How to Start a Copywriting Business in 2021

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Are you planning to start a copywriting business? If yes, then this article is curated for you. In this article, I’ll be sharing with you how you can start your copywriting business without any hassle or without any business experience.

To help you with more accurate information on starting a business, I called out my friend who is a business consultant associated with BadaBusiness. He provides consultancy to various small and medium businesses. Also, he has helped out many solopreneurs to become entrepreneurs.

When you have already decided to start a copywriting business, then you might have a good idea of the marketing and copywriting industry. If not, you may be those gig workers or freelancers who know how to get clients for any type of freelancing work and make that work done by another freelancer.

I have witnessed several such freelancers who do this. They just work as a broker. And it’s a pretty good business idea.

So, without any ado let’s get started.

How to start a copywriting business

Before we dive into the deep details about starting a copywriting business, we will discuss what is copywriting and what copywriters do?

What is copywriting?

Copywriting is the art and science of arranging words for the purpose of conversion. The very nature of copywriting is to generate leads through conversion. And, copywriting is of many forms like ad copy, sales copy, email copy, web copy, and you name them.

Who is a copywriter?

A copywriter is a person who writes copies that are persuasive in nature to generate leads for businesses. Copywriters are hired to craft copies that could convert and make sales.

Copywriters are the marketing personnel whose work is to persuade readers and viewers through a written piece of content or through a marketing video ad to take action.

Copywriting niches to choose for your business

There are a lot of copywriting niches available that you can master. If you are just starting out with copywriting then you don’t have to worry much about selecting a niche. Selecting a niche in copywriting is not that tedious work.

And as I said that you don’t have to be much specific in copywriting. Initially, you can just start with copywriting and learn some fundamentals and basics of copywriting and know how copies are formatted for conversion.

Expertise in any field comes from the regular practice in a particular work. And in copywriting there are several forms of copywriting are available. You can choose your niche as per your passion and interest. Just like I chose my specific niche as sales copy or some say it as sales page copy(both are the same, not to be confused), you can choose any specific niche in copywriting.

Here are the most common copywriting niches you can choose to become an expert in that particular form of copywriting-

Sales Copy

Sales Copy is the form of copywriting that persuades readers to take action. It may be in the form of print ads, sales email, mail letters, and web pages.

It is used to persuade readers to sign-up, download, or buy any product which helps in conversion.

Why Sales Copy is necessary for businesses?

Businesses promote their products online through ads and drive traffic to their landing page. And landing page is the place where the magic happens.

A landing page is a place where sales copy can be used to persuade people to take action. So, it becomes necessary to use copywriting elements to make it persuasive enough for conversion.

Email Copywriting

Email copywriting is not much different from normal copywriting. It is the method of writing a persuasive email whose purpose is the conversion.

Email copies are crafted to grab attention through the subject line and make the email open and go through the body of the email and take action.

Why should businesses use copywriting in their emails for high conversion?

CTR of promotional emails is very low. To make people open your email, subject lines must be attention-grabbing to make your prospects open that email. After they open the email use your pitching techniques to pitch them and at the end tell them to take action.

Email copywriting would help businesses in a greater conversion rate.

Website Copy

When someone visits your website you should be able to immediately engage them with the contents on your website or make them take action such as ‘subscribe to newsletters’, ‘reserve your seat’, ‘book now’, ‘buy now’, and more.

The main purpose of website copywriting should be to convert website visitors into leads. Leads don’t mean only buyers or who got sold by you. Leads can be anything if you are able to convert visitors into leads.

That may be a subscriber, buyer, and customer or clients. You just have to capture those visitors by persuading through your copy and converting them to leads.

Get their contact details like name, email, phone number, etc.

Why copywriting is important on all of those websites which are meant for lead generation?

If people are visiting your website and returning back and you’re not able to capture them and convert them to leads. Then website copy is what must be applied in order to convert visitors into leads.

All businesses have a website and website copywriting would be the best option for your copywriting business to provide service.

Social Media Ad Copy

If you are on any social media then you might have encountered the ads on those platforms. Those ads on social media are either for brand awareness marketing campaign or conversion optimized ads.

If ads are run for the purpose of conversion, then ad copies must be properly optimized to satisfy the expectation of the marketing campaign.

Here are some tips on how to make a conversion optimized social media ad copy.

Why Social Media Ad Copy will be valuable for your copywriting business?

These days most businesses are running digital ads. There are two major options to run digital ads, those are-

  • PPC ( Search Engine Marketing) like Google Ads, Bing Ads, etc.
  • Social Media Ads, like FB Ads, etc.

