By James Brown

There are many ways of getting brand-new copywriting clients. However, some of them take a lot of effort and money. Some make you feel like you have to flatter and kiss up to prospects.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. Here is a way I used to get two clients very quickly, sending only ten prospecting emails. You can start right now.

I developed this method after seeing a display ad in my local paper that had a number of issues.

I sent them an email and simply told the truth. No ass-kissing required.

Here is what it said:

Hi,

I noticed your ad in Metro news and wanted to drop you a line. I’m curious as to what your results are so far?

By tracking your ad, you should have some numbers by now.

I noted a few problems with the ad that you may want to fix in the future.

1. You pay a lot for the ad and a large portion of it contains a picture of two people who may not be your target market. (No benefit here for your target market.)

2. Your headlines are weak. (Concerned about your hearing?)

3. The photo of your staff should be in the top left hand corner where the “open house” is. This will draw your target market’s attention quicker, as people like to see who they are dealing with. Again, I go back to the stock photo…this does not build any rapport with your target market.

If you would like some assistance with your marketing, feel free to connect.

I would like to offer you my free report, “Is Email Marketing Right For You?”  Just let me know if you would like the PDF.
Best Regards,

You might think business owners don’t want to hear how their ad sucks, but I find this straightforward approach works. That email opened a conversation, which led to an immediate writing assignment and likely future work on the website’s newsletter.

Besides the hearing-aid clinic ad above, I reached out to a physiotherapy clinic that had a very ineffective ad in the phone book. By telling the truth and making suggestions, I came away with an $800 assignment.

How to find copywriting client leads

To begin, you need to find some ads to review for problems. The local daily paper is only one source for you.

Pick up any phone book or local magazine and you will see ads that should be burned.

It’s not always the business owner’s fault. Often, they follow the advice of the publication where they are advertising.

Don’t think of it as being snarky. This marketing technique is attention-getting, and these local business owners need your help. You have a valuable service to offer them that will help them get more business.

A current client said to me recently, “I called you because I bought books on copywriting and marketing. Then I realized I don’t have time to learn all this. I have a business to run.”

So starting collecting the postcards and flyers from your mailbox. Clip out the ads from your local newspaper. Put it all together and there is your fast list to contact.

You might even snag a client on the first email you send. A bonus point…if making cold calls scares the crap out you, emailing prospects will be less frightening.

James Brown is a freelance copywriter/blogger with a brown belt in hapkido and copywriting. Learn more by checking out his website or martial arts blog.

Want to learn more creative ways to get clients? Come check out the e-courses in The Freelance Writers Den, my community for writers who want to grow their income fast. I hang out in the forums with Renegade Writer’s Linda Formichelli and answer questions, there’s a Junk-Free Job Board, and you get unlimited access to all my past classes and live events.

Join now — the doors are closing next week.

Today, I only want to talk about one tiny thing. It’s usually less than three inches long.

But it can have an outsized impact on your freelance writing income.

Have you guessed? I’m talking business cards here, people.

That’s right, the marketing tool that’s older than dirt.

There’s a reason business cards are still around. It’s because they’re useful.

Even if you have no plans to do in-person networking, I want you to get some. (There’s really no excuse since you can get free ones from places like VistaPrint.)

Why do you need business cards in today’s digital world?

Because you never know.

You never know when a casual conversation at your kid’s school will turn up the news that Joey’s dad heads marketing at a medium-sized company in an industry you know.

And then you start fumbling around and scribbling your number down on a napkin? That’s not very pro. And that scribble will be easily lost or mislaid.

And then you open your purse and take out a business card and hand it to his wife? Now you’re talking.

Next, Joey gets that card and sticks it on his desk, where it hangs around for a few months until he suddenly realizes he’s swamped.

He needs a freelance writer. And he doesn’t really have time to look through 300 resumes off a Craigslist ad.

Then he says, “Didn’t I get a card from a writer recently?” He looks around his desk, and there you are.

Most businesspeople keep cardfiles of business cards, so the card allows your info to hang around their office until a prospect is ready to use you.

How to make your business card better

Here’s the thing about most business cards: They’re boring.

When you’re a freelance writer, you can’t let that happen to your business card. That little square of paper is an opportunity to show you are a word stylist.

Mine shows my title as “CEO and Janitor,” which almost never fails to get a reaction.

Linda Formichelli’s says “My clients think I’m swell.”

You want something on there that starts a conversation, and gives a sense of your personality. Otherwise, you haven’t made the sale that you’re a creative writer.

You can also use that often-blank other side of the business card to make your card one that’s never thrown away.

How? Put an offer on it — 15% off your first project, or a free half-hour consult. Whatever makes sense for your business.

Now that card is never hitting the trash — that’d be like throwing away money.

21st Century business cards

Beyond the writing, what can you do to make your business card special?

I use one of the most obvious ways — instead of paper cards, make business-card magnets. Those get tossed onto the front of the filing cabinet and then stay there forever.

The minute you hand it over, people feel the weight and start looking it over. You’ve made an impression.

Magnets cost more than business cards, so I’m saying, “I take this seriously. And I’m not cheap.”

Also, when’s the last time you threw out a refrigerator magnet? They’re so useful!

If you’re really slick, you could put a QR code on your business card that leads savvy recipients to more information about you — maybe a special offer page on your writer website, or a free report they can read.

You can also give your business card social-media style with new formats such as Meet-meme, a baseball trading-card style business card that can include lots of your social media stats…and a QR code, too.

There are loads of eye-catching new twists on the business card you could try. For inspiration, here’s a great post that’s got 21 different examples of ways to use QR codes on business cards.

Whatever strikes your fancy in business-card style, get business cards. They’re as much for you as they are for prospects.

