Howdy...

Clayton, I'm so glad your forum is up and running, as I need some advice.

I've been in corporate marketing for the last 13 years or so, and decided to make the change to freelance copywriter about a year ago after reading Steve Slaunwhite's book, Start and Run a Copywriting Business. I'm also working through AWAI's "Accelerated" course currently.

To-date, I've not marketed myself aggressively and not had any clients. However, my writing has evolved significantly over the last 6 months, and I'm confident in what I have to offer.

A few weeks ago I lost my "day job", with no package offered . I've had the opportunity over the last couple of weeks to dig into research, and send some e-mails, phone calls, and letters out.

What I'm having trouble with is finding good leads. I literally have no money to spend at this time on anything except stamps and internet (the little I have is tied up with lawyers at the moment...), and it would appear that most resources are for-fee - at least the ones I'm finding. And, "free" freelance job sites don't post jobs that are, in my opinion, worth my time. For example, I saw one last week that wanted a website written for $5; another wants 100 articles of 600-750 words and will pay $50.

I've accessed the CMA (the Canadian Marketing Association) Membership Directory which of course has hundreds of marketers. However, I'm more interested in B2B and internet work.

Does anyone have some advice on how to find good B2B/internet leads, and attract paying clients fast?

Fast?

Don't put pressure on yourself. Market yourself "properly".

Even if you get a client now, you might not get paid for 30 days.

Need money now to pay the bills? Get a job to support yourself in the meantime.

And in the meantime, pick a company you'd like to write for - get a name - and market and sell yourself.

Wash, rinse and repeat.

Clayton's got a method he used (somewhere in his archives).

There's a ton of ways to find clients. But it takes time, effort and most of all determination and persistence, neither of which is fast.

Good luck...

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Barry A. Densa
Marketing & Sales Copywriter

"Excite your customers - target their emotions, punch their hot-buttons - and you'll increase your sales. Guaranteed!"
Tel: 805-375-4071

www.WritingWithPersonality.com

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Hi Lisa,

I'll second Barry's point. While you don't want to get trapped in perfecting your self-marketing to the point that you never mail it you don't want to rush it to the point of making a sloppy mistake.

And the 'Clayton' Method of self-marketing he mentioned also worked for me.

After finishing the AWAI course I decided to shoot for the moon and work my way down (nothing to lose so why not approach the big boys first, right...)

So I spent a week putting together a 6 page sales letter selling my self, had kinkos print it out 5 copies in B&W on 11x14 paper and fold it in half for about $.50 each... Tri-folded it and stuck 'em in an envelope... and mailed one to a name and address I dug up on Agora's website and another to Nightingale-Conant.

4 weeks later I got a call from Agora, got a project, and a week later had a check in hand for 50% of the fee we agreed upon as an advance.

Like Barry said, "wash, rinse, and repeat". With a little persistence and ingenuity you could be booking $3-5K project within 8-12 weeks.

Good luck,
John

__________________
Yours for Sales Copy that Sizzles,

John McCrea

www.copybymccrea.com

Thanks John and Barry.

Lisa,

Here's a free way to find a few marketing managers to contact by mail/phone.

Go to http://www.hoovers.com

Click "Start Building A List" on the homepage.

From this page, click "Build A List Of Executives: Target key decision makers."

Under Job Function, select "Marketing, Other."

Scroll down. You can fill in the location you want, etc. However, to get the most results, I leave this area blank.

Under Industry Information, choose "Hoover's Industry Name."

Then choose the business sector that interests you.

Click "Build List."

The site will show you the first 10 results found for free. (You'll have to buy a membership if you want to see all the results).

Not all the results will list the job title marketing manager, but there's usually at least two or three on the first page. You can go back and work your way through the entire list of industries.

Hope this helps you out.

Regards,
Dave Coyne

Hey Lisa,

As a copywriter, you have all the skills necessary to kick up some clients quickly. At least enough to keep you going until you get your feet planted firmly.

Take advantage of the local businesses' needs. Sure, it may only be $1-2K jobs, but what the heck!

Just write promotional kick-a$$ copy for yourself, and look for opportunities.

It really isn't too terribly difficult once you get yourself into the right frame of mind.

-Terri

I was just reading Peter Stone's blog and he had a great idea for new copywriters to sign up as an affiliate for potential clients and actually make money while you prove you can sell their product.

You can read the details here:

Gadzooks! You've got a business!

John

__________________
How do you create explosive sales growth? With scalable direct marketing campaigns. Visit Explosive Direct Marketing to find out how to build sales fast.

Here are two posts from my blog that are focused more to breaking into online copywriting (probably the easiest copywriting field to break into)...

