Tag: copywriting

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Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

How to Start Writing Professionally: Essential steps for Aspiring Authors

Landing your first professional writing gig can feel like an uphill task if you’re an aspiring author. Things can feel particularly bleak if you’re tied to the idea of landing a creative role and don’t want to take on positions in fields like advertising and content creation.

However, some of the world’s most cherished authors started their careers writing for commercial publications. Kurt Vonnegut famously learned his craft as a copywriter, as did novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and sports journalist Murray Walker.

Being willing to take on commercial roles helps you hone your craft while working on creative side projects. You’ll master the art of the sentence while working on challenging briefs and are sure to widen your vocabulary while searching for new superlatives for a new candy bar or automobile.

Starting a Freelancing Side Hustle

Taking your first steps into the world of freelancing can be an exciting time. Turning your conjugations, commas, and clauses into hard cash is internally rewarding, too, as all that time spent in English classes finally starts to pay off. However, if you want to be successful in freelancing, you’ll need to treat your writing like a business rather than a creative pursuit.

You need to invest in yourself and your skill set to stand out from the crowd. At a minimum, you should set aside funds for further education and devote a few weeks of the year to attending workshops, advertising your new business, and improving your setup.

If you’re working with limited capital, consider taking a personal loan to cover start-up costs like computers, keyboards, and website domain hosting. Personal loans give you some additional flexibility but must be repaid on time lest they impact your credit score. As such, you’ll want to create a clear budget to set you up for long-term success as an author.

You don’t necessarily need to break the bank on courses, either. Some of the best copy/content writing courses are entirely free, including:

These courses cost you nothing and look great on your resume. They also prove that you’re serious about starting in the world of freelance writing and are aware of wider industry trends.  

Setting Yourself Up for Success

Before you can start charging for your wordsmithing skills, you must ensure you are ready to take on work. This may sound odd — after all, you’ve always found time to write for yourself at home — but things get a little more serious when writing professionally. Start by making the most of super-productive time-management tips like:

  • Scheduling time to respond to emails;
  • Minimizing distractions in your workspace;
  • Planning the day’s activities in advance;
  • Set (and stick to!) working hours.

You’ll also need to invest in upgrading your internet connection. Fiber optic offers the best internet for remote work, as it typically offers a huge bandwidth, fast download speeds, and great upload rates. You don’t want to wait for pages to load for emails to send when you’re up against the clock on demanding projects.

When investing in your setup, be sure to pick up two monitors. This insider’s trick will save you hours every week, as you’ll likely be referring to content from across the web when writing copy for businesses, blogs, and big brands. A second monitor will pay dividends in a short period by meaningfully bolstering your productivity and reducing the amount of time you spend clicking through tabs.

You’ll also need to create a strong portfolio if you want to continue to see the cash roll in for your content creation services. A strong portfolio is essential when applying for roles or liaising with clients, as people will want to see that you have a strong track record of producing high-quality content. Work with a website builder to streamline the process or expand your skill set by creating your own site using a hosting service like Weebly, WordPress, or Squarespace.

Finding Time for Creative Projects

Leaping into the world of professional writing can help you hone your wordsmithing skills and can quickly turn into a full-time gig. However, when writing professionally, it’s easy to overlook your own creative projects.


Make time for your next novel, poetry collection, or journalism by creating a writing ritual and scheduling a day for creative projects. For example, if you typically work from Monday to Friday, consider dedicating the occasional Friday solely to non-work projects. Doing so can protect your love for creative writing and will help you achieve goals like publishing short stories or landing a creative position in a poetry journal.

Conclusion 

Writing professionally is easier than most writers imagine. However, before you start charging for your services, you need to ensure that you are set up for success. Get the ball rolling by gaining a few qualifications and upgrading your setup. High-speed wifi, dual monitors, and a basic understanding of SEO principles will set you apart from the crowd and help you earn more as a writer

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

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Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

The Craft of Realism: Writing Authentic Medical Emergency Scenes in Fiction

Medical scenes can be a great way to explore the natural drama of life. These types of events frequently result in high emotions, life-and-death stakes, and even conflicts. However, it’s also vital to be authentic in your approach. When medical scenes strike a reader as realistic, it can pull them right out of the narrative, leaving you struggling to get them back into it.

Creating effective medical emergency scenes isn’t just about establishing a richly-described setting, with beeping electrocardiogram (ECG) equipment or malfunctioning vending machines. You also need to focus on making the characters and their actions as true to life as possible.

So, how can you go about this? Let’s explore a few things to consider.

Seek Expertise

Unless you are a medical professional, you’re unlikely to have many authentic insights into the professional side of medical emergencies. This is particularly important if you’re writing from the perspectives of doctors, nurses, and paramedics. Sure, many writers have been on the patient side of things, but this isn’t always the same as having the day-to-day technical knowledge to write convincing scenes.

So, what can you do? Wherever possible, seek a source of expertise. Look for medical professionals with experience in the situations you’re hoping to depict. Reach out to your immediate network and see if there are friends or family with connections that you can chat with. Even retired medical providers can give you some useful insights.

While authenticity is important, this doesn’t mean you have to overload your readers with dense medical jargon. That can certainly be off-putting. When you’re talking to experts, aim to get a good overall sense of the actions taken during procedures and the equipment being used. This ensures that you can paint the scene without leaning too heavily on accurate but ultimately meaningless technical data.

Write Empathetically

When you’re writing authentic medical emergencies, it’s essential to remember that professionals in these environments are people. Yes, they have technical knowledge and skills, but that isn’t the be-all and end-all of who they are. These are jobs in which professionals deal with pain, death, fear, and interpersonal connections every day. There’s a deep emotional component to the job that runs through everything they do. Therefore, you need to take an empathetic approach to writing about these characters.

Get into the emotional and practical mindset of professionals. You could consider the key components of thinking like a nurse to better understand their strengths, challenges, and coping mechanisms. For instance, while they are sensitive to patients’ pain and distress, their daily exposure to blood, wounds, and bodily fluids can make them less susceptible to shock in medical emergencies. Their regular handling of difficult circumstances may mean they’re always assessing the risks of a situation, even in their personal lives.

At the same time, these traits that make them effective professionals can also mean they experience too much emotional labor. They’re often putting the needs of others before their own. How they manage this and respond to it can make for great character depth and even be the source of some realistic flaws. Writing empathetically helps you avoid the tropes of the overworked nurse and dig a little deeper into the wider impact of their lives and mental wellness.

Consider Bystander Behavior

Medical professionals and patients are not the only people involved in medical emergency scenes. There are likely to be a range of bystanders such as members of the public at the scene of an accident or other patients in hospital waiting rooms. Being honest and curious about what their responses might be can add another layer of authenticity to your writing.

A good example here is bystanders at the scene of a medical emergency. It’s easy to fall into the trap of showing heroic and capable people who leap in to perform life-saving procedures until the ambulance arrives. This isn’t always accurate though. There are various emotional and practical reasons bystanders don’t attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The burden of responsibility for someone’s life can be too overwhelming or they might be afraid of doing it wrong and causing more damage. Others simply misinterpret the situation as being less serious than it is.

This multitude of responses provides you with resources to make sure even minor characters ring true with your readers. Indeed, the nuances here can offer additional opportunities for drama and high emotion. Will a bystander with a fear of disease or infection be able to overcome this to save a life? What’s going through the head of a civilian with CPR training as they use their skills for the first time?

Conclusion

Achieving an authentic sense of realism is key to crafting impactful medical emergency scenes. This involves not just seeking out experts for research, but also delving into the emotions people are likely to exhibit. Authenticity doesn’t mean you need to forgo elements of fantasy or melodrama; instead, you just want a good foundation to build your fantastic fiction on.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Categories
Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

Embracing Tech Advancements: Powering Freelancer Success in the Modern Landscape

Freelancing as a writer can be deeply rewarding. You’re getting paid to show off your wordsmithing skills and can make a great living while building your brand as a writer. 

However, if you want to stay relevant as a writer, you’ll need to embrace emergent tech advancements that define the digital landscape. Today, that means you should take full advantage of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and immersive augmented reality (AR) experiences.

Tech and Writing

The recent rise of artificial intelligence has left some writers fearing for their jobs. This is understandable, as programs like ChatGPT can produce pages of prose in the blink of an eye.

In reality, AI programs are designed to help writers — not replace them. You can use recently released programs like Google Bard to conduct pre-writing research and improve the efficiency of your revision process. You can also use programs like Grammarly to edit as you work and improve your understanding of syntax and grammar.

Rather than fearing new innovations, you should see emergent tech as a chance to “level up” your writing process. For example, if you routinely run into writer’s block, you can use a program like ContentAI or Ryter to start brainstorming ideas. This is particularly helpful if you are working with an unfamiliar genre and need to understand the requirements before you can start writing.

You can, of course, choose to eschew all modern tech from your writing process. There’s nothing wrong with a ballpoint pen and a pad of paper — and the tactile feel may help you write a more captivating opening scene. However, automation tech can still help you find freelancing success off the page. 

Automation

Automating the writing process with generative AI may land you in hot water with publishers and clients. After all, they’re paying for your skills, insights, and experiences. Fortunately, you can still use the latest AI tech to increase your profits and decrease your risks.

You can start using automation to increase profitability by augmenting some of the customer relationship management tasks you have to do. This is particularly useful if your brand is growing quicker than you expected. Automation can help you reach out to highly qualified leads or send emails to folks who are in your “follow-up” folder.

AI can streamline the document-management process, too. This is helpful if you’re responsible for creating multiple articles a day and are at risk of losing track of important files. AI-driven document automation can help with storage, classification, and invoicing. This reduces the risk of error and ensures that you actually get paid for your hard work.

The Future of Work

Despite popular belief, the writing process is constantly changing. A hundred years ago, writers like Hemingway and Woolf may have spent their mornings sitting at their typewriter. Today, anything other than electronic writing is all but unthinkable for modern freelancers.

