How did you land your first copywriting gig?

Bump bump bump. Sorry.

Dude, this isn't a free coaching smorgasbord.

Start with the stickies.

My first client was a d*ck...

A real a-hole.

Never listened to a word I said, never took any of my advice, didn't try
testing out different things I suggested.

Wouldn't do the dishes or clean my laundry.

Oh sh*t... that's right... my first client was ME.

I started in 2001, wrote and wrote and wrote... trying to get
better at copy for my own businesses.

Once I got my stuff circulating on the top of Clickbank
I started getting daily emails from people asking me to write
for them.

So, that's one way... do your own thing first, get good,
get your stuff out there and circulating, and if it's good
and makes waves... people will find you, you won't have
to look for them all the time.

My first client was myself as well. Back in 1991, got excited about the opportunity to build my business using direct mail and decided to try it.

Came up with an offer for my software development firm. And with just one letter mailed twice to the same list of about 100 Clients, covered cash flow for about two months. Without doing any work.

I was hooked. It opened a huge door in my mind. Came up with all sorts of ideas. Some worked like crazy. A few were duds. But had enough success I spent the next 10 years just writing for my business.

The biggest reaction I got were my Christmas letters. I basically made a huge offer as a Christmas present to Clients (around Christmas obviously.) It was a personal letter which also positioned something as a gift the Client would benefit from the entire next year.

I also did tons of magazine feature articles and columns.

Hi Drew. Welcome to the forum!

I started copywriting back in 2004 writing print and radio ads, brochures, press releases, etc. for local businesses (restaurants, florists, carpet stores, etc.) and non-profit organizations. I billed $35 per hour (slightly less for non-profits). Most jobs took between 2 and 4 hours.

At the same time, I took a job as the Advertising Sales Manager for a local newspaper -- which gave me invaluable insights into how to help my writing clients increase their ads and PR effectiveness.

But what really kick-started my career was taking an in-house position as a copywriter at Littleton Coin Company. The company had been in direct response biz for over 60 years and really had it down to a science.

I worked my tail off and learned anything and everything I could about copywriting and marketing. And two years later Clayton Makepeace recruited me to join his team. Two years after that (2010) I returned to the freelance arena. Now I write everything from micro ads to magalogs and tabloids -- and earn much more than $35/hr.

The main key -- at least in my case -- was plain and simple hard work on my part. Bust your tail and don't slack off, even when your only client is yourself. Especially then. And NEVER stop studying the business to improve your craft.

Hope this helps. And good luck!

Len

Started by writing my own business mailers back in the early nineties.

Was influenced by Jay Abraham material at the time.

Biggest breakthrough was a headine I wrote in 1998...

"No Aussies at Boomerang World Cup"...

...even though Fosters [Aussie beer] is sponsoring the Americans at the event in St Louis and Qantas has sponsored the Swiss team...

there will be no Australian team attending because they can't get sponsorship.

Sent to all media organisations.

7 hours later got 5 minutes on National prime time news at 6.12pm.

By 6.30 had verbal commitment for $20K from public relations manager of Aussie company.

Following day filmed hand over of $25K check for next evening news.

Four weeks later had 12 guys competing in St Louis.

Same time got my business on the front of International Decor magazine [head office in St Louis and I invited Executives to attend event]

Both my son and I set new World records at the event and ended up in Sports Illustrated.

Flew First class to New York and closed the Today Show with Matt Lauer and Katy Couric throwing boomerangs around Rockefeller Plaza.

Now I don't ever try to sell writing services but I've had my fair share of success and similar magical outcomes from efforts made for both my own business and the few people who have chosen me to help them.

You just have to get yourself out there. If you know anyone who could benefit from your work you can offer to give them a trial run of your work, and if they like you they can hire you. There are several sites like freelancer or upwork(odesk) where you can find people who needs writers. (you will need to go through a lot of job requests before finding a good client who cares about quality over cost. There are several other sites you can go to as well. Thing is, unless you already have clients, you'll need to produce something to show what you are capable of. There are several places online where you can self publish, just do a google search for such places. Write some great content around a subject you are familiar and experienced in. Find a site where you can publish your content online and publish it. As long as you don't use an alias for your published content, you can refer potential clients to it to verify your skills. And be open to rejection and to criticism, as you may or may not receive plenty, albeit, usually meant in a constructive way. Write more content you can give out to a few people who would benefit from the content. Ask if you can use them as a reference if they are satisfied with your work. There are so many ways you can get started and get your first client. The most important thing, however, is that you need to write. I could probably go on all night about this subject, but bottom line is the most important thing you can do is write.

Found someone with a good product but bad copy and pitched a sales copy to them and let them use it for free in turn for 20% of the commission of every sale.

I found my first job on odesk, and the experience was okay, i finished 5 articles and took 20 dollars

Lurked around the forums here for long enough and jumped on a post for someone who was looking for a copywriter.

Suggested a few ways they could improve what they were doing (just adding value and showing that I was someone they would love to work with) and viola...presto chango...got my first gig.

-TJoseph.

Straight out of uni. But that's no help I guess.

Read loads. Write loads.

Try and get a guest post going somewhere and develop a feel for writing for the digital generation. Speaking purely from a business point of view, there's nothing as valuable and memorable as a quality freebie!