How to Become a Freelance Copywriter
- Tamina
- Mar 29, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: May 6, 2020
You can easily make money working as a freelance copywriter not just from home but anywhere in the world. Better still, you don’t need much to get started.
Copywriting is a multimillion-dollar industry with skilled copywriters in continuous high demand. More and more businesses are understanding the importance of working with a skilled copywriter for their marketing efforts.
What is copywriting?
Before we jump into the details of becoming a copywriter, lets quickly understand what copywriting actually is.
Copywriting is the process of writing promotional materials geared towards convincing the reader to take action. This could be to make a purchase, opt-in, or engage with a product/service or company.
If you’re going to be working as a copywriter, you should know what kind of content you will be creating too.
Copywriters are the experts who create the text you see on websites, adverts, emails, billboards, brochures, sales pages, press releases, how-to guides, blog posts, among other marketing materials.
What does a copywriter do?
The next question that wannabe copywriters often have about working as a freelance copywriter is: what do copywriters actually do?
A copywriter creates text for promotional materials including:
Adverts on TV, radio, print (magazines or newspaper) or the internet (Google and Facebook ads)
Brochures
Websites
Signup forms
Sales scripts
Press releases
How-to guides
Blog posts
Emails
Billboards
The list goes on and on…
How much money can you make?
This is probably the most important part you’ve been waiting for, haha.
You definitely want to know if you’ll truly be able to make enough money to sustain a life of travel.
Well, the truth is that freelance copywriting income varies so much. One freelancer could be making less than $30,000 every year while another one is raking in over $2,000,000 per year.
Why is that the case?
It all depends on the work you put in!
A new copywriter with minimum experience and copywriting skills will earn about $3,000 – $15,000 per year while a medium experienced copywriter will make anything from $75,000 to $150,000 per year.
A highly skilled copywriter on their part could earn over $300,000 per year.
Now the best part about being a freelance copywriter is that you can work as much as you want and with more work comes more money. However, the best approach is to work on improving your skills so that you can earn more without having to work too much. You do want to have some time to explore the world you know.
How to get started as a freelance copywriter
Now let’s get into the real work on how to get started as a freelance copywriter.
Follow these 8 steps and you’ll be on your way to a successful freelance copywriting career in no time.
1. Pick your niche
As you start out you may want to write everything you can get your hands on. This may make sense but in reality, it’s not sustainable. The most sustainable way to grow your copywriting business is to niche down from the start.
What I mean here is to find one area that you’re already good at or interested in and work on perfecting your writing skills in that area. For instance, if you have worked for a bank you have experience in banking and finance, and specializing in financial copywriting, an area you’re already familiar with, will give you an edge as a new copywriter.
2. Acquire a skill
Remember how I said skills determine how much you earn? Yep, learning an extra skill or two will give you the power to earn more.
Here are some great online courses to polish up your copywriting skills.
3. Practice your skill - Practice doing jobs for friends & family
Once you learn a new skill put it into practice. The more you write the better you’ll get at it. Some writing experience is especially necessary for a new copywriter to get a copywriting job.
One way to gain some experience is to work for friends and family either for free or for a few dollars just to get your foot into the industry. Don’t let this go on for too long though, because you’re trying to build a sustainable business and a few dollars per job won’t get you there.
Another good way to practice your writing skills is to start a blog that covers the niche that you picked. A blog will also be a good way to offer potential clients some form of proof that you can actually write.
4. Build your online presence
To get clients you need to get your name out there where people can find you. Nothing will promote you more than creating an online presence for yourself. You also get to create credibility as a good copywriter so that you can start charging more money.
Create a website & social media profiles for your copywriting business especially on Facebook and LinkedIn. Such profiles will help to promote your business and give you a higher chance of getting clients.
5. Decide what to charge
As you continue to work on how to become a copywriter decide how much you want to charge your clients. Remember we talked about how varied freelance copywriting rates are so you should come up with a rate that is good for you.
This may not be an easy task but look around at how much other new copywriters are currently charging, weigh that against your skills and experience and come up with an average rate.
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