Do you want to know how you can earn $100 a day – or $3000 a month – as a freelance copywriter? If that’s a yes, then you’re in luck. In this article, I’ll show you…

• Why being a freelance copywriter is a good way to start making money online – and why it’s not.
• How to become a copywriter clients want.
• Where to find clients.
• How to scale this business model.

Are you ready? Let’s begin.

Why Freelance Copywriting?

There are a lot of good things about freelance copywriting but when you’re just starting out? The best thing about it is probably the fact that you don’t need any capital at all for you to do this. Literally $0 startup cost.

If you want to earn money, without investing any it in the first place, then this is the best thing you can do. You don’t need a website, you don’t need to create your own product and you definitely don’t need a degree. This probably has the lowest barrier-to-entry to make money online.

Here are some other reasons why you should do freelance copywriting…

• Scaling Potential – once you figure out how to do freelance copywriting, your rates go higher, and you can earn over $10k/month.
• You Can Work Anywhere You Want – if you’ve ever wanted to work at home in your underwear, then this is your answer.
• You Get Paid To Learn – well not really, but the more you write, the better you get. It’s inevitable. You’ll be earning while learning valuable experiences.
• Platforms made for freelance work – Freelancer, Upwork, Fiverr, etc.
• Massive demand – a lot of businesses are looking for copywriters. You just need to find them.

Why NOT Freelance Copywriting?

Everything has pros and cons. You have to sacrifice something to achieve something else. That’s just how life is. So what are the cons for freelance copywriting?

The only thing I’m concerned about this type business model is that time = money. You have to work in order for you to earn cash (say goodbye to your passive income dreams).

This is not a long-term solution if you want to earn passive income (unless you get clients that’ll offer royalties) but this is a good way to get your feet wet.

Here are some other cons of freelance copywriting…

• Dealing with clients – some clients can be really stressful while some clients can be super chill. What I’ve noticed though is that the lower a client pays, the more stressful they are.
• Tons of competition – there are a lot of copywriters out there who are looking for clients – just like you. The only way you’d get noticed is if you’re unique, really good or you know how to market yourself.
• Trading time for money – while this is true – especially when you’re just starting – there are a few ways you can escape this. I’ll tell you how in a bit.

How To Become A Copywriter Clients Want

As a freelance copywriter, you know you’re gonna have to sell your skills. Which is good since that’s what you, a copywriter, does. Sell.  If you can’t sell yourself, then how can your leads trust you to sell their products? They don’t.

Your income basically depends on how good you are in marketing yourself.

Say you write landing page copy…

You can either charge $20 or you can charge $1000+. What would you choose? Obviously the latter… but the only way you can get that is if you’re better at copywriting.

Actionable Things You Can Do To Become A Better Copywriter

1. Train ⏩ like sports – or in any other areas of life – you have to train to become good. There’s no other way to this (unless you have a talent… but we don’t all have talent for this, don’t we?), so train. Write everyday even if you don’t have clients yet. The best part about doing this? You can use what you’ve written as example copy in your portfolio.
2. Read and analyze ⏩ to become a good copywriter, you must know why copy works. You don’t have to handwrite it or anything (but it does get the thought process subconsciously implanted to your brain), you only have to analyze it. What made it sell? What made the audience tick? How was it structured? Etc.
3. Ask Feedback ⏩ this is a very huge help. Unfortunately, not everyone has the chance to get their copy some feedback. You have to find a way. Let me tell you what I do… I send out proposals to as many leads as possible. Wait for them to reply (if they don’t, I follow up) and ask why they got sold – or why they didn’t… and that’s it.

After you read a book or 2 about copywriting, and maybe even buy course or two, apply these simple steps and you’re guaranteed to become good. You can’t not be. If you just put in the work  and be consistent about it, you’re gonna achieve this.

Learned something from this? Good. Let’s move on to then next.

Where To Find Clients

Here are some of the places I go to find clients…

• Upwork: massive platform for freelancers that’s rapidly growing
• Fiverr: another massive platform for freelancers
• Job Boards: one of the best is probably the Cult of Copy Job Board on Facebook
• Job Sites: create a profile and post your services there (e.g. Indeed)
• Facebook Groups:  join different groups (your niche) in Facebook and pitch your services there. The only problem I find with this way is the people.

If you don’t want to publicly show yourself, you can also do cold emailing. This is what a lot of people do and it’s not surprising why. Cold emails work – but you need to be good at it. Everytime you send a cold email, whether you closed the lead or not, always ask for feedback. This will help you become better with cold emails – and eventually land you more clients.

How You Can Scale Your Freelancing Business

There are 2 things you can do to scale your business. Since with freelancing, you’re trading your time for money, you know that this isn’t passive. However, you can still make it less hassle in the long run while still earning more. Here what you can do…

1. Charge more: Pricing is a problem some freelancers have. There are some who charge $1/article… like really? You can charge $20/hr, $50/hr or $100/hr – or even more so don’t ever sell yourself short. Heck, some freelancers even charge $250/hr! You can do that too. The more experience, knowledge and understand you get, the higher you can charge.
2. Start an agency: If you want limitless scaling, this is what you should do. You need to do a lot of stuff to start an agency, and it’s quite a huge hassle at first, but it’s what you can do to earn 6 or 7 figures. With an agency, you’ll be able to expand your client base more than you can handle yourself. This is why you’ll need to hire other people to serve them. This obviously involves higher responsibility so if you think you’re responsible enough, then do this.

Bonus: How To Make Great Copy That’ll Make Your Audience Feel As If You’re A Mind Reader!

Since you’ve read this far, I’m going to give you a little bonus. I’m going to tell you what can make your copy great, what makes your audience WOW and what makes you a ton of $$$. It’s 1 simple thing and it takes up 80% of the time when writing copy, literally. Want to know what it is?

Market research.

Yup. No matter what marketing tactic you’re gonna use (e.g. scarcity, urgency, etc.), your copy wouldn’t be great if you don’t know who you’re talking to. If it doesn’t resonate with your market, then it won’t sell. If it won’t sell, you lose your client.

You need to understand your market for your copy to sell. So never skip this part… I mean it. It will set you apart from the competition and will make you more $$$.

Final Thoughts

If you don’t want a 9-5 job and work for someone else’s dreams, then this is for you.

Make this your own business. Start an agency or something. Stop doing things that waste your time and kill opportunities (e.g. a 9-5 job) and start growing your own thing. Your future self will thank you for that.

Don’t know if freelance copywriting is the best business model for you? You can always learn about niche sites and dropshipping. All business models have pros and cons, you just have to find one that suits you.

Enjoyed this article about how you can make money online as a freelance copywriter? Click HERE to receive daily emails about how to make money with dropshipping from James Holt, the founder of Start Selling Stuff.