Here’s the 7 steps I would do if I were to start a copywriting business from scratch:
1. Decide who my audience was in terms of business size (the larger the business, the more they will understand – and budget for – the cost).
2. Decide on the industry I wanted to write about – in other words, become a specialist in a specific industry or a niche within an industry.
3. Make sure all my online positioning (in other words everything I put out there) focused on that industry – starting with a blog.
4. Make a list of all the businesses I can find that fit my criteria (business size and industry).
5. Focus on one of these businesses at a time. Find the right person most likely to be interested in what I do (if they have a marketing department, it will be head of marketing).
6. Send them a letter in the first instance explaining who I was and that I’d like to work for them on a freelance basis.
7. Follow up multiple times, but I’d never ever push them. I’d simply remind them who I was, what I did, and that I was for available for hire.
If you do this right, you will never need to dilute yourself across different industries, and you will become the expert in your field with the possibility of becoming a keynote speaker at some point (should you wish that).
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