Start embracing the future of work and writing by leveraging AR and virtual environments. For example, if you regularly liaise with global clients, consider investing in a virtual office space where folks can “meet” with you while wearing VR goggles. This may be something of a gimmick for now but could become the norm for contractors and freelancers in years to come.

The metaverse will need writers, too. This means that staying up to date with the latest trends in virtual worlds may be a savvy move if you want to break into game development and virtual entertainment. Just be sure to secure your income with reliable streams, too, as daily activity on sites like Decentraland can vary wildly.

Increase your chances of finding freelancer success by advertising your services on social sites like TikTok and Instagram. Your social presence can serve as a portfolio for your work and may help you connect with clients from around the globe. A well-established social page can even help you diversify your income, as you may be able to land brand sponsorship and ad revenue when posting online.

Conclusion

The future of freelance writing looks bright. Fears of AI replacing writers have largely been assuaged, as folks see that real writers provide more value than AI bots. However, that doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels.

Instead, embrace the future of work by using the latest innovations to your advantage. Tech advancements like generative AI, automation, and real-time editing can significantly improve your process and help you achieve higher levels of efficiency. You can even use emergent tech like VR goggles to differentiate your brand identity and connect with clients in new and exciting ways.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Categories
Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

Embracing Tech Advancements: Powering Freelancer Success in the Modern Landscape

Freelancing as a writer can be deeply rewarding. You’re getting paid to show off your wordsmithing skills and can make a great living while building your brand as a writer. 

However, if you want to stay relevant as a writer, you’ll need to embrace emergent tech advancements that define the digital landscape. Today, that means you should take full advantage of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and immersive augmented reality (AR) experiences.

Tech and Writing

The recent rise of artificial intelligence has left some writers fearing for their jobs. This is understandable, as programs like ChatGPT can produce pages of prose in the blink of an eye.

In reality, AI programs are designed to help writers — not replace them. You can use recently released programs like Google Bard to conduct pre-writing research and improve the efficiency of your revision process. You can also use programs like Grammarly to edit as you work and improve your understanding of syntax and grammar.

Rather than fearing new innovations, you should see emergent tech as a chance to “level up” your writing process. For example, if you routinely run into writer’s block, you can use a program like ContentAI or Ryter to start brainstorming ideas. This is particularly helpful if you are working with an unfamiliar genre and need to understand the requirements before you can start writing.

You can, of course, choose to eschew all modern tech from your writing process. There’s nothing wrong with a ballpoint pen and a pad of paper — and the tactile feel may help you write a more captivating opening scene. However, automation tech can still help you find freelancing success off the page. 

Automation

Automating the writing process with generative AI may land you in hot water with publishers and clients. After all, they’re paying for your skills, insights, and experiences. Fortunately, you can still use the latest AI tech to increase your profits and decrease your risks.

You can start using automation to increase profitability by augmenting some of the customer relationship management tasks you have to do. This is particularly useful if your brand is growing quicker than you expected. Automation can help you reach out to highly qualified leads or send emails to folks who are in your “follow-up” folder.

AI can streamline the document-management process, too. This is helpful if you’re responsible for creating multiple articles a day and are at risk of losing track of important files. AI-driven document automation can help with storage, classification, and invoicing. This reduces the risk of error and ensures that you actually get paid for your hard work.

The Future of Work

Despite popular belief, the writing process is constantly changing. A hundred years ago, writers like Hemingway and Woolf may have spent their mornings sitting at their typewriter. Today, anything other than electronic writing is all but unthinkable for modern freelancers.

Start embracing the future of work and writing by leveraging AR and virtual environments. For example, if you regularly liaise with global clients, consider investing in a virtual office space where folks can “meet” with you while wearing VR goggles. This may be something of a gimmick for now but could become the norm for contractors and freelancers in years to come.

The metaverse will need writers, too. This means that staying up to date with the latest trends in virtual worlds may be a savvy move if you want to break into game development and virtual entertainment. Just be sure to secure your income with reliable streams, too, as daily activity on sites like Decentraland can vary wildly.

Increase your chances of finding freelancer success by advertising your services on social sites like TikTok and Instagram. Your social presence can serve as a portfolio for your work and may help you connect with clients from around the globe. A well-established social page can even help you diversify your income, as you may be able to land brand sponsorship and ad revenue when posting online.

Conclusion

The future of freelance writing looks bright. Fears of AI replacing writers have largely been assuaged, as folks see that real writers provide more value than AI bots. However, that doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels.

Instead, embrace the future of work by using the latest innovations to your advantage. Tech advancements like generative AI, automation, and real-time editing can significantly improve your process and help you achieve higher levels of efficiency. You can even use emergent tech like VR goggles to differentiate your brand identity and connect with clients in new and exciting ways.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

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Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting Uncategorized

Combating Writer’s Block By Inspiring Creativity

If you’re feeling uninspired and like nothing you write seems good anymore, you likely got a case of writer’s fatigue. Everyone gets tired and feels a lack of inspiration now and then, but those who specifically pursue creative pursuits, like writing, can struggle with this even more.

Luckily, if you’ve got writer’s fatigue or writer’s block, it’s not permanent, and you are not alone. Every single day there are writers like yourself battling with blocks that interrupt their work, and every day writers overcome these blocks thanks to a little help and guidance.

Writer’s block might not feel the same for everyone, however, and its treatment may vary from person to person. But often, it’s simply a matter of taking a step back and finding ways to inspire your creativity again.

The Dreaded Writer’s Block: What is it? And Why Does it Happen?

Writer’s block is usually something that stems from some creative burnout or just burnout in general. You can’t easily ignore it. If anything, pay attention to it. It’s usually an indication that you are pushing yourself too hard or there is some other issue going on that needs to be addressed.

In most cases, there are five types of blockages or issues — one or more of which could be contributing to your burnout or writer’s fatigue. These include:

  1. Mental blocks associated with thoughts or beliefs that are hindering you.
  2. Scarcity blocks, which stem from having a lack of resources needed to succeed.
  3. Emotional blocks, which develop in response to fears, emotional responses, or past trauma.
  4. Procedural blocks that come from unhelpful habits and poor workflow.
  5. Attentional blocks, which are the result of things in your life that are distracting you and pulling your focus.

Once you can identify what blocks or issues are contributing to your burnout or writer’s block, then you can take the steps necessary to fix those issues.

Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block By Tapping Into Your Creativity

While there are a variety of methods to treat burnout, all of them typically center around recharging your creativity or finding new inspiration.

Below are some tips for overcoming your blocks by helping you unlock your potential and inspire creativity.

1. Find A Creative Outlet Outside of Writing

If you are throwing all of your creative juices into your writing only, you will most likely feel blocked. You probably spend too much time writing and not enough time on “brain breaks.” Not all of your time should be spent staring at a screen, typing.

So, picking up another creative hobby can help you find ways to enjoy being creative again, and over time, you might find yourself feeling more inspired to write again. You could pick up painting, for example, or photography. Maybe try your hand at playing an instrument or throw yourself into learning to bake. Whatever it is, just make sure it doesn’t involve sitting in front of your computer.

2. Try Journaling

Picking up a journal and taking note of the things around you and in your life that you find inspiring can help you overcome your blocks.

For example, you can sit outside and make a note of the beauty of nature or do some people-watching and jot down the things about humans or humanity that you find inspiring. You can also turn your journal into more of a scrapbook of things that inspire you.

Your journal also doesn’t haven’t to be conventional. It doesn’t even have to feature writing if you don’t want it. You can use it as a scrapbook and feature photographs or objects that inspire you — like a piece of nature or a place that makes you happy.

3. Do Some Brainstorming Activities

Brainstorming is an excellent way to jumpstart creativity so you can find your way back to your writing again. Many companies use brainstorming sessions to help their employees get their creative juices flowing. Just because you potentially work from home as a writer doesn’t mean you can’t have your own brainstorming sessions with yourself.

You can start by simply thinking of a topic and coming up with questions or ideas you have about it on a piece of paper. There are also numerous online tools you can use for digital brainstorming and creating mind maps.

The ideas you are brainstorming don’t necessarily have to be about the things you are writing about. You can brainstorm about anything, even silly topics. The idea is to simply exercise your brain in a new way that can help you feel inspired again.

4. Build Your Creative Network

Sometimes the issue of writer’s block stems from isolation. Writers who work from home or spend a significant time on their own may be especially familiar with this concept. It can be incredibly helpful to get out and network with other creatives like yourself to help you feel the drive to write again and get past your blocks.

You can simply go out and socialize more, or you can seek out specific groups and meetups geared towards creatives, like meetups for writers, painting groups, or even a book club. It ultimately doesn’t matter what kind of socializing you are doing; it’s just about getting out and having that human connection with others to avoid the isolation that could be contributing to your writer’s block.

Final Thoughts

Writer’s block can sometimes feel like an impossible feat to overcome. But experiencing one doesn’t make you any less of a writer. There are so many others who have felt the same way and still eventually overcame their blocks. Sometimes you just need to step away from your writing and find other things and activities you enjoy to help you find inspiration again.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Categories
Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

Do You Need a Strong Web Following To Get a Publishing Deal?

Making it as an author has changed dramatically in the digital age. Today, building your personal brand online is almost as important as your ability to wordsmith a syntactically sophisticated sentence or write a strong narrative hook.

Big-name authors like Cassandra Clare and Brandon Sanderson can even leverage their hefty followings online when looking to land a new publishing deal.

But building a substantial following online can be tricky. BookTok and author-Twitter are competitive digital spaces and publishers are unlikely to be swayed by single-digit follower counts.

So, before starting up a Twitter page or a Reddit sub, you need to decide whether the effort is worth the reward.

Do You Need a Web Presence?

There’s no doubt that social media is a great place to build your personal brand. However, authors have been making do for centuries without fretting about 280-character limits or photo filters for Instagram.

Even today, popular contemporary authors like Sally Rooney and Zadie Smith eschew the Twitter-verse and turn their backs on Book-Tok. Instead, these authors lean on the strength of their prose and let their publishers do the branding for them.