When you hold those little rectangles in your hand, you can’t deny it — you’re a freelance writer. You have a business. You’re looking for clients.

Now, you’re ready to go out and promote it.

Do you have a business card? If so, share what makes your card stand out.

Next up on Marketing 101: How to get a steady flow of new-client nibbles without a lot of work. Click here to see the first episode of Marketing 101…it’s an important one. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss upcoming installments of this 21-week marketing series.

Business card photo: contracox on stock.xchng

by Linda Formichelli

I see it all the time: Aspiring freelance writers stay stuck in newbie-land because they don’t know precisely what to do. They fear that they need to always be doing the exact right thing at the exact right time — or why bother?

Guess what? There is no one exact right way. There is only the right way for you.

And how do you find out the right way for you? By experimenting.

Here’s how:

1. Ask “What If?”

Successful writers don’t take anything for granted. Sure, they learn all they can from the pros, but they also use their imaginations to develop new and better ways of writing, marketing, and conducting their business.

Pros come up with new theories and test them out. “What would happen if I pitched editors on the phone?” “What if I snail mailed sales letters instead of sending e-mails to copywriting prospects?” “What if sent my clients gifts for Valentine’s Day instead of Christmas?”

Experimenting with different tactics by asking “What if?” will keep you from following the crowd like a writer sheep. For example, while everyone else is bombarding clients with cards and gifts at Christmas — and getting lost in the rush — you might stand out by sending your gifts on a different holiday.

I did this myself: One year on tax day, when I calculated that Family Circle made up most of my income that year, I asked myself, “What if I sent them a Tax Day gift to say thank you?” And I did.

You can be sure that my Tax Day gift stood out a lot more than the crush of holiday cards and candy they received in December — and I went on to write close to 20 articles for this magazine.

Buck Conventional Wisdom

Following conventional writing wisdom will only get you so far. You never know what will really work for you until you experiment with different ways of doing things.

It helps to know the rules that everyone else is playing by, but you need to tweak the tactics you learn to make them fit your own circumstances and personal style.

For example, when I first started out I was writing one-page queries like all the writing books and magazines advised writers to do. But only when I started experimenting with longer queries — up to three pages — did I have success with the coveted women’s magazine market. I bucked the conventional wisdom — and it paid off.

What you read a piece of advice, remember that’s what worked for some writers (or even for only one writer). That advice is usually a great starting point and will get you on your way — but you can only do as well as the other writers who follow that advice. To reach the highest level of success you can, try out different tactics and see how they work for you.

Ready, Fire, Aim

Most new writers take the conventional approach “Ready, aim, fire.” The problem is that this becomes “Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim…” That’s because you don’t want to take action until you’re absolutely sure you’re doing the right thing — which means you never take action at all.

The personal development blogger Steve Pavlina recommends taking the approach “Ready, fire, aim.” It means you choose something to do — anything at all — do it, see what happens, and correct course as necessary. It’s the only way to discover what works.

For example, instead of not pitching editors because you’re afraid your queries aren’t perfect, just start sending them out. Send out dozens. You’ll learn quickly enough if you’re doing it right from the reactions you get from editors. Lots of acceptances and “nice” rejections that invite you to keep pitching? You’re doing it right. Lots of form rejections? Something’s amiss. Tweak your tactics and keep trying.

It’s better to get out a bunch of “almost there” marketing and experiment with ways to make it work than to hold off until everything is perfect — which will be never.

Have you ever experimented with different ways of writing or marketing? Let us know in the comments.

Linda Formichelli writes the Renegade Writer blog, and teaches the Freelance Writers Blast Off Class for Newbies with me (registration for our January class closes next week).

by James Palmer

Well, another year has gone by. Didn’t make much progress on your freelance writing goals?

Don’t worry. There’s still hope.

Below are eight ways to finally make your freelance writing dreams come true:

1. Get your head on right. To succeed at freelance writing, you have to get in the right mindset. Two things I did to help get into a positive frame of mind are to read inspirational quotes and motivational books — my favorites are Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz — and to simply take responsibility for what happens in your life. If your life is always messed up due to your spouse, that skinflint editor, and the economy, you’ll never see how you can change things. But if you are responsible for your problems, it means you can fix them.
2. Set realistic, actionable goals. Writing ten thousand words a day while holding down a full-time job is probably not going to happen, but 500 words per day is doable. Getting published in Esquire is a laudable goal but not within your control. Querying five publications per week in order to build up your clips is more actionable.
3. Stay away from lowballers. If you start out writing for pennies you could get stuck there for years. Go after publications and clients that know the value of good writing and have the money to pay for it. Low-paying clients won’t respect your work and often turn out to be the most difficult to work with, too.
4. Learn to query. Professional publications want to work with professional writers. Learn how to write professional query letters and letters of introduction.
5. Read. You would think this is obvious, but for some it isn’t. You have to read if you are going to write. Read novels and poetry and blogs and how-to books and, last but not least, the magazines and websites you want to write for.
6. Write. Believe it or not, here’s another one we often forget. You’ll never get good unless you practice.
7. Pitch. You’ll never get paid if you don’t pitch stories to editors — lots and lots of stories. Study the publications to get a sense of what they’re looking for and send those queries out.
8. Stick to a niche. Specialists usually earn more money than generalists. Try to become known for a particular market, type of writing you do, or client you help.

James Palmer is a freelance copywriter and author of 23 Ways to Make More Money as a Freelance Copywriter. For more tips on becoming a successful freelancer, check out his blog The Successful Writer.

How will you earn more in 2012? If you need help figuring out the freelance-writing game, you can ask two pros about it live at noon PST tomorrow –  my Freelance Writers Den Open House Call guest this month is The Well-Fed Writer‘s Peter Bowerman.

If you’re not already on my free-call list, you can register here.