Become A Copywriter: Where To Find Prospects And How To Market Your Copywriting Business
Where do you find prospects who will hire to write copy? Well, they are everywhere. You just have to know where to look to find them. And here I will list exactly where you can go to find potential clients.
o Yellow Pages – Starting on page one, you can simply go back and forth to contact businesses in your area.
o Craig’s List: This website lists jobs in each individual city.
o Agency Red Book – Just go to your library and ask for this great resource. It lists all advertising agencies throughout the country along with a name and contact information.
o Book of Advertisers – the same for this resource. Just go to the library and ask the librarian where you can find it. It lists all businesses in the United States that spend more than $30,000 a year on advertising. It classifies businesses by type and includes a name and contact information.
o Online Search Engines and Online Yellow Pages – Here you can find businesses and their contact information throughout the United States.
o Business Journal: This is the only resource on this list that costs money. It is a local business newspaper that provides valuable articles on what is happening in the business world in your area. Also, your local business newspaper may publish what is called The Book of Lists, which is a collection of all the businesses in your area, categorized by type, with names and contact information for the people in those businesses. If you subscribe to the business magazine, you should receive The Book of Lists for free. If you decide not to subscribe to the weekly economic magazine, you will have to pay for The Book of Lists. You can check online at http://www.bizjournals.com to find out if your city publishes a business magazine.
These are the best resources for contacting companies to market your service. There are many ways to do it. The best way I’ve found to organize your prospecting is to create a prospect list. I created a list in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and included the contact’s name, email (if you can find it), company name, phone number, and contact date. That way, you can review and know exactly when you contacted each prospect, so when you want to contact them again (say, every two months) you’ll know when it’s time.
Contact information varies for each resource. Finding emails for individuals is difficult and can be time consuming. Your best option is to simply dial the phone number provided and ask for the person in charge of hiring freelance writers. You can also ask for the Director of Marketing for companies and the Creative Director for Advertising Agencies. These people are the ones who are usually in charge of hiring freelance writers. At the end of this instruction manual, you can find a sample phone script that sets out what you will say to the contact person when they answer. You can also use it to leave a voicemail message.
Contact prospects
Now that you know where to look and have compiled your list, it’s time to determine how you will communicate with your potential customers.
There are several ways you can get in touch:
1. Email
2. Direct mail
3. Cold calling
One way to contact your potential customer is to send them a prospecting email.
This is like sending a sales letter to a physical address, only you’re sending it to your email inbox. The main problem with this form of prospecting is that it is difficult to find the email addresses of the people in an organization who are responsible for hiring you. If you look in the yellow pages, Agency Redbook, Book of Advertisers, or Business Journal, you won’t find any specific email addresses. Some may have a general email address like: info@bigjohnscarsales, and you can send a prospecting email to that address, but it may not reach someone who has the power to hire you and your email may be deleted. Your best bet for finding the email address of a specific person in an organization is the Internet. Many of the online companies will list the contact emails of certain decision makers in your organization. If you’re looking at a corporate or small business website, look for someone in the marketing or communications department.
And if you’re looking at an advertising agency’s website, the creative director is the person you want to send your email to.
Now some of the online companies will not include specific emails. They may just have a general email like the one mentioned above. You can send an email to that address, but it may not be as effective. In this case, you’d be better off calling them on the phone, which I’ll get to in a bit.
The potential email you write should be straight to the point and without any really aggressive sales language. People get a lot of emails in their inboxes every day and many of them are selling products and services. You should have an email that is simple, short, with a short description of your service and some specific benefits that they will receive by working with you.
The email subject line should also be short, straight to the point, and say exactly what the email contains. If you send them an email with a subject line that doesn’t belong in the email information, they will delete it. Also, don’t include words like Free, Opportunity, or any kind of sales language because the user’s spam filter will most likely detect it and remove it without opening it.
The subject line I use goes something like this: Business and Marketing Writing from
Hardworking communications.
Very simple. Very easy. It tells the recipient exactly what to expect when he opens the email. Email is also the best method to use if you still have a full-time job and can’t cold call during the day.
Direct mail.
I won’t go into too much detail about direct mail prospecting because I believe that as a prospecting method it is too time consuming and cost prohibitive. You need paper, envelopes, stamps, and a lot of time to create a very specific and direct sales letter. Personally, I don’t think any new copywriter should use direct mail as a prospecting tactic.
However, if you decide to use direct mail, there are a few things you need to know. Make your sales letter very specific. Find out who you are writing to and include their name in the letter. Generic letters, Dear Sir or Madam, will not be as effective as a letter addressed to a specific person. And try to keep the letter to 1-2 pages. You’re sending your letter to presumably busy people who don’t have time to read a 10-page sales letter.
Benefits, benefits, benefits. Don’t write your letter talking about yourself. Talk about how you’re going to help your profits skyrocket. You want them to see how hiring them will benefit your business. Essentially, just follow the structure of the sales letter as if you were selling a product or service for a company, only the product/service is you.
cold calling
This is the best way to communicate with your customers because all prospects have a phone number. Whether you use the Yellow Pages or the Business Journal, phone numbers will be available to all organizations.
There are several things you need to know about potential cold calling prospects:
o Do not call on Mondays or Fridays. On Monday people are very busy catching up on the weekend and on Friday people are anxious to leave and many of the decision makers (the people you want to talk to) will not be available. Your best option is to call Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. These days, people are in the flow of the week and it will be easier to reach out and talk to people who have the hiring power.
o Overcome anxiety. Cold calling can be stressful and you may even feel like you are annoying or bothering these people. You can feel like the dreaded telemarketer. Well, we’re not telemarketers. We are professionals selling a value service. Think of this as the best way to get your business off the ground and ignore any negative feelings you may have towards this method. It will work.
or pure numbers. You have to make many calls. And I mean a lot. I have made about 1,000 in a month before. It’s in the numbers. If you contact enough people, you will find those who need your service. And it can take time. The people you talk to or leave a voicemail with may not need your service today. That doesn’t mean they won’t need it tomorrow or next week or next month.
o When calling an organization/business, ask for the Marketing Manager. He or she is the person you want to talk to. If no one has that title, ask who is in charge of hiring freelance writers. Some receptionists will be happy to help you; others may not be so kind. Just remember, you are selling a valuable service. A service that these companies need. If you call an Advertising Agency ask for the Creative Director. He or she is the person in charge of hiring the freelance copywriter.
o When you do get to talk to the prospect on the phone, speak in a natural, calm tone, and don’t push the sale. Ask him about his marketing needs and his current marketing strategy. Listen, listen and then listen some more. That is the key. Once you establish a relationship with that person, you will be able to make the transition to selling your services much more easily. Also be sure to get their email address. This is key to maintaining contact with them in the future.
Follow up
After contacting a customer, you should follow up soon after. If you send them an email during an email prospecting session, you should call them a few days later to ask if they received it. If you speak to someone on the phone during a cold calling session, be sure to get their email address so you can send them a follow-up email thanking them for their time and reminding them to keep you signed up for any future freelance copy projects. If you direct mail a letter to someone, call them a few days later (when you’re pretty sure they received it) and talk to them about your needs for a freelance copywriter.