Turning your nose up on Twitter may just give you the time and mental energy you need to craft your next best-seller, too. Rooney, the author of Normal People, is famous for spending hundreds of hours alone in the New York Public Library while researching an upcoming novel. It’s hard to imagine that she had time to shoot a TikTok video or join a Twitter debate while deep in Marxist theory.

Similarly, Zadie Smith — author of White Teeth — feels that the burden of instant analysis that social media provides would threaten her writing process. Smith says that she “began to really dislike the tone of voice of Twitter,” and that tweeting put her in a position that undermined her “right to be wrong.”

Benefits of Digital Followings

Building a loyal digital following is demanding. You need to post original content on a near-daily basis and have to regularly engage with your followers to build your following. However, if you do build a significant following, you’ll be able to leverage your loyal supporters when looking to land your first publishing deal.

A digital following can supplement your income, too. As an author, you’re a trusted source on all things literary. You can even use your wordsmithing skills and rhetorical savvy to make a living from blogging. A digital side hustle is a great way to earn some extra income, and the ability to self-promote will earn you bonus points when working with publishers.

Generate more income while waiting for your first publishing deal by choosing a niche for your blog. A strong niche like classic book reviews or short-form poetry will draw more people to your blog and will help you build a loyal following. Choose a name and a content management system that suits your personal brand and organize your main pages so folks can quickly find the information they’re looking for.

Growing your digital following can be useful if you plan on circumventing traditional publishing houses. Self-publishing is a fast-growing avenue for newcomers to the literary scene, as many author brands already have a presence in the book world. As a book influencer, you’ll already have an audience eager to read your new work, and you won’t have to worry about jumping through the convoluted hurdles that traditional publishing presents.

A strong following online gives you the chance to self-publish — but that doesn’t mean you should. If you believe in your writing and want to land a publishing deal, use your online following to show that you have the “it” factor. A strong digital brand shows that you already know what your readers want and have the skills necessary to deliver on audience expectations.

How to Build a Brand Online

A strong digital following can be a real ace up your sleeve during the publishing process. However, garnering the attention of book-ish followers can be tricky.


Start building your online brand presence by following the authors you know and love. What kind of content do they post? What insights resonate with you? Which posts do you scroll past without paying much attention?

Use your favorite authors as a guide. This will help better understand your brand’s positioning in the book industry. Try to emulate their content but add a twist that authentically represents you, too. This shows that you are aware of market trends but can provide a unique reading experience that stands out from the competition. Don’t be afraid to show the “behind the scenes” of your work day and use your social presence to build an authorial identity that you can be proud of.

Conclusion

A strong web following can be a useful bargaining chip when working with an agent. However, you’ll still need to jump through all the usual hoops if you want to get published via traditional venues. Make the process much easier by refining your niche via a blog and following authors in your sub-genre to better understand your audience’s expectations.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Categories
Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

How is Artificial Intelligence Changing the Copywriting World?

Copywriting has changed a lot in the past decade. Instead of writing for print media, most copywriters now work in digital marketing and are experts in SEO, keyword optimization, and social media.

Most copywriters have embraced the digital revolution and can find more work thanks to the explosion of blogs, websites, and social media platforms.

However, artificial intelligence is poised to shake up the copywriting world forever. Some fear that AI may even replace copywriters in the future, though the effectiveness of AI remains questionable. In reality, sophisticated AI can help copywriters mitigate mistakes and work more efficiently.

A.I. Copy

A.I.-generated copy is designed to produce quick results for folks who don’t have the budget to pay real writers. This means that most human writers aren’t afraid of AI, as algorithms can’t do the work required to research keywords, plan projects, and gather insights from industry experts.

A.I. is relatively easy to spot, too. As copywriter Giada Nizzoli explains, A.I. is only capable of producing “words written without a strategy.” This means that A.I.-generated content might be grammatically correct, but it seldom performs as well as human-generated content.

A.I. copy goes against Google’s guidelines, too. Major businesses cannot afford to fall foul of Webmaster guidance and will sidestep A.I. content. Those who do “employ” A.I. writers run the risk of being classified as “spam” and removed from Google listings.

Unfortunately, A.I. may take work away from the most at-risk writers. Writers who are growing their portfolio on sites like Fiverr or Upwork could face direct competition from bots, as A.I. is a cheaper, quicker alternative to freelancers. These writers will have their income slashed, as their price point will be driven downwards by A.I. that offers similar services at a fraction of the price.

That said, most writers quickly graduate from the pittance paid on freelancing sites. Writers who want to build a career in copywriting can generate their own portfolio using sample work and should try to work with agencies that are on the lookout for creative, motivated copywriters.

A.I. Assistance

Writing bots aren’t going to replace professional copywriters anytime soon. However, A.I. can be used as part of a professional writer’s toolkit.

Artificial intelligence helps researchers and writers by eliminating human error and improving pattern identification. Machine learning programs are capable of crawling the web in a fraction of a second, and can speed up data analysis. This means that A.I. can be used during keyword research and may help writers generate ideas for when they’re struggling with writer’s block.

A.I. can speed up the editing process, too. Programs like Grammarly and ProWritingAid use machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing to identify errors and make suggestions. This helps copywriters sidestep syntactical slip-ups and ensures that every sentence, paragraph, and page is grammatically correct.

A.I. for Business

Copywriting is about more than keyword research and wordsmithing. Any copywriter worth their salt is also a savvy business person and understands the importance of personal branding for their small business.

For new copywriters working on a limited budget, A.I. tools may be a cost-effective way to improve their offering and reach more clients.

A.I. can help small business owners generate sample logos and branded blog pages that resonate with prospective clients. A.I. can also complete competitor analysis to help copywriters set price points and target new customers.

It’s worth noting that business-related A.I. tools aren’t as effective as real-life humans. A real graphic designer will always produce better results than a bot. Likewise, human intervention is needed during competitor analysis as A.I. can be swayed by anomalous data points and complex consumer behavior.

Conclusion

The pessimistic amongst us believe that A.I. will take our jobs and deliver us all into a matrix-like future. However, steps are already being taken to ensure that A.I. doesn’t tread on the toes of real-life copywriters. Anti-bot apps like GPTZero are capable of identifying AI-generated content and Google’s Webmaster guidelines categorize AI-generated copy as spam.

That said, A.I. can be used as a tool to help copywriters. A.I. can eliminate errors and conduct competitor analysis. This gives copywriters a leg-up on the competition and ensures that clients get the high-quality content they need.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Categories
Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

Taking Care of Your Mental Health in the Editing Process

No matter how long you’ve been writing, you know that your “finished” copy is really nowhere near complete. Once you’ve completed your work, the editing process begins. This can be a painstaking process for writers. Not only do you have to pick apart all of the hard work you put in, but you’re probably putting a lot of pressure on yourself to ensure your story is nothing short of perfection.

Editing is often a long process, filled with self-doubt. You might start to question your abilities, be more critical of your work and your intelligence, and start to feel down about life, in general.

Needless to say, it can all take a toll on your mental health. So, it’s essential to take care of your mental well-being throughout the editing process. If you don’t, you could be at risk of burning out and losing your desire to write and be creative. You might even end up resenting your work.

So, what can you do to take care of your mental health in the editing process, and how can you mitigate burnout?

Establish a Routine

Maybe you have a strict deadline that you need to make, and it’s putting extra weight on your shoulders. Or, maybe you don’t have a timeline in place, causing you to procrastinate and be even more critical of your work. In either situation, a healthy routine can help.

Even if you’re working from home and you don’t have any tight deadlines ahead, a routine can help with:

  • Reducing stress
  • Boosting productivity
  • Reducing anxiety
  • Giving you more time to relax
  • Encouraging healthy habits

Having a regular routine will make it easier to get the sleep your mind and body need. A lack of sleep is often linked with stress and depression. Prioritizing a good night’s rest can boost your mental well-being. You’ll also have more time to cook healthy meals, exercise, and socialize with friends and family. These are all things that are fantastic for your mental health and can help you achieve a better work-life balance.

Your daily routine should also include taking frequent breaks. While that might sound counterproductive to the editing process, sometimes stepping away from your work for a short time can make you feel more refreshed and creative when you get back to it. Clear your head by stepping outside for a few minutes, or try some deep breathing techniques to reduce your stress and boost your creativity during your break time.

Be Kind to Yourself

Self-compassion isn’t usually the top priority when a writer is editing. As you start to see more things you want to add or take away from your work, it’s easy to feel down about yourself and your abilities.

However, it’s important to lead with self-compassion when it comes to editing your own work. Self-compassion lets you acknowledge that you’re feeling down, but allows you to be patient and warm with yourself as you work through the difficult parts of the process. It can also improve your health. The more compassionate you are with yourself, the more likely you’ll be to make healthier lifestyle choices that benefit your mind and body.

Finally, be kind to yourself by reaching out for help when you need it. Chances are, you have a great support system out there. Whether it’s family members or friends, people are on your side and they want you to feel good about yourself. Socialize often, spend time in nature with people you love, and don’t hesitate to talk to a mental health professional if you’re really struggling.

When writing is your passion, the last thing you want is for it to become an obligation or something that causes stress. Keep these tips in mind to mitigate the effects of writer burnout during editing, and to enjoy the experience once again.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

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Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

4 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Get More Work As a Freelance Writer

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. They help 8 people get hired every minute and host a range of freelance opportunities for every person and profession.

As a writer, you can use LinkedIn to land clients and connect with new businesses. LinkedIn can be particularly lucrative if you’re a newer writer and don’t have the portfolio you need to be competitive on sites like UpWork or Fiverr.

LinkedIn is also a generally trustworthy platform. Businesses that use LinkedIn are easier to find and research, meaning you can know your new client before you sign any contracts.

But, finding work on LinkedIn can still be a challenge. Here are a few tips to help you find and land more opportunities as a freelance writer using LinkedIn.

