Many ask me "How on Earth do I become a copywriter?"
It can be hard to begin a new journey without knowing where to start. In one of my previous articles, I talked about the concept of backward thinking, which involves picturing your end goal and then tracing back the steps to figure out how to get there. This way of thinking makes your goal seem more attainable. Let's use this logic to dive into the steps you need to take to become a copywriter.
But before that, a reminder:
First off, a copywriter is a go-to person for businesses seeking help with creating captivating copy for their websites, landing pages, and advertisements. Just to clarify, we're not talking about content writing here, although the journey is quite similar. Personally, I find copywriting to be way more thrilling than content writing. Let me break it down for you:
Read also: Why Copywriting Is a Dream Job
So, a copywriter is someone with clients knocking on their door. But where do these clients come from, you ask? Where can copywriters find them? Well, the opportunities are plenty:
It's important to be proactive and consistent if you really want to work as a copywriter.
Now here's the hard truth: getting hired without experience can be quite a tough nut to crack. Unless you've got a writing portfolio, some client collaborations under your belt, or a thriving social presence, it's unlikely that employers will be willing to hire you. So, how can you break into a new field without any prior background?
Focus on building a portfolio, even if you don't have any clients yet. It may not consist of commercial projects, but it can still serve as a platform to showcase your skills and expertise. Here's a step-by-step approach I would take to accomplish this:
The first thing I would do is figure out which niche really excites me. It's like trying to choose a business you want to own. After all, working for yourself as a copywriter requires an entrepreneurial mindset.
What kind of business do you genuinely wish were yours?
For example, I have a deep love for yoga and even consider opening my own yoga studio someday. I would absolutely enjoy writing for fitness, wellness, and sports-related businesses. But I've already chosen my niche, and it revolves around technology, startups, and software development. I'm drawn to these areas because they involve complex concepts, and I'm curious. Curiosity is what keeps me engaged and motivated at my job.
When you genuinely love what you're writing about, it not only makes the process more enjoyable but also helps you deliver top-notch content that resonates with your audience.
Alright, now that you have an idea of the kind of business you'd like to own or work for, it's time to dive into building your portfolio. So, how exactly do you go about doing that?
Here's a creative idea: why not explore products or companies that you like within your preferred niche and create weekly landing pages for hypothetical products or companies that could compete with them? Let me break it down for you with an example:
Let's say you're interested in the wellness niche, and there's a popular healthy meal delivery service in your city that you really enjoy. In the first week, you could create a landing page for a hypothetical competing company that offers a similar service. Get creative and think about how you would position the product, what unique features it would have, and how it would stand out from the competition.
The following week, you could create a landing page for another healthy meal delivery service, or perhaps you could exercise your writing muscles by crafting landing pages for other products within the wellness industry, such as sunscreen.
If you find that writing full landing pages is too time-consuming, another approach could be to focus on writing social media ads for the products you like. This allows you to practice concise and engaging copywriting while still showcasing your skills and creativity.
By regularly doing these exercises, you not only strengthen your copywriting abilities but also expand your portfolio with diverse and compelling samples. It will demonstrate your versatility and adaptability as a writer, which can impress potential clients in your desired niche.
Remember, the key is to have fun with these exercises and let your creativity flow. It's all about honing your skills, exploring different angles, and ultimately building a strong portfolio that showcases your talent.
Alternatively, here are some other ideas for building your writing portfolio:
Once you have a solid collection of writing samples, create a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate portfolio website. Here are some inspiring examples:
While there are plenty of fantastic tools out there to help you build a great portfolio easily, too many writers still prefer sharing a link to their Google Drive filled with draft files. Don't do that. It's unprofessional and messy. When it comes to showcasing your work, presentation matters a lot. You want to make sure that your portfolio is well-organized, visually appealing, and easy to navigate.
Let's now take a step back and think about what you need to do to create a portfolio that isn't mediocre, and includes high-quality copy.
Writing effective landing pages and ads is a skill that develops with practice. One effective approach is to study successful examples of ads and analyze why they work so well. It can become a daily exercise to enhance your skills. My recent love is Surreal - check out their feed - it has a ton of amazing ads.
Make it a habit to regularly examine and deconstruct successful landing pages and ads. Take notes on the headlines, structure, storytelling elements, persuasive language, and call-to-action. Think how you can adapt and apply these strategies to your own writing style and projects.
A good reference for what this practice can look like is Swipe-Worthy, a website that reverse-engineers successful ads and provides key takeaways. You can use a similar approach to understand the strategies, techniques, and messaging behind the high-performing copy.
In The Boron Letters, Gary Halbert tells his son to copy the best ads by hand:
From now on, for the next 4 or 5 months I want you to do this same thing with other ads and DM pieces. But I don’t want you to just copy any old ad or DM piece. I want you to copy only the best. Now, here’s why I want you to do all this: you see, what happens when you actually write out a good ad in your own handwriting is that the words, the flow, the sentence structure, the sequence of information, and everything else about the writing of that ad becomes a part of you.
This isn’t just an empty experience. This is a way of internally imprinting on your mind and body, the process of good writing. If you do this often enough, you will soon have a deep “inside out” understanding of what it takes and what it feels like to write a good piece of copy.
By the way, this is similar to how Benjamin Franklin taught himself to write well. Try doing it yourself. Writing by hand slows you down, helping you understand things better.
Before analysing ads, you need to understand what to look for. So, let's kickstart your journey to becoming a copywriter with the first step: learning.
To begin, feed your brain with all things copywriting. Here are a few key areas to focus on:
Remember, becoming a skilled copywriter is a continuous learning process. Learn from different sources: books, online courses, blogs, newsletters, podcasts, and practice using what you learn. You can also check out my book "From Reads To Leads". It's more targeted toward content writers, but there are many useful insights for copywriters as well.
People asked, so I launched a course of writing sales pages.
This course is divided into 5 modules, each designed to guide you through the journey from understanding your audience's needs to discovering the perfect message, figuring out how to communicate your product's value, and ultimately crafting both the written content and the visual design of your sales page.
Everything I've shared in this course comes straight from my own experience – it's all the lessons I've learned during my copywriting career.
Some key things to expect if you decide to pick up this course:
If you're new to copywriting, the course will help you understand the craft better. If you're already a copywriter, I'm sure you'll find lots of useful stuff to get even better.
So there you have it! To sum up, here is a list of steps we've just discussed going backward:
Sounds doable?
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