How I Win Copywriting Projects as a Freelancer (And You Can Too)
We prosper and thrive when passion meets financial ammunition
When I first started out as a freelance copywriter, my goal was to get paid. I know everyone thinks the same.
I interviewed an S.E.O. expert on my livestream last Thursday. When the broadcast ended, he admitted to doing work for free for the past 6 months. He was visibly upset.
And that prompted this article. How can we get paid projects as a young freelance copywriter or side-hustler involved in any form of gigs?
Let me share my experience below.
Be Ready to Confront Confused Prospects
When you start reaching out for paid copywriting projects, one thing is for sure. You will encounter a boatload of confused prospects.
“… Confused customers (prospects) won’t buy anything. They won’t return — at least not without a lot of effort from you and, perhaps, from their friends — and they won’t recommend you either.”
Your prospects are unique to your services. In copywriting, we work with a specific audience. It can be corporates looking for a website refurbishment, individuals setting up a new e-commerce website, or non-profits looking to strengthen their call-to-action for donations.
No matter who your target audience is, take note. Clarity is everything.
Study your buying behavior. You do not open your wallet when you are confused by the person in front of you. Therefore, to get prospects to pay us for copywriting (or other) projects, we must inject certainty.
There are many ways to do this.
- Be clear of your service offer.
- Be clear of what you can and cannot do.
- Be (really) clear how your copywriting project helps this prospect.
Be concise, humble, and confident. Avoid excessive service commitment (over a discovery call) just to win a deal.
And know this.
Prospects with high certainty make high-quality, low-regret deals. When they do, we score our first paying copywriting projects.
Now, let us get to the how.
Next — Help Confused Prospects Make Sense of Everything
We are drowning in information.
Every copywriter is attacking their prospects with blogs, social media posts, whitepapers, free trials, YouTube videos, articles, newsletters, media kits, so on so forth.
And younger freelance copywriters make the mistake of more is more. No. When it comes to information overload, more is less.
“Most people think they need MORE to succeed; more money, more power, more time, more friends, more fame, more ideas, more prayers, more knowledge. They have never considered that less is actually sufficient.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Before You Doubt Yourself: Pep Talks and other Crucial Discussions
Excessive information does not win paid copywriting projects. It kills them. What we need is to provide sufficient information to help our prospects reach a decision point.
I learned this the hard way.
I bombed prospects with what-I-can-do over a Zoom discovery session. I went on and on about doing this and that, ad infinitum.
Copywriting prospects (actually, all prospects) do not want that. For-profits want to know what you have done for other for-profits in their sector. Individuals want to know if you have written web copies on the product catalog page that drives traffic and sales.
Confused prospects never came back. I learned. Now, I ask questions and get my prospects to talk 90% of the time.
From there, I address their concerns.
- What do you write about? (I show and talk through my copywriting portfolio)
- How do you measure up against competitors? (I explain my writing niche)
- What is your experience on copywriting projects? (I enumerate the for-profits and non-profits organizations I worked with)
The best form of interaction is the Question & Answer format. You will always be addressing prospects’ concerns in real-time.
And. You will NEVER BE out of point.
Help Confused Prospects Be Aware of One Thing — You Are Trustworthy.
Have you ever surrendered money to someone you do not trust?
Not me.
“Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don’t expect it from cheap people.”
Time, attention, and energy are our life variables. Demonstrate trust in your service, and prospects feel safe to leave us alone. They know we will deliver.
They may surprise you too.
One of my initial paid copywriting projects was with a prospect-turned-client who had high expectations. That is good. The trouble is, Joe is always late for payment, 100% of the time.
When the project was due for final delivery, I commented (honestly) to Joe that I would never do work for him again. He was shocked. He asked why.
Because you never pay me on time, I muttered.
Joe was shocked. He called the finance person and apologized for ignoring this issue.
Joe mentioned he likes how I value timeliness and respect feedback (up to 2 feedback-based edits within the delivery window). To demonstrate goodwill, he offered to up the contract value by 1.5 times for the upcoming year.
Would that have happened if I had submitted my work late? I doubt.
And oh. Joe stuck with me for 3 years.
And this is my point. Trust allows us to keep paying customers longer.
Summary
Passion creates obsession. Obsession builds skillsets.
Monetizing skillsets require us to understand the person we are pitching to. Many prospects are confused by the creator economy.
There are (just) too many of us.
And so, to get paid services, such as copywriting projects, we need to help them make sense of what we do and their buying decisions.
Above all, remember this. A confused prospect buys nothing. The opposite is true. Injecting clarity into our prospects means paid projects and more.
And that works. 80% of the time.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