Optimize Your Profile

LinkedIn is a great way to connect with publishing people. Almost every professional uses LinkedIn to promote their services and you can use the platform to build your network. However, an incomplete or out-of-date profile is a major red flag to clients who are looking for the very best.

Complete your profile before you start responding to posts or looking for jobs. A complete profile should include:

  • A recent headshot;
  • A summary of your professional interests;
  • Recent client testimonials;
  • Links to previous work;
  • Your education and qualifications.

Clients who look over your profile should quickly ascertain that you are the “real deal” and have the skills and experience to prove it. If possible, foreground positive feedback that you’ve received from clients.

If you don’t have much experience yet, highlight the most impressive part of your profile and focus on being active. Being active on LinkedIn shows that there’s a real person behind the profile and can help expand your professional network.

Expand Your Network

LinkedIn is a great place to network remotely. As a freelance writer, you probably don’t go into an office and need to use digital spaces to make connections. Leave plenty of likes and comments on LinkedIn content, as this will show up on your profile.

LinkedIn can also help you find virtual networking events. Virtual events are usually designed to help put employers in touch with job seekers and can be a more personal way to make a digital connection.

Remember that LinkedIn isn’t like other social platforms. You can follow folks that you went to school with or have worked with without having to give them access to your personal life. You never know who needs a freelance writer, so go ahead and connect with former teachers, classmates, and coworkers.

Increase Your Skill Set

As well as being a useful social site, LinkedIn offers professional development opportunities that look great on your CV or resume. Taking advantage of these opportunities can be a great way to bolster your profile and show clients that you are actively increasing your skill set.

As a writer, pay particular attention to professional development opportunities that relate to:

  • Search engine optimization;
  • Grammar;
  • Social content;
  • Style.

LinkedIn offers a range of writing workshops like “Writing for Flair” or “Tips for Business Writing.” Taking full advantage of these opportunities will bolster your profile and help make up for lapses in qualifications or experience.

Strategize Your Posts

LinkedIn is a social media site that follows many of the same conventions as other networks like Facebook and Instagram. As a freelancer, you need to strategize your posts on LinkedIn to maximize your reach and engagement.

Start building a social presence as a writer by choosing your audience and creating content that is relevant to them. On LinkedIn, this may mean that you post relevant blog content like “5 Tips for Better Business Writing” or “What to Look for in a Copywriter.”

Make sure your post your content at the right time of day. The best time to post on LinkedIn is usually first thing in the morning or during lunch hours. Most potential clients browse LinkedIn during their breaks and downtime. So, keep track of potential clients’ time zones and aim to post regularly during the middle of the workweek. 

Conclusion

LinkedIn is a great way to land clients and make professional connections. You can use LinkedIn to find more work by optimizing your profile, expanding your network, and strategizing your posts. Remember to make use of LinkedIn’s courses, too, as they can boost your resume and make your profile look that much more attractive to prospective clients.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

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Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

Building and Marketing Your Brand as a Freelance Writer

When you’re a freelance copywriter or author, you’re not just your own boss — you are your own brand, too.

It’s important to think of yourself as a brand and business when you’re on your own so you can market yourself effectively. You could be the most talented writer in the world, but if you aren’t able to build a client base through your marketing efforts, you won’t be as successful as you could be.

With that in mind, let’s look at some actionable ideas you can use to build your brand and market yourself online. There are a few tools and tricks that can help your work stand out, and some marketing techniques that can help you build a brand and get noticed.

Housing Your Portfolio in Multiple Places

As a freelancer, you probably already know the importance of having a solid portfolio where potential clients can see your work. You can also use your portfolio pieces to pitch yourself and your ideas to new people.

Having a website is a great start when it comes to showcasing your work online. It’s even better if you’re familiar with SEO practices and can boost your site ranking on Google. If you’re not sure how to do that, start by taking a look at your content and determining if it’s “thin”. You can beef it up and get your page noticed by:

  • Boosting your word count
  • Making sure your content is completely original
  • Avoiding uninformative filler content
  • Avoiding bad grammar

Optimizing your website is important, but if you want to improve your visibility, put your portfolio on different platforms like LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Contently. You never know who could be searching these sites, and marketing yourself and your work across various platforms will get you noticed faster.

Making Marketing a Project

If you’ve never done any marketing before, it can help to break down the process and approach it as you would the five phases of project management:

  • Initiation
  • Planning
  • Execution
  • Performance and monitoring
  • Closing

All of these steps are crucial, but “closing” might be the most important, as it allows you to ask yourself what went well and what didn’t. What did you learn, and what can you do better? If your strategy didn’t go as well as planned, you might want to try an alternative platform, like relying more on social media or sending out newsletters to your email subscribers.

Nowadays, consumers are hungry for relationships with brands. They appreciate businesses that aren’t afraid to let their “humanistic” sides show. You might just be one person, but it’s still important for you to be yourself when connecting and interacting with clients. Doing so will also give your brand a personality — even if you’re just being yourself. It’s a great way to balance being a writer and being a business.

Start a Blog

Having a portfolio of your professional work is a fantastic way for potential clients to see what they’ll be getting if they work for you. However, as a writer, having your own personal blog can also make a big difference.

It’s another way to let your human side show and to let people connect with you. A blog also showcases your love of writing and allows you to be more creative and casual. Not everyone is looking for technical writing or a professional tone. Sometimes, conversational pieces and colloquial tones are exactly what a client needs.

Having your own blog shows that you’re a full-scope writer capable of taking on different niches. It also showcases your authority as a writer and can boost a client’s confidence in what to expect. Plus, having a blog can help you avoid burnout. When you’re doing so much work for other people, you’re not focused on your own creativity or writing the things that truly inspire you. Having a blog gives your that opportunity. If you’re a freelance writer, it’s time to start building your brand. Keep these tips in mind to market yourself effectively online, and it won’t take long before you see your business starting to grow and succeed.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Categories
Magazine, Freelance, and Copywriting

How To Overcome Creative Burnout as a Freelance Writer

While the life of a writer may seem easy to the outsider, in reality, it is not for the faint of heart. It takes hours of dedication and a big imagination in order to develop new characters, create a pleasing format, and come up with the hundreds to thousands of words that you need to complete an assignment or turn in a draft. Sometimes, the effort necessary to succeed can get the best of us, and we may encounter writer’s block or burnout.

If you are a writer who has ever struggled to stay awake long enough to write a draft, or you wake up dreading the idea of turning on your computer to fill your word quota for the day, then you may be experiencing burnout. Let’s talk about this phenomenon and what you can do to get your mojo back.

What Is Burnout?

While it may not technically be an official medical condition, for a writer, burnout can be very real. It is often defined by feelings of chronic stress, trouble sleeping, endless anxiety, and a general feeling of tiredness or a lack of inspiration that makes it hard to work or be creative. Burnout can also lead to physical ailments, such as headaches, weight fluctuations, and gastrointestinal disturbances.

There can be many reasons why you may experience burnout or a lack of ambition. One of the more common reasons is that you are pushing yourself too hard, and after working long hours every day to complete your tasks, you could become so tired and uninspired that you do not want to continue. If you believe that is the culprit, then set working hours in stone and stick to a strict schedule.

Sometimes, there can be a combination of factors that lead to your creative burnout. You might have writer’s block, and it is causing you to stay up all night fretting about the issue. That sleeplessness can make you feel even more anxious during the day, and it can make your feelings of burnout even worse. It can be an endless cycle, so you need to regain control and get your life and career back on track.

Create A More Productive Workspace

If you are experiencing burnout or extreme writer’s block, then you may need to change your environment and create a more productive workspace.

Start by finding the proper chair and desk combination. Your desk chair should be comfortable while keeping you upright and attentive without allowing you to slouch. Your desk should be at the right height so that the top of your computer monitors are at your eye level to avoid strain and discomfort. Even better, consider a standing desk that will allow you to stay energized and alert so you can get more work done.

Next, you need to create a more inspiring workspace by opening the blinds and putting your desk closer to the window so you can let in the natural light. It is an important step because natural light has been found to increase productivity, and you’ll also save money on the monthly utilities.

Along with natural light, you should fill the space with plants. It is said that being surrounded by plants can create a more calming and mood-lifting effect. That is because greenery reminds us of being a part of nature, and it may lead to some great inspiration. Make these changes and see if you feel a little bit better about your work.

Find Inspiration Elsewhere

If you find that mixing up your work environment is still not getting you out of your funk, then you may have to find inspiration elsewhere. For instance, if you are not feeling creative with your writing, then consider picking up a new hobby like art or music. That way, you will still be creating something with your imagination, and that newfound energy could transfer over into your writing.

Another idea is to get out of the house and join a critique group. By doing so, you can share your work with other writers and even find a personal critique partner who you can use to bounce ideas off and see if you get out of your writing jam. Consider meeting with several different writers from diverse backgrounds and see if you can get your creative juices flowing again.

If nothing seems to be working, then it may be time to get up and step away for a while. Consider taking time off to enjoy a vacation or a weekend out of the house where you do other activities that you enjoy that have nothing to do with writing.

In the end, if you believe that you are experiencing burnout, then you are not alone. Consider the tips and advice mentioned here, and you will get back into your groove.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

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Guest Posts

How to Build a Career in Marketing Copywriting

Guest posts

To put it simply, a marketing copywriter is a person who creates texts to sell products. It can be email messages texts to send them to probable customers, materials for advertising, articles for company websites, or short slogans for TV or radio. In other words, it does not matter what kind of text marketing copywriter delivers, but it does matter how it impacts the company sales volume.

The need for marketing copywriting specialists is huge: there are 3,406 Marketing Copywriter jobs on the Glassdoor site with an average salary of $25-200K per year.

Where to Start

The main must-have skill for a marketing copywriter is the competence to create in readers the desire to act. For instance, to click the Buy button right after reading the text in the company blog, or to visit the company website after hearing the advertising slogan on TV. Therefore, a proficient marketing copywriter knows how to make entertaining content and understands how it will impact readers.