1. Making money as a new copywriter...
Copywriting: August 2006

2. Getting started making money as a copywriter...
Copywriting: Getting started making money copywriting

3. The biggest reason most copywriters will never make money...
Copywriting: The biggest reason most copywriters will never make money


And then there's Clayton's Total Package piece where he tells you step-by-step exactly how he captured direct mail clients.

He should be charging for this information but you can read it here free...
Clayton Makepeace Presents The Total Package - How to Attract Killer Clients Who Will Pay You The Money You Deserve


I will go against my contemporaries here and say SCREW getting a job to pay the bills.

Put yourself on the line to get yourself some copywriting work.

No true entrepreneur worth his/her salt ever made it by selling out and working at Walmart to pay the bills.

One of my favorite stories is the late great Gary Halbert writing the fantastically successful "coat of arms" copy to candlelight on packing crates because he'd spent his money on copywriting tapes...

His furniture was repossessed and he had no money to pay the electric bills.

But he got that letter out and within a short time he needed 40 full time employees to bank the checks coming in from the mailings.

You don't have to explore the financial edge to make it as a copywriter but you know it really does help to be genuinely 100% committed!

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Hi Lisa-
I just joined so I'm a little late with contributing here. You've had some good advice already but I'll toss in my 2 cents for what it's worth.

If you can get your hands on a directory from your local chamber of commerce, make a list of the companies in there who you'd like to work with. You could start with an industry you feel would be good as well. Do some digging to get the names of the contacts and send them a little package. Then follow up.

If you need samples, pick a nonprofit you care about and do something for them. They'd give you tickets to their next event or something like that so you'd get a sample and free dinner maybe.

You can also start with your own mail. I have a folder labeled "prospects" and I throw in letters and catalogs I think I could improve. Once I have contact info on them I'm going to pitch them either through cold calls or by sending them a package and then calling to follow up. (I used to think I couldn't do this but, hey...I'm not going to run into them in the grocery store, so it's no big deal, right?).

If you're really stumped, try the good old yellow pages. Pick an industry you feel you can relate to and start pitching them alphabetically...either calling to see if they even use freelancers or would be willing to, or sending them a package. The library probably has phone books of a big city nearby if you feel the businesses in your phonebook would be too tiny.

Those are my best off-the-cuff cheap lead ideas. Hope they help.

Best of luck-
Winnie

I'm not sure if the area you live in has any business directories. If not, contact the nearest chamber of commerce and get a list of their members.

If you can get a directory that lists annual gross revenues, What you are primarily looking for is companies with gross revenues between US$1-5 million.

These are typically companies that don't have any creative staff and usually avoid using agencies for their marketing materials because they are cost conscious.

They may not even have a marketing department.

Create a phone script (as I recall Peter Bowerman's Well Fed Writer" Back for Seconds) has scripts in it you can swipe.

Start calling. Ask for the person in charge of marketing. If it appears no one is in charge, Try to find out the names of corporate managers, choose one, and call him or her.

If cold calling scares you, try this-- Identify a target individual within the company and send that person a letter of introduction. Close the letter with a simple statement, "I will call you within the week to discuss your marketing needs," or something along those lines.

Then call a few days later. you can honestly say to the gatekeeper who screens calls "he/she is expecting my call," and you'll find you aren't as intimidated when they answer "Oh, yeah, I got your letter."

What's the worst that can happen? They say, "No thanks."

Trust me, A "NO" won't kill you. and you're going to get more "no's" than "yes's." Just develop a tough skin and figure it's there loss for missing out on the next Clayton Makepeace.

A few caveats--

You need to have samples to show, preferably something along the lines of corporate communications on the web. An easy way to do this, if you don't want to write out fake printout samples--

Buy a couple of urls cheap at godaddy or some other low cost vendor. Set up at least two websites for nonexistent companies. Create the content, use godaddy (or whoever's) templates to build the site so you don't have to pay a graphic designer and you've got instant samples.

Be sure to knock yourself dead on the sample sites. You want to impress the person you're trying to sell.

Why create samples this way? Because these days the first words out of prospects' mouths are "do you have a website and samples on the Internet?"

By doing the above, you can say "yes."

Another good source for potential work-- all of those search engine optimization and search engine marketing companies hanging around out there.

Most of them don't have inhouse copywriters and need good copy for SEO purposes. Contact them. Just google "search engine marketing company" or "search engine optimization company" for names.

Follow the same procedure as I suggested for the businesses with revenues in the $1-5 Million range.

Be persistent. You'll find work.

The worse mistake I make all the time is in stopping the marketing of my services. Being ADD/bipolar, it's a problem I face all the time (I won't go into explanations as to why). But continuous marketing is vitally important.

There are tons, I mean tons, of prospects out there. I didn't even touch on ad agencies, who generally are clueless as to what good copy is.

Just "Go For It." If you truly have the skills to write good copy, the work is there.