How do I become a freelance copywriter with no experience?

Copywriting is the best job in the world.

You get to travel the world, eat lavish meals for free, and date models.

OK, fine, none of that is true. You do make pretty decent money. It’s also fun and doesn’t require an advanced degree.

There’s no educational requirement for becoming a copywriter, and some of the highest-paid copywriters out there never took a writing class in their life. Some of them earn 6-figures a year. Yup.

How much can you get paid to write content?

A semi-new freelance writer got paid $283 for a blog post. The coolest part? Income is scalable.

I’ll show you how.

A copywriter writes copy. Sounds complicated, but what I mean is that a copywriter is anyone who gets paid to write words that promote a product or service. Copy can be a lot of things, including but not limited to:

• Sales pages
• Marketing emails
• Landing pages
• Blog articles
• Social media updates
• Whitepapers
• Case studies

A copywriter is the combination of a writer, a salesperson and a behavioral psychologist. To be a great one, you have to be proficient at all three.

Two Types of Copywriters

There are two types of copywriters: those who work in-house and those who freelance.

An in-house copywriter is a marketing employee for a business.

Freelance copywriters are self-employed. They don’t report to anyone.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

The good news is that you’ll get a steady paycheck and benefits from an in-house position. The bad news is that if you’re really, really good, and the company makes a million dollars because of your copy, you won’t see a dime.

As an in-house copywriter, you’ll learn the ropes from an experienced pro. The downside is that you’ll have to commute. And deal with office politics. Or the guy in the next cubicle who constantly steals your lunch.

Pro: You might get to write for big brands, and your skills will improve very quickly because you’ll get a lot of good feedback. Con: You might have to work on boring projects, stay late at the agency, eat dinner at your desk on nights with deadlines. The pressure can be high.

Unless you’re highly disciplined and organized, it’s a super challenge to stay motivated and productive when you’re a freelance writer.

Pro: You make your own hours, take on the projects you want, and set your own rates. Con: Your income will never be completely stable and some dry stretches may mean you’ll have to take projects you don’t want.

Pro: You can work from wherever and don’t have to commute. Con: You have to learn fast on your own.

Pro: You can freelance part-time and keep your day job. Con: It may be lonely and you might feel out of the loop without others to brainstorm with.

You can build a side hustle as a freelance copywriter. Yes, even if you have no experience whatsoever.

It might take a little practice before you get to great. The reason? Good writing comes with experience. The truth is, as a beginner, you’re not going to be very good. Nobody is.

But the more you write, the better you get, and the faster you get there. There are four steps to becoming a copywriter with no experience.

Define Your Niche

It’s really important to define your niche before you get started. Before we get to work, let’s establish what you’re going to write. And for whom.

A niche is the particular area and audience you specialize in.

But isn’t that a disadvantage? If I have a narrow focus that means less work, right?

Nope! In fact, you can actually make more money the more you narrow your niche focus. Picking a niche doesn’t mean you’ll do less work. It means you’ll do a lot more.

Consider two fitness coaches. Guess which one gets the more business?

One: generic. “Need help getting fit? I’ll help you.”

One: specific. “Tired of having a big belly and no butt? Want six-pack abs? I’ll get you there.”

A fitness coach that promises to help everybody get in shape will get fewer clients than a fitness coach who promises to help middle-aged men get six-packs. Why? Because having a focus is what helps you stand out.

Some real-life examples of copywriter niches:

• VeryGoodCopy - Eddie produces copy for software-as-a-service companie.
• SusanGreeneCopywriter - Susan creates copy for non-profit organizations to earn them more donations.
• TheGymCopywriter - This copywriter focuses on copy for gyms.

First you need to know what type of copywriter you want to be. Do you want to…

• Write emails, sales funnels?
• Manage social media?
• Act as a search engine optimizer?
• Write blog posts and articles?
• Write video and podcast scripts?

That’s up to you. There’s no wrong answer here. The important thing to know is that if you get started in one niche, you’ll be able to take what you know and apply it to others later. So pick whatever interests you the most and let’s get rolling.

We’ve covered WHAT you’ll write. Now we need to know who you’ll write for.

In order to figure this out, ask yourself these questions:

• What industry are they in?
• What service do they offer?
• How are they currently using copy?

Then combine your answers into an answer to the question, “What do you want to write?” If you’re still having trouble, try filling in the blanks to this template…

”I want to write (copy type) for (target audience) to (objective).”

Here are some examples to help get you thinking…

• Email funnels for SaaS companies.
• Social media for nonprofits.
• Blog posts for personal finance sites.

You’re almost there. Now you need a place to find clients.