So, if you are interested in a marketing copywriting career, you should find out more about marketing strategies and PR. It will be not enough just to catch the main trends or tricks for marketing copy. Still, since selling is very connected with human emotions and behavior, it will be incredibly useful to study a bit of psychology.

Also, you must not forget about writing skills themselves. Although a marketing copywriter sells products, his or her tool for doing so is words. That means, your materials must be easy to read, informative, catchy, and entice customers first read till the end and then react in accordance with your marketing intentions, whether it is purchasing, checking the website, or something else.

Additional knowledge can enhance your copywriting CV. For instance, if you want to get a marketing copywriter job in an IT company, a degree in Computer Science will look like a strong advantage.

Steps to Become a Marketing Copywriter

Step 1. Defining your current skills

Now, when you know where you want to be, you need to define where you are at this moment. Maybe you are an experienced freelance writer; then you have to improve your skills in marketing. Or maybe you have just started your way, but you have already successfully participated in some volunteering projects. Explore your potential: sometimes, it is not apparent what heights you can reach.

Step 2. Boosting your skills if needed

Once you have defined where you have a gap in knowledge or experience, fill it with training or practice.

Step 3. Create a portfolio (you can get some freelance orders for that at low price)

It is essential for the copywriter to tell potential employees about the quantity of your experience and showcase the examples of what you can do. So, your portfolio becomes as important as your CV or even has more weight.

How to create a marketing copywriter portfolio:

●      Find a task at the freelance exchange, from your friends in the field, or even create it on your own. But the first two options are preferable. Why? The explanation is below.

●      Fulfill the task and measure its results. The master in marketing copywriting creates not just grammatically correct and interesting copy, but copy that helps to achieve some marketing goals. So you need to show this to potential employees. That is why it is much better to take a real task than to come up with it on your own. This is not always easy without experience, so just do the best you can.

Step 4. Finding an internship or full-time jobs

The path really begins on this step. Many newbies think that the hardest part is getting a job, but actually, you have to work even harder once you get it.

How to Make Progress at Work

While working as a marketing copywriter, you need to continue improving your writing and marketing skills. To do it effectively, you must learn to take an example from other people’s work, ask the right questions, and critically evaluate yourself. Specific marketing metrics will significantly help you with this last point: checking whether the copy achieved its goal with conversions, a percentage that shows how many customers read the text and how many of them did desirable action (buy, click, etc.).

You will also find the following tips helpful:

●      Read more. The more you read examples of other people’s good work, the more you understand what to strive for, and the faster you notice your own mistakes. For writing skills, any text is fine, but only marketing samples are useful for mastering your selling techniques.

●      Determine for whom and for what you write. It’s essential to do this every time before you start working on a new piece. Always keep in mind that your text must accomplish the task. Draw in your head a portrait of your potential reader and answer the questions: what he or she wants, what he or she is interested in, and, most importantly, how to hook them.

●      Follow the trends. Marketing is a very changeable area, so it’s important to know what is essential and relevant now or you will be hopelessly outdated. You can find out what’s trending on Medium from the blogs of the top experts.

How to Grow

A specialist in marketing copywriting can work on enhancing one’s skills in the niche or move into related areas. The first option might involve career growth to becoming the head of the department. The position will require writing articles, building strategies for development, and giving subordinates tasks. The second option is possible due to the fact that marketing copywriting already combines two specialties. So you can grow in the direction of pure marketing, up to the creation of your own agency.

Marie Barnes is a Marketing Communication Manager at Adsy, where you can write as a guest blogger. She is an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs.

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Guest Posts

How Working at a Marketing Agency Has Helped My Writing

When I tell people that I make my living writing, they don’t typically think of web content for lawyers and landscaping companies as actual writing. I have worked as a freelance writer and internet marketer since 2011, and I recently began working at a marketing agency as a digital content strategist. That means I get to do a lot of writing.

It’s not the same kind of writing I do in my spare time: writing novels, plays, poems, or songs. However, in addition to paying the bills, working as a digital content strategist for a marketing agency has improved my creative writing as well. Here’s how:

1. It’s good to have a day job.

There are the J.K Rowlings and Stephen Kings out there, sure, and there is a whole batch of new independent authors making a great living publishing their books, but many of us authors also have to have a day job. There is something freeing, though, about having a day job that doesn’t depend on your creative writing.

While there are plenty of authors who write novels full time, I am grateful that I don’t have to rely on my novels to make all my income right now. This would create a tremendous amount of pressure on me and my novels, and it could potentially lead to writer’s block.

So I’m happy to have a day job that’s not related to me creating novels, plays, songs, or poems. And yet, I do still get to write and create content in my job, which is great.

2. I am constantly creating content.

I create so much content on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s blog posts, sometimes it’s copy for one of our client’s websites, sometimes it’s a social media post. Sometimes I create graphics and quote pictures to share. Sometimes I comb through stock photos, trying to find the perfect one to attach to a social media update for one of our clients.

Regardless of what kind of content I am creating, I constantly have to stretch my creative muscles. This is helpful when it comes to the novels and plays I work on when I get home.

3. Brand storytelling has helped me with storytelling in general.

One of the latest marketing trends that everyone is talking about is brand storytelling. I constantly have to reframe our clients’ brands as stories. Focusing on brand storytelling has helped me to create more honest, open, and personal stories that connect emotionally with my readers.

When telling the story of your brand, there are a few questions that must be answered. Who are you? What is the narrative of your brand? How did you originate? What obstacles have you overcome? Thinking about these questions before I work on my fiction has helped me. Not only has it made me think about my author brand, but telling any story gives a writer valuable practice for future stories.

4. Creating targeted content has made me consider my audience more.

In any sort of marketing, targeting your content to a particular audience is important. I also think it’s important to keep your target reader in mind as you write fiction. You have to think about reader expectations, especially if you are writing in a genre like romance or mystery. You also want to make sure your story will entertain the reader.

In my job, we regularly create “buyer personas” to target our blog posts or web content towards. A great exercise for a fiction writer is to create a “reader persona” and keep that person in mind as you write.

5. Writing for different clients means learning about new things.

With our various clients, I’m constantly researching information I never would have learned before. Since I’ve been here, I’ve written about everything from bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to metal roofing to personal injury cases.

Working for a marketing agency has forced me to learn new things in areas I would never have explored on my own. I may not write a novel about a metal roofer any time soon, but you never know when I will need to use information I have learned through writing for our clients.

One of the best things about my day job, though, is that I learn something and use my creativity every day. And that’s something I can definitely be grateful for.

Sara Crawford is a digital content strategist for WT Digital Agency and an author from Atlanta, Georgia. She has written novels, produced her own plays, and performed as a singer/songwriter. She is passionate about the act of creation, and she adores the written word.

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Copywrite/Advertising

Add Some Holiday Sparkle to Your Copywriting

Everything feels magical at the holidays. More smiles. More laughter. More glitter.

Here are some ways to sprinkle holiday sparkle into your copywriting.

Know your client’s holidays. Sometimes you are so caught up in your own holidays you forget not everyone celebrates the same way that you do. Know what your client believes so you don’t end up putting Merry Christmas on a Jewish person’s business Facebook page or signing off an email for a Muslim business owner by mentioning the Savior’s birth. Not good! Even if the business owner celebrates a particular holiday, they may not want you to mention it in your copywriting because of the beliefs of her client base. To be safe, ask your client if they want the holidays mentioned outright in your copywriting or social media posting.

Know your client’s location. No one in Florida is dreaming of a white Christmas. That is why they moved to Florida—to escape the cold slushy mess from the north! If you do have the go ahead to mention the holidays, do so in a weather-appropriate way. If you are writing for New Mexico, don’t paint the picture of a winter wonderland. This tip applies all year long. If you are writing for a company that concentrates on local business, know the local weather and a bit of the local culture so you can write with that particular audience in mind.

Know the feelings of the season. Even if you cannot mention the holidays by name, there are a lot of feelings that are amplified during the holidays that can be mentioned to connect with potential customers. Family time, togetherness, and time to reflect on what’s really important are some common themes. And don’t forget the New Year. This is the time when people are setting goals for themselves and feeling empowered to make them happen. How can your client’s service or product improve the customer’s life? This is really something we should be doing all year long, but people are more willing to hear it when New Year’s Day comes.

Let us know in the comments. How do you add holiday sparkle to your copywriting? Are there any types of businesses you’ve had a hard time when it comes to mentioning or not mentioning the holidays?

Rachel Schmoyer is a pastor’s wife, mom of four, and a copywriter. She also helps Christians find the simple truths in the complex parts of the Bible at readthehardparts.com. Her other writings and publishing credits can be found on rachelschmoyerwrites.com.

Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

4 Books that Fueled My Copywriting Imagination

Normally, when you search for a definition, you are looking for a way to narrow a term or concept. But the more I read about copywriting, the broader my understanding of copywriting becomes.

Copywriting is a boundless genre with limitless applications. Every time I bump into another copywriter and we swap writing stories, I am amazed at the uniqueness of his or her experience. I think to myself, “What a great idea! I’ll have to try that!”

The same happens when I “meet” another copywriter through reading their book.

Here are four books that fueled my copywriting imagination:

Writers for Hire: 101 Secrets for Freelance Success by Kelly James Enger. This book takes you step-by-step into the journey of freelancing. Most of the freelancing examples from the book are related to magazine article writing, but the concepts were useful for copywriting as well. Kelly emphasizes a personal touch by giving thank you notes to those she interviews, and she stresses the importance of keeping up on the business end of your writing life with invoices and paperwork.

Building a Storybrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller. People don’t really read emails or websites. They skim them. It’s not facts and figures that capture a skimmers attention. Storytelling captures attention. Donald Miller teaches you the simple elements of storytelling and applies them to business copywriting so you can catch the attention of customers and consumers and inspire them to participate in the call to action. Brilliant.

How to Write Copy That Sells: The Step-by-Step System for More Sales, to More Customers, More Often  by Ray Edwards.  This book is very practical with how-tos and templates for emails, websites, direct mail, and more. Includes tips and guidelines for social media posts as well which is an often overlooked area of copywriting.

