If you decide to flee 9 to 5 world and to live by your wits and your laptop as a self employed copywriter, the biggest challenge you are going to face is locating clients. It can take months, if not a number of years, to grow a solid client base to keep your salary at a stable level. With this in mind, before starting out it's a wise decision to save at least six months of savings secured plus a plan of action to acquire reliable customers. Here are four ways of obtaining enterprises willing to pay for your writing talents: Social networking sites LinkedIn is a alternative to Facebook for business professionals. It is a website where professionals can promote their know-how and link up with other professionals in their field.. So it's a wise decision to get engaged by creating a user profile and interacting with colleagues you've dealt with previously and people you wish to work together with in the foreseeable future. To give your network a kick start, send link invites to all the people you've worked with in the past. You may be pleasantly surprised what firms they may have transferred to which could make use of a copywriter. Together with connecting with people inside your industry, you can use LinkedIn to identify small businesses in your town or city that you'd like to work together with and could be possible customers. Pick up the phone Contacting by phone companies asking for freelance work might sound like a daunting task. But getting in touch with local companies to tell them about your copywriting abilities can be an effective strategy of locating customers. Sending unrequested emails is unlikely going to get the reply you want, unless you wish to irritate people and be classed a spammer. Picking up the phone, however, is a chance to build up a connection on a human level and to link with local business owners. Approach marketing and web site design companies Local marketing and website development agencies can be a goldmine of freelance copywriting work paid at a good rate of pay.. Since they are bigger enterprises they are going to naturally deal with bigger businesses and brands than you would be likely to reach as a self employed copywriter on your own. The big agencies most probably already have writers inhouse, so it will be more realistic to focus on the medium sized to smaller agencies that utilize home based workers to add extra skills when they require them. Attending face to face business networking functions With competition for customers on line causing salaries to drop fast, the most sensible method is to hunt for clients in your local area. People naturally prefer to do business with people they've met in the real world. So you want to be getting out there, introducing yourself and meeting local business leaders at each chance you get. If you check with your local council or business support organisations you'll likely find an active business networking scene in your city. Often held in local hotel function rooms or over an early morning breakfast in a local restaurant, networking events are normally fairly laid-back and enable company owners and freelancers to meet each other. Whilst many business networking events need to be paid for, it’s often feasible to locate free events in your neighborhood. But if you find it difficult to find any business networking events in your local area, then why not start an event of your own? You could create the event on a website, like Facebook, Meetup or LinkedIn. After you have created the event send invites out to people you know and persuade them to invite people in their business network so you can help one another to obtain additional paying customers. Hopefully this post has provided you with a few ideas on what to do to seek out customers. So you should be constantly advertising and selling your copywriting skills so you can grow a stable income and make the freelance dream a reality.
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