire, it requires the writer to be an expert in the art of persuasion. Using their content to guide a reader into acting is essentially what a copywriter is supposed to do. 

Learning how to persuade others to your point of view is an essential skill in general and can help you become a great copywriter. And it isn’t hard to learn this skill either. There is a vast collection of resources available online teaching specifically teaching you how to write a copy to persuade your readers. 

Ranging in complexity from beginner to expert, these resources teach you the what and how of persuasive writing in marketing. 

Brush Up on Crucial Copywriting Skills

Next to us is to know how to use those persuasive writing skills to maximize their impact on your readers. Knowing how to persuade your readers won’t give you the results you desire unless you know how to use it best to get the desired impact. There are many applications where these skills are required, such as:

• Writing a compelling headline
• Developing content for a landing page
• Writing marketing emails
• Developing advertisements for the print world
• Creating an attractive video script

Now, it isn’t necessary to learn how to do it all, especially if you are a newcomer to the field. Instead, pick a combination of the applications above and learn how to implement your persuasive content skills into them. Try to select options that complement each other, thus helping you learn skills required alongside one another. 

Consider starting with learning how to write a strong headline. When combined with high quality blog content, it will be sure to attract a larger number of readers. It is one of the biggest reasons that 45% of marketing specialists agree that compelling blogs are the best strategy to drive leads. 

Earn Your First Customers

Learning can only take you so far when not accompanied by practical experience. Therefore, it’s necessary to get your first customers as soon as possible. It may also be one of the most challenging tasks on our list, but essential if you want to be a successful copywriter. 

As a newcomer with no portfolio to show for it, it can be hard to dictate your price to most customers. To get started, the first step is to ask senior writers and editors if they can review your work so that you can get some valuable feedback. While a majority might decline to do so, a few might be willing to help you develop better content to attract customers. 

The best way to attract clients is to develop a portfolio of sample projects, which will help potential clients judge the quality of your work. The better the quality of your sample copies, the higher the chances of getting hired by a client.

Streamline Your Freelance Writing Process

Now that you’ve gained a few paying clients, the next step is to streamline and simplify your work processes. What it means is to use the experience you’ve achieved so far to devise a proper workflow that will make the entire task easier the next time over. 

This workflow process would address how to:

• Attract leads
• Convert and close sales
• Get the required project brief
• Collect payments for finished projects
• Deliver your projects
• Perform quality assessment of your work for reference

The purpose is to help you figure out any areas you might lack and rectify them for a better and less stressful work experience.

Develop a System of Recurring Leads

The most crucial factor to be a copywriter that succeeds is the ability to bring in repeat business. This will help you develop a consistent network of steady income and work, ensuring that you’ll still keep earning even when you fail to attract new customers. 

Unfortunately, this takes time to develop but requires that a copywriter work on building these relationships right from the start. And suppose a dedicated copywriter works hard to foster such relationships through impeccable content quality and good customer service. In that case, they can develop an excellent recurring business network in as little as a year. 

• A few ways to build this type of network include:
• Search engine optimization
• LinkedIn marketing
• Guest blogging
• Paid ads

In The End

This guide lists some of the best tried-and-true methods to succeed as a freelance copywriter to generate a six-figure income or more. But there’s something vital that you need to remember – each copywriter advances at their own pace. Just because another writer achieved this goal in a shorter time than you does not mean that you’ve failed; it just shows that you need to work a little harder.

But if you follow the methods listed above, you’ll soon taste the benefits of a successful and affluent career as a freelance copywriter.