102 Ways to Earn Money Writing 1,500 Words or Less: The Ultimate Freelancer’s Guide by I.J. Schecter. This book opened my eyes to unique writing possibilities that I never would have noticed otherwise. Wherever there are words, someone was paid to write them. My kids get tired of me saying it, but whenever they read a billboard or the bag that contains their fast food meal, I say, “Someone was paid to write that, you know.”

Sigh.

“Yes. We KNOW, Mom!”

Also, don’t be shy at initiating to ask if a business needs a copywriter. Even a big company. Send out an email describing your experience and your interest in writing about their service or product. The worse that can happen is… nothing. They never write back. The best case scenario? You land an awesome copywriting gig.

You don’t have to write fiction to be a creative writer. Open your eyes and take a look around you. What words are needed? Could you be the one to write them? Search #copywriter on Twitter and ask what kind of copywriting others do. Meet new people. Share your stories. Inspire each other to use your imagination.

Rachel Schmoyer is a pastor’s wife, mom of four, and a copywriter. She also helps Christians find the simple truths in the complex parts of the Bible at readthehardparts.com. Her other writings and publishing credits can be found on rachelschmoyerwrites.com.

Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

Niches: How and When to Find Yours

Online copywriting gurus say you need a niche if you want to make it as a content marketing writer. Are they right? Do you need a copywriting niche? If so, how can a newbie discover the right one? What if you want to change later? Do you choose based on what you know, or what you’re interested in?

Continue reading “Niches: How and When to Find Yours”
Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

What Aretha Franklin Taught Me about Copywriting

When I heard that Aretha Franklin had passed away, I felt the urge to listen to her hits. After some R-E-S-P-E-C-T, I came across You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman). Aretha sings about her man and all the little things he does for her. All those little things add up to the big thing: how the man makes her feel. When it comes to love, that’s the main point: how a person makes you feel.

The same is true in copywriting. Yes, you describe a product or service in a blog post, email, website, or a social media post. But the company or product isn’t really the main thing. The main thing is how the customer or client feels.

I first came across this idea while listening to Donald Miller interviewed by Dave Ramsey. Donald Miller told business leaders that they are not the hero of their company. The customer is. Whatever a business is selling, it needs to be communicated by how it makes the customer the hero.

In his book, Building a Storybrand, Donald Miller says, “If we position our products and services as anything but an aid in helping people survive, thrive, be accepted, find love, achieve an aspirational identity, or bond with a tribe that will defend them physically and socially, good luck selling anything to anybody. These are the only things people care about.” And what are these things? Feelings.

The same concept applies to all kinds of writing, not just copywriting. William Kenower in his book Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write with Confidence puts it another way. Kenower says to writers: “you are a merchant dealing in emotion.” In a novel or a short story, there is an appropriate time to end in sadness or loss. The difference in copywriting is you are moving the reader from their negative feelings into the feelings of the hero. Feelings of triumph and belonging. Feelings of victory.

So what does this actually look like in copywriting?

Before I write anything about the business or product, I imagine how the reader feels. Why did they Google the topic I’m writing on? What problem do they have in their life? How does that problem make them feel? Then I write a few simple feelings statements at the top of my page so I can keep them in mind as I write.

For example, if I am writing about air conditioning repair, I think about what it feels like on a summer day when your air conditioning is on the fritz. I’m sweating. I’m frustrated. I’m afraid of how much it’ll cost. I am impatient—I want it fixed NOW! I jot down these feelings at the top of the page.

If I am writing for a senior living facility, it may be the children of the seniors that are reading what I’m writing. They are worried about their parent’s health and safety. They are stressed out caring for their job, their kids, and now having to take care of their parents, too. They might be in conflict with their parent since they are trying to talk them into to moving to a facility. They feel a burden of responsibility to do the right thing for their parent.

Once I have those feelings listed at the top of my page, then I describe the product, service, or topic from the writing assignment. Keeping those feelings of the reader at the top of the page guides me to describe the product or service with words that soothe the reader and enable them to be victorious over their situation.

Once I am finished describing the product or service, if the assignment calls for it, I end with a call to action that tells the reader what to do so that they can be the hero. Like “call to schedule an appointment so your family feels cool again” or “contact us to give your mom the best care possible.”

Lastly, I go back to the beginning feeling words and turn them into a short story, just one or two sentences long, that describes a situation that will sound familiar to the reader. This short story serves as a hook to grab the reader’s attention. It makes the reader say, “yes! That’s exactly how I feel!” so he will read on.

Writing copy with feeling takes more work than simply describing the product or service, but your copy will yield results that other copy doesn’t. And business owners notice when your copy is the most effective. Next time you write copy, picture your reader crooning like Aretha, “you make me feel…” Identify their needs. Make them the hero.

In addition to copywriting, Rachel Schmoyer writes about finding simple truth in complex parts of Scripture at readthehardparts.com. A pastor’s wife and a mom of four, she is involved in the children’s ministry in her local church. Rachel is represented by Michelle Lazeruk of WordWise Media. You can connect with Rachel on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

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Copywrite/Advertising

5 Copywriting Courses for New or Experienced Writers

Freelancing is the future of work, and copywriting looks like it’s the future of advertising. Freelance copywriting, therefore, can be a career that grows with you through the next few years.

If you’re thinking about launching a full-time career in copywriting, you may be asking what courses can help you get started or get better as a writer. Some people are looking at entire degrees in copywriting, others at university-level certificates, and several at short online copywriting courses.

To be clear, you do not need a degree, certificate, or course to become a copywriter. All you need is a client that will pay you to write for them. Courses can help improve your skills, though, as well as give credibility to your pitch.

I’ve listed five well-known copywriting courses below and included a few thoughts on each.

  1. Copywriting Mastery Bundle

The CNN Store sells this course, which includes 63 short lessons spread across an hour and a half of videos. The course begins with a quick overview of fundamental topics such as developing a mental image and using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to understand customer psychology. The course goes for $24, and you get a lifetime access. CNN’s Copywriting Mastery Bundle provides a broad but shallow overview of copywriting as a career and is best suited to people who are just now exploring copywriting. For that, the price seems very affordable and the content looks helpful. I doubt that the course would grant much credibility on a writer’s resume though.

  1. StoryBrand Copywriter Certification

Founded by New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller, StoryBrand is a marketing company that relies on the power of story to help their clients sell products and services. Miller and well-known copywriter Ray Edwards teach the StoryBrand courses in the copywriting certificate program. Their curriculum requires you to spend two days at an in-person seminar, which costs nearly $5,000. I’m a long-time fan of Miller’s thinking and writing, and I believe wholeheartedly in his approach. That said, I will never spend $5,000 on a 2-day course.

  1. Content Strategy for Professionals Specialization

Offered by Northwestern University through Coursera, this specialization includes four courses and a capstone project. Each course requires 1-3 hours of study each week and lasts three weeks. The capstone project takes 3-4 hours per week and lasts four weeks. The program costs $49 per month, and students get to enjoy lecturers from the Northwestern faculty and beyond. This course sequence explores subjects such as interactivity, gamification, content trends, social media, and analytics. In the capstone, learners develop a content strategy for a fictional start-up company. If I were choosing any course listed, I’d pick this one. It’s affordable, deep, and interactive.

  1. AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting

American Writers and Artists, Inc (AWAI) claims their course is “written by the industry’s top copywriters who have generated billions of dollars of sales from their copy.” Certainly, they offer a large catalogue of classes, and they’ve been around since 1997 so they’re doing something right. The $495 price tag could be well worth the money, but I’m deeply suspicious of AWAI. Their claims about their alumni’s success seem grossly overblown. I can definitely imagine a skilled, hard working, and well networked copywriter earning a six-figure salary. I cannot conceive of anyone raking in a million dollars a year as AWAI claims. Plus, the reviews online are mixed at best. You may find AWAI works for you, but I’d go into this one eyes wide open.

  1. Master of Arts in Journalism at the University of Missouri

If you’ve got the time, money, and stick-to-it-iveness for a master’s degree, the University of Missouri may be the place for you. Sites like USA Today and College Factual regularly rank Mizzou’s journalism program among the country’s best, and the school offers an online master’s degree. Students must complete 37 graduate credits at about $500 per credit. Mizzou is one of the few schools that offers a concentration in strategic communication. Earning a master’s degree means making a serious investment of time and money. But if it’s your goal, Mizzou is a great place to start looking.

Work is changing. More and more people believe it’s better to build your own sandbox than to play in someone else’s, and copywriting is a great gig for writers looking to engage in commerce and earn a living. Taking a course or certificate may help you improve your work and generate more income for your family. Choose the right program for you, and get started learning more.

Good luck.

Holland Webb is a full-time freelance copywriter and digital marketing strategist living near Greenville, SC. His clients are leaders in the online retail, higher education, and faith-based sectors. Holland has written for brands such as U.S. News & World Report, iLendX, Radisson, Country Inn & Suites, MediaFusion, Modkat, Great Bay Home, IMPACT Water, and BioNetwork. He is a featured writer on Compose.ly, and his monthly copywriting column appears on Almost An Author. You can reach him at hollandwebb.com or at hollandlylewebb@gmail.com.

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Writers Chat

Writers Chat Recap Featuring James L. Rubart and an Open Chat

Writers Chat, hosted by Jean Wise, Johnnie Alexander, and Bethany Jett, is the show where we talk about all things writing, by writers and for writers!

“Because talking about writing is more fun than actually doing it.”

Celebrating Writers Chat

We started July with a bang! The Writers Chat team gathered for an open mic with our loyal followers to share how Writers Chat has helped in our writing journeys. Writers Chat truly makes the difference for many, from essential advice to encouraging fellowship.

You can discover it for yourself in the July 3rd replay.

From discussions centering on Meyers-Briggs personalities to can’t miss writing resources, we hit on great topics you can take advantage of too. Explore for yourself in the Live Chat links!