So, it will be much valuable for your copywriting business to provide service on social media ad copy.

Ecommerce Copywriting

Do I need to tell you that e-commerce businesses are rising along with dropshipping businesses? Companies like Shopify are providing great opportunity to start an e-commerce business at ease.

So, e-commerce copywriting is going to be in demand for e-commerce companies to avail your copywriting services for their business growth.

How to support e-commerce companies with your Ecommerce Copywriting Service?

E-commerce websites are built for selling stuff. Right?

Ans wherever there is selling involved, copywriting can be used to sell better.

Copywriting can be used from product title to the product description to the thank you page. You can use your persuasive copywriting techniques to make visitors don’t return empty hands from your website.

 

So, this is the end of the list of copywriting niches that you can select for your copywriting business. This is not the end of the list of copywriting but I want to suggest to you that these are some of the most profitable copywriting niches that you can provide as a service for your copywriting business.

 

Now let’s talk about how you can start your copywriting business and what are the requirements for it.

 

Procedure to start a copywriting business

 

1. Have a website

The reason why you should have a website first is that it builds an identity for your business. And without a website, it will be hard for you to stand in a market.

It’s not that costly or not that hard to have a personal website. You can easily create a website using WordPress.

My website, SalesCopyBoy.com is built using WordPress. There are numerous tutorials available on YouTube that can guide you to create a website.

2. Build a portfolio

When you have your website ready you can easily put the works that you have already done for some clients.

Even if you don’t have any experience or haven’t got any clients yet, then no worries at all. You can create sample works and put them in your portfolio.

No one has stopped you to show your creativity or writing ability. Create your own sample and show those to your potential clients.

3. Social media presence

While doing business you must create your existence on social platforms. It boosts your trustability. Many clients will check your social media accounts before they agree to work with you.

The reason, why they will check, is to make sure you are a trusted fellow. If you missed out on this then you may lose some clients.

Although, it’s not necessary to grow your followings on your social media accounts but it gives your brand trustability. And you can easily convert your clients.

Another reason why you should have a social media presence is because, chances are there that some clients you may get through these social platforms.

In LinkedIn, many copywriters are active and they are able to get clients through cold outreach.

4. Set your pricing

Before you decide to reach out to your potential clients you should have your rate sheet ready. You should provide enough flexibility in your pricing so that clients can decide as per their suitability.

You may check the pricing of freelance copywriters. Also, you can see the copywriting charges offered by copywriters in freelancing platforms like, Fiver, Freelance, Upwork, and more.

You can charge based on a number of words or based on the project.

If you ask me, how to charge for freelance copywriting? I charge on a project basis. Because copywriting is not about the number of words you include in your copy. It’s about how you can use your words to persuade a reader.

If you un-necessarily stuff words in your copy then the copy will lose its effectiveness. And, may fail to convert.

There are copywriters who charge per word basis. But, I don’t agree with that. And, like to charge on a project basis.

My copywriting charges depends upon the niche, research, time and other expenses involved while researching and crafting the copy.

5. Branding

As a business, you should develop a good brand. Must have a logo for your business, choose a good name for your business, and give a tagline.

Set your work policy, rules, and agreements.

If possible do some marketing.

6. Legal Contract

Contracts are necessary to protect you against frauds. When you are going to start working with your clients have a contract ready which you can send them.

Contracts should clearly define your working methods, about your work, deadlines, and outline the work your clients will receive from you.

7. Account Maintenance

You should have a proper account management system to manage the flow of money on your business. Proper track records of the money movements would help in understanding the growth of the business.

There are account management softwares available which would help in managing the financial works easily. Or you can hire an accountant for accounts work.

Having a solid account management system would save you from legal issues. Prover invoicing and billing of services are very important and it makes your work easier while filing tax returns.

8. Business Registration

If you just want to stay to the side of the freelance copywriting business then you don’t have to worry about registering a business. But, if you are serious about your business and want to have a legal setup for your business then you can register with the business registrar.

Registering a business gives it a legal existence. Taxation of your income will come under the business category and you may get credits from banks at the time of need. That’s why having a legal setup for the business is beneficial.

9. Business Development

Companies and agencies hire Business Development Executives to promote their business and bring new clients and customers for them.

You should outreach to potential clients for your copywriting business. You can do email outreach, or contact through their social profiles or hire BDEs to make your pitching work done by them.

Also, you can run ad campaigns promoting the services you are offering through your copywriting business.

 

So, these are the important points one needs to consider while looking for what are the requirements to start a copywriting business.

Hope you got the details of what you were looking for.

Let me know if I could help you with some more detailed answer to your query in the comment section.

Thank You.

 

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