Finding clients when you’re starting out can be a challenge. Don’t worry about it now!

Soon enough, you’ll have clients - and they’ll often refer you to their friends and business contacts (more on this later).

There are lots of places to find work.

Have you heard of Upwork? It’s a large gig site for freelancers.

Sign up and get a profile, and start applying for copywriting and SEO/social jobs.

Upwork can be a good source for a few clients — and for putting together a portfolio — but be warned. It’s a good place to start, but a bad place to stop!

Better than Upwork, though, are actual clients. Look for places where you can “hang out” with the client you want. Forums, job listings, their websites.

Check out Luisa Zhou: an entrepreneur and GrowthLab writer who hustled $1.1M in 11 months doing this.

How’d she do it?

She spent time on Facebook forums for free. Sharing content and answering questions about advertising - - for free.

Soon a woman Luisa had helped asked to hire her. Luisa quoted $5,000 for six months. The woman said yes right away.

Just get yourself into a Facebook group, subreddit, or some other place where clients you want to work for can hang out, and start answering some questions, showing some work.

If you’d like to be a small-business graphic designer, start answering questions in small business FB groups.

If you write about a niche industry, you can network in online forums where your clients hang out and answer questions for them.

If you edit video, find out where the people are in the video industry who want to hire you.

Consistency matters. Spend at least an hour in the group every day. Answer questions. Post content.

It takes a little time to build an audience, but as long as you consistently do it, you’ll start a network — and a reputation.

How Much Should a Freelance Copywriter Charge?

This is a sticky part for a lot of new copywriters. There’s not one answer to that question.

Don’t stress too much about what to charge when you’re starting out.

When you’re not making any money freelancing, it’s fine to do work for free — if you’re doing it for the right reasons.

Good reasons to work for free:

• Have samples to show to paying clients: if you’re starting from scratch, you don’t have anything to show in terms of samples.
• Get a foot in with a business you admire: Maybe you really, really want to work for a certain company.
• A well-connected client might introduce you to others if you do great work.
• It’s okay to work for free if you have a day job, so you can take your time.

The key is flexibility. You should be comfortable either charging a fee or doing something for free, depending on the situation.

The more quickly you get to getting paid for your services, the sooner you can stop working for free.

There are four ways to price copywriting services. Hourly. Per project. Retainer. Commission/Bonus.

The best thing about an hourly rate is that a client can back out at any time if they don’t like your work. And you don’t have any free work piled on.

A per-project rate is a fixed fee for the whole project. Pro: you can make more than if you bill hourly. And be done and paid when the project is over. Con: they may add things to the scope. Don’t forget to spell out the specifics of the project! This can help stop scope creep — a client adding features.

Or, you can get on a retainer, meaning a monthly rate for a client’s access to you every month. A beginner’s unlikely to get on a retainer, so don’t worry about it yet. But they can be worth working towards!

Finally, commission or bonus. There’s a bonus copywriting model for putting an extra incentive into your work rate. Make sure you have a minimum fee you’ll accept so that you can make a basic income, and you can get a bonus on top of that. For example, you can charge a bonus for a client’s goals: $1,000 bonus if your landing pages hit a lead target.

You won’t have a portfolio at first, so you’ll likely have to bill hourly at first. People don’t want to pay flat fees if you don’t have proof.

After three clients, you might want to consider moving out of the hourly or per-project model and experimenting with others, such as the retainer or commission/bonus.

You can always negotiate your pay rate; there’s no one perfect number.

The easiest way to calculate a freelance rate is the ”Drop Three Zeros.” Take your realistic salary. Then, lop off three zeroes, and make that your hourly rate. So if you’d want to make $40,000 this year, then just set your fee at $40 an hour.

Too easy? OK, here’s something else. Take the lowest fee you could imagine yourself accepting without feeling resentful. Then double it. If you could only imagine accepting $15 an hour, charge $30.

Abbey Woodcock surveyed 68 copywriters for GrowthLab on pay rates.

There’s a lot of room for growth.

The more you develop your skills, the more you’ll want to raise the cost of your time. And you will.

If you have a job you want to grow — more hours, clients or money — the way to do so is by approaching your clients.

Referrals mean prospects you didn’t have to prospect for. The easiest way to get clients is from other clients.

If your client sends you referrals, that means you have a chance to meet their friends and business contacts. And get new work.

It’s important to get referrals, because if your client likes you, chances are they know other clients who will like you, too.

Getting referrals means your clients will probably feel good referring someone good. That means you can charge more, and you’ll attract the best clients who pay on time.

Getting referrals means you’ll have to deal with fewer awful clients who waste your time. Everybody wins.