Show Notes and Live Chat Link

Copywriting Made Simple – with James L. Rubart

Copywriting is a craft writers would do well to master. We had the privilege of speaking with one such master as best-selling author and branding expert, James L. Rubart, joined us to teach about Copywriting Made Simple.

Check out the replay from July 10th.

James L. Rubart is 28 years old, but lives trapped inside an older man’s body. He thinks he’s still young enough to water ski and dirt bike with his two grown sons, and loves to send readers on journeys they’ll remember years after they finish his stories. He’s the best-selling, Christy BOOK of the YEAR, CAROL, INSPY and RT Book Reviews award winning author of nine novels, a speaker, branding expert, co-host of the Novel Marketing podcast, audio book narrator, and co-founder with his son, Taylor, of the Rubart Writing Academy. He lives with his amazing wife on a small lake in Washington. His author website is: JamesLRubart.com

Learn more about Jim and the great resources he has to offer in our Live Chat Links!

Show Notes and Live Chat Link

JOIN US!

Writers Chat is hosted live each Tuesday for an hour starting at 10 AM CT / 11 AM ET on Zoom. Here’s the permanent Zoom room link.

Participants mute their audio and video during the filming, then we open up
the room for anyone who wishes to participate with our guests. The “After Party” is fifteen-minutes of off-the-record sharing and conversation.

Additionally, you can grow your network and add to the conversation by joining our Writers Chat Facebook Group.

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Copywrite/Advertising

The Top 12 Principles of Copywriting According to the Voices on LinkedIn

Are you on LinkedIn? If so, let’s connect. If not, please join us.

LinkedIn is your online watering hole for conversation about business, work, marketing, entrepreneurship, communication, and more. I get a kick out of how the most business-oriented social media platform is also the most personally supportive.

Since I’ve also secured several paying clients on LinkedIn, I try to hang out there. Not long ago, I asked my marketing friends on the platform for their top 12 principles of copywriting.

Here’s what we came up with.

  1. Write with your reader in mind. (Holland Webb) I kicked off with this one. If you want to pour out your soul, keep a journal. Copywriting isn’t about you and me. It’s about them – the customers.
  2. Avoid confusion. Clarity trumps persuasion. (Jasper Oldersom) In most modern copywriting, we aren’t trying to convince people. Instead, we are inspiring and informing them so they will trust us with their business. Leave the clever prose behind, and focus on being clear, accurate, and honest.
  3. Omit needless words. (William Strunk and Mike Robinson) Here’s what Mike actually wrote, “Never say any more than you absolutely, totally, completely necessarily need to, lest you end up using far more words than it actually takes to convey your point, which may have been lost in the maelstrom of complicated, multitudinous words that really saw you just dancing frivolously around the main point, which, as you already knew from the beginning but had a word count to fill, is, in fact, a century-old dictum: Omit needless words.”
  4. If you got more ‘we’ than ‘you’ in your copy, you’re doing it wrong. (Becky Stout) It’s hard to get clients off the “me, me, me” message, but when they make the shift, the results are immediate and amazing. Plus, isn’t business more satisfying when it’s about others instead of yourself?
  5. Increase your life experiences, and always carry a notebook. (Justin Oberman) Writing gurus often give this advice to budding novelists, but it works for copywriters, too. Your varied life experiences give you more points of connection with your readers.
  6. Get rid of (horse hockey). (Sayantan Sen) I edited this one to keep within Almost An Author’s family-friendly guidelines. Sayantan’s original language is more accurate, though. Say what you mean. Cite your data. Stop talking.
  7. If you have to use the words “storytelling,” “brand,” or “program,” you’re doing it wrong. (Ebin Sandler) Yes, please! Jargon, hip language, and cliches have no place in your prose. Use them in the rough draft, but on the rewrites, ferret them out ruthlessly. Replace them with meaningful words and phrases.
  8. Think benefits, not features. (Yetta M.) This one is hard especially since clients will push back on it. They’ve designed something they want to tell the world about, forgetting that few people care about its every bell and whistle. Instead of listing what makes a product good, set up scenes that show the customer using the product in ways that make life better.
  9. Read what you’ve written, edit, rewrite. Repeat. (Naheed Maalik) This one shouldn’t need to be said, but it does. It definitely does. Because there’s no editor standing between you and the “publish” button on a WordPress blog, you have to be your own editor. I like to submit articles a week or two in advance, and then I ask the client to let me at it with the red pen before they publish it.
  10. Speak the truth. (Sara Miriam Gross) Have you seen those old snake oil advertisements from the 19th century? Apparently, those elixirs could cure everything from the vapors to smelly feet. Of course, they were probably either poison or 90 proof grain alcohol. The advertisers lied. Don’t do that. Today’s readers are sophisticated and will see right through you. Besides, it’s unethical.
  11. Use social proof + rich testimonials whenever possible to support the claims you are making. (Michal Eisikowitz) Credibility is the king of content. Trust is hard to build and easy to lose. Put everything you have into making sure you’re words ring true no matter how your readers test them.
  1. Use action words, and make claims that won’t be future disappointments. (Tzvi Zucker) Avoid the passive voice, linking verbs, and bland pronouns whenever you can. In that respect, copywriting is like every other kind of writing. Keep it interesting; keep it truthful.

So that’s it from the voices over at LinkedIn. What would you add to our list?

Holland Webb

Holland Webb is a full-time freelance copywriter and digital marketing strategist living near Greenville, SC. His clients are leaders in the online retail, higher education, and faith-based sectors. Holland has written for brands such as U.S. News & World Report, iLendX, Radisson, Country Inn & Suites, MediaFusion, Modkat, Great Bay Home, IMPACT Water, and BioNetwork. He is a featured writer on Compose.ly, and his monthly copywriting column appears on Almost An Author. You can reach him at hollandwebb.com or at hollandlylewebb@gmail.com.

Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

What It Is Like to Copywrite for Your Own Clients

I broke into a cold sweat when I read the email. Could it be true? I reread the email. Yes! The email was from friend of a friend asking to hire me for copywriting and social media managing. I was excited and nervous at the same time. Up until that point all my copywriting had been through a digital marketing agency. Now I was going to try my hand at managing my own official client.

While the basics of strong copywriting remain the same whether you write for a digital marketing agency or for your own client, the relationship between you and your own client is different than when there is a digital marketer in the mix.

What is it like to copywrite for your own client?

You are in control of how much you charge. I felt so awkward the first time I negotiated a price with a client, but, as with most things, it gets easier. For my first couple clients, the price I quoted was much too low and I underestimated how long some of the tasks would take to complete. I learned the hard way to ask detailed questions about all the tasks so I had an accurate estimate of how much time was involved. I would also recommend quoting a higher price than you initially think to leave some room for negotiating.

You communicate directly with the client. When it’s your client, communication is all up to you. There is no digital marketer initiating contact to find out the client’s needs and wants. Depending on the client, this can be a blessing or a burden. When the client is happy with your work, you get to hear the positive feedback first-hand. On the other hand, when things are not going well, you will hear that as well.

You may be doing more than just copywriting. This varies from client to client, of course, but for some clients I have done social media managing, email newsletters, or email marketing. I have even been asked to do some in person marketing. Other clients needed me to upload their blog post and pictures into their website. It’s helpful to know some basic SEO best practices so that your writing can be most effective. The more skills you have, the more valuable your copywriting can be to your client.

Copywriting for your own clients can be a joy. It’s a chance to step out from the shadows and have your name and face be connected to your work. If you are ready to secure your own great clients, check out Holland Webb’s guide.

Rachel Schmoyer is a pastor’s wife, mom of four, and a copywriter. She also helps Christians find the simple truths in the complex parts of the Bible at readthehardparts.com. Her other writings and publishing credits can be found on rachelschmoyerwrites.com.

Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

What It’s Like to Write for a Digital Marketing Agency

Since I became a copywriter, I have written for my own clients and for digital marketing agencies. Each arrangement has its pros and cons, but my preference at this point in my life is to write for digital marketing agencies.

What is a digital marketing agency?

A digital marketing agency takes care of a company’s online presence. They come up with a plan to create effective internet ads, website content that turns leads into customers, and engaging social media profiles. A digital marketer knows SEO and keeps up with the latest online trends. A digital marketing agency could be just one person, a team of people, or a large organization.

What does a copywriter write for a digital marketing agency?

A big part of writing for a digital marketing agency is writing blog posts for business websites. Blog posts are a type of content marketing. Content marketing is any writing that sets up the business as an expert in their space and allows them to give free information to build a trust relationship with potential customers. Blogs are the perfect place for a business to do this online, but this could also include newsletters or even social media posts. Email marketing can be content marketing as well.

What it is like to write for a digital marketing agency?

Each digital marketing company works a little differently, but for the most part, I am given a blog topic to write for a particular business website. Then I research the business and get to know their voice and how they are trying to help the reader. Are they formal and informative? Or friendly and fun? What life problem for the reader is the company trying to solve?

Then I research the assigned blog topic on reputable websites and write the blog post according to the instructions given to me. Some companies want 300-500 words. Others want 1,200 words or more. Some digital marketing agencies supply me with a complete outline of the blog post including keywords and how many times each should be included. Some provide reliable resources for information on the topic which means all I need to do is write. Other agencies simply tell me to write a blog post for a particular website and I have the freedom to choose the topic and the keywords. Depending on the business, this could be fun or frustrating.

By far, blog posts are the most popular type of content marketing writing assignments, but I have also written emails and social media posts as well. If you are going to write for a digital marketing agency, it’s a good idea to have multiple skills or at least be willing to learn new skills. A good place to start learning the basics is Digital Marketing for Dummies by Ryan Deiss and Russ Henneberry.

Pros and Cons of Writing for a Digital Marketing Agency

You don’t have to talk directly to the client. Talking to the client and figuring out what they want and need takes time. Some clients are hard to get a hold of. Others communicate through massive brain dumps that you have to sift through and organize. Being the writer means the digital marketer has the responsibility of organizing the assignment before you begin your work.

The downside of not talking directly with the client is when you have a question or need a clarification. Then you are forced to play whisper down the lane to get answers. That also takes time and information could get lost along the way.

The client doesn’t know who is doing the writing. From the client’s perspective you are an anonymous writer on a digital marketing team. Even if your blog post is well-written and has a great response, you will not be revealed as the author. You will not build publishing credits under your own name. When you write for a digital marketing agency, there is no quest for personal glory. Any win for the client is a win for the whole team and you have to be okay with that.

Your writing can have maximize impact for the client. Unless you understand SEO, keywords, and the whole digital marketing picture, you will not have the knowledge necessary to make your writing the most effective it can be for the client. If you write with a digital marketing agency, trust and follow the instructions of the digital marketer so your writing can have maximum impact. If you ever want to have your own clients or if you simply want to grow as a copywriter, you will have to know more than just effective writing. Watch with curiosity how a digital marketer structures your writing assignments. If you are writing for your own clients, you won’t have this insightful input.

You don’t get to pick what to write. This varies from digital marketer to digital marketer. With one digital marketer, I have regular clients for whom I write month after month. Since I know the clients and what has been written already, I have a lot of freedom in choosing blog topics. For other digital marketing agencies, I have no say at all and simply work on assignments as they are given.

Invoicing is simple. With your own clients, you need to invoice each one and keep track of who paid and chase down those who didn’t pay. If you write for a digital marketing agency, you can write out one invoice to the marketer with all of your writing and know you will be paid. All the digital marketers I have written for have been well-organized with payments and paid a fair rate, on time, without any problems.

If you are getting started as a copywriter or looking to expand your copywriting opportunities, seek out a digital marketing agency to partner with. You’ll gain guided experience that you can use for future clients whether you get clients on your own or through other digital marketers.

Are you a digital marketer? What advantages are there to having a copywriter on your team? Are you a copywriter who writes for a digital marketer? What pros and cons have you had in your copywriting experience?

Rachel Schmoyer is a pastor’s wife, mom of four, and a copywriter. She also helps Christians find the simple truths in the complex parts of the Bible at readthehardparts.com. Her other writings and publishing credits can be found on rachelschmoyerwrites.com.

Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

Seven Steps to Get Started or Get Better At Copywriting by Holland Webb

This month marks my one-year anniversary as the copywriting guy on Almost An Author. Have I convinced you yet that writing for business is the way to go? If not, go back and read any of my 13 articles on this subject. I’ll wait for you.

But if this is the year you’re going to earn cash with your wordsmithery skills, here are seven quick steps to get you started.

  1. Make it your habit to work with, not against the client. This tip comes from my friend, former editor, and now novelist Emily Golus. She says, “Your client may not have a way with words or understand advertising, but they DO know their business. Pay attention to nuances that reveal what matters to them. For example, your client may sell widgets, but it’s clear their real passion is helping people save money. Build content around that–it’s advertising gold, and the client will love it.”
  2. Don’t try to be too clever. Writing teachers emphasize creating a powerful hook. So you should. But resist the temptation to fill the page with witty prose. Why? Witty prose is all about how smart you sound as the writer. But copywriting isn’t about you. It’s about your reader. Easy-to-read text filled with helpful information turns readers into buyers.
  3. Learn to do fast and accurate research that helps your client. Remember your client’s goal: to earn the reader’s trust and their business. Smart, spot-on, and simple information does that. Don’t embarrass your client by putting fake news on their site. Instead, make sure your sources are solid. Try to find academic journals, major publications like the New York Times, or even source links on a Wikipedia page. Avoid weird sites or information you can’t corroborate with data from at least three separate sources. In general, websites ending in .org, .gov or .edu are more credible than those ending in .com or .net.
  4. Start with who you know. This tip comes from friend and fellow Almost An Author writer Rachel Schmoyer. She says, “Ask a friend or business you know well if you can write for them. You may not even get paid for the first thing you write, but you need something to put on a resume and get experience. My first experience was for a farmer I know. I wrote a weekly email in exchange for bread and eggs!”
  5. Study the basics of SEO. The acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the way to draw the right traffic to your site by using keywords that search engine bots can understand and use to index the page correctly. By saying learn SEO, I don’t mean you have to outsmart Google. In fact, it’s foolish to try. But you can use basic tools like Moz to search for quality keyword phrases to build your content around, and you can learn to make backlinks work to your client’s advantage.
  6. Speak your client’s language fluently. Spend time listening to your client. Write down exactly what they say. Clean it up, position it positively, and make it fit the audience. Hand it back to your client. Listen to them exclaim about how smart they sound.
  7. Proofread like your life depends on it. I’ve heard all the excuses: Breaking the odd grammatical rule on purpose can add great effect to your piece. Grammar changes. No one knows if that comma goes there or not. People don’t buy your product because you dotted every “i” and crossed every “t.” I know. I agree. But still spell your words correctly. Remove extraneous verbiage. Punctuate sentences with the right dots and dashes in the right places. And please, oh please, fix your misplaced modifiers. HemingwayApp and ProWritingAid are two of my favorite online tools for cleaning up my writing. You can use them or find other sources that work for you. Remember that basic proofreading will go a long way toward helping you land and keep clients that can pay you for your hard work.

If you want to get started as a copywriter or make the leap to doing this full time, use the seven steps above to get you going. Copywriting is worth the work. I pinky swear it.

BIO

Holland Webb is a full-time freelance copywriter and digital marketing strategist living near Greenville, SC. His clients are leaders in the online retail, higher education, and faith-based sectors. Holland has written for brands such as U.S. News & World Report, iLendX, Radisson, Country Inn & Suites, MediaFusion, Modkat, Great Bay Home, IMPACT Water, and BioNetwork. He is a featured writer on Compose.ly, and his monthly copywriting column appears on Almost An Author. You can reach him at www.hollandwebb.com or at hollandlylewebb@gmail.com.

 

Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

Sweet Talking Goliath – How to Write for Google, Facebook, and Amazon by Holland Webb

Global digital marketing is a $209-billion-dollar-a-year industry ruled by five titans – Google, Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba, and Baidu. Any business that markets products online needs to understand and work with one or more of these companies in order to win customers.

As a copywriter, your job is to write for your clients in ways that help them slip through the portals these five agencies have created.

How will you do that?

Let’s start with a quick look at each of these digital players:

  • Google is the world’s largest search engine by revenue. It processes 40,000 searches every second, and it owns YouTube – the world’s second largest search engine. Google knows what we want to know.
  • Facebook is the behemoth of social media. It has 2 billion active users and earns $27.6 billion in gross revenue per year. Facebook knows who we know and what we like.
  • Amazon controls the ecommerce market. About 55% of online shopping trips begin at Amazon (people skip Google altogether) and 45% of them end there. Amazon knows what we buy, what we wish we could buy, and what we buy for our friends.
  • Alibaba and Baidu are Chinese companies. If you do not write in Mandarin Chinese, they may not (yet) be relevant to you.

Companies need (and pay) writers who can craft reader-centered copy for each of these platforms.

Small business owners may feel like a rag tag band of soldiers facing five digital Goliaths. They don’t need to worry. You’re there to slay these giants not with smooth stones from a sling but with sweet words from your pen.

Any kind of writing for the internet means crafting a killer headline, using bolded subheadings, putting information into bullet points, providing helpful solutions to readers’ problems, verifying your research, and loving white space. Still, each company needs something slightly different.

How to write for Google. Start with specific, long-tailed keywords. Type your topic into an SEO helper like Moz. It will pull up popular articles and top-ranked keywords. Use these to start defining your article. Next, figure out the questions you want to answer. Some of that is common sense, which is not something you can find on the web. You can, however, use answerthepublic to enhance your ideas for questions. As more and more people use voice search on Google, including key questions in your text will bump you up the results pages.

Finally, write as geo-specific as possible. I just finished a series of articles for a marketing agency on Vancouver Island. They wanted each of the three closest towns mentioned in the article. Sophisticated companies can actually track readers on mobile, determine if they are near their store or a competitor’s location, and send the information or coupons based on their location in real time.

How to write for Facebook. Start with a simple question. Don’t be too esoteric. Facebook isn’t the place to dive deep into the netherworld of the reader’s psyche. Something catchy but short. Answer or expound on that question in a few well-chosen words. You can always offer a link to a longer article. Make sure whatever you say is credible and valuable to your reader. End with a clear, defined call to action. As with all copywriting, strive to be positive and upbeat.

How to write for Amazon. The most personal of the big agencies, Amazon anticipates customer needs and makes offers early. In Amazon’s case, personal means specific. Your titles need long tails showcasing the most relevant keywords first. Remember that Amazon’s buyers are purchase-ready, so they need to know that what your client offers is exactly what they want to buy.

After building your title, describe the product’s features and tell how it solves the customer’s problem. You don’t need to stuff your descriptions with keywords, but you do need to include specific, solution-focused search strings in your text.

Most of writing for Google, Facebook, and Amazon is about putting yourself in the reader’s place. What does your reader want to know? What problem are they trying to solve? Who are they trying to connect with? What do they want to buy?

Help them, and they’ll love your client for it.

Holland Webb is a full-time freelance copywriter and digital marketing strategist living near Greenville, SC. His clients are leaders in the online retail, higher education, and faith-based sectors. Holland has written for brands such as U.S. News & World Report, iLendX, Radisson, Country Inn & Suites, MediaFusion, Modkat, Great Bay Home, IMPACT Water, and BioNetwork. He is a featured writer on Compose.ly, and his monthly copywriting column appears on Almost An Author. You can reach him at www.hollandwebb.com or at hollandlylewebb@gmail.com.

Categories
Copywrite/Advertising

Watch Your Language, Content Writers! We’re Not Advertisers by Holland Webb

Content Marketing (noun) def: marketing that tries to attract customers by distributing informational content potentially useful to the target audience, rather than by advertising products and services in the traditional way: content marketing through blogs and email newsletters.

Continue reading “Watch Your Language, Content Writers! We’re Not Advertisers by Holland Webb”