For careers like “doctor,” “lawyer,” or “plumber,” the career path feels pretty clear.
But for a career like copywriting, the path to success feels…murkier.
Why? It’s likely for one of two reasons:
You don’t know anyone who’s done it…so you don’t know how to do it, either
You know someone who’s tried it and struggled
The big secret is that the cause of #2 is actually, #1: The people who’ve struggled don’t know the path to success either.
So let’s fix all of that, shall we? Let’s lay out the entire career in one clear road map.
1. Learn to write copy
I mean, this should be a given, right? And yet, every single day people try to break into copywriting without actually learning (or honing) any of the skills.
Copywriting is a very different kind of writing from any other and there are both fundamental and advanced principles that you need to learn to wield before you’re ready to charge for it.
2. Practice AND get feedback
You need to practice to develop your skills, just like in literally any other industry.
But you also need to get feedback from people who are more skilled at it than you are.
When you’re learning, you don’t know what you don’t know—and you don’t yet have the expertise or experience to push yourself to improve.
Copywriting is a collaborative field and you need the perspective of a more skilled practitioner to improve your work.
BTW, AI can’t do that. It can offer you “advice” but because it’s based on generic copy that’s been pre-generated, it can’t offer you true expert advice because it’s not an actual, practicing expert.
AI is just an answer machine that’s read a lot of books. It’s not a copywriting expert.
3. Create your portfolio
Your website is what helps sell you to potential clients and bosses before they ever even meet you.
Clients don’t care about your age, gender, background, or even (largely) your experience: They just care that you can write great copy.
And your portfolio website is exactly how you demonstrate that.
But how do you do that before you’ve had clients? Great question! The answer is:
4. Create spec pieces
Spec pieces are, effectively, practice pieces that you use to demonstrate your skill before clients have paid you to write copy for them.
You’ll write the creative brief and, with a designer, develop pieces that show your depth and breadth of ability via a variety of different kinds of pieces in a variety of different kinds of brand voices.
(And you’ll clearly label each one as “SPEC” because you’re not trying to pull a fast one.)
Clients don’t care if your work is spec; they just care if it’s good.
And, as you get paid work, you’ll swap out your spec samples for your paid samples.
5. Update your LinkedIn profile
You don’t absolutely have to do this one if you’re working full-time in another field, but it can be a great way to get organically “found” for potential projects.
6. Learn how to price your services
First: Never, EVER charge by the word.
That’s for content work and there’s a reason people burn out quickly on content.
Plus, copywriting is often better when it’s concise and if you’re charging by the word, you’re penalizing yourself for doing it well. Charging by the word is a mark of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Most of your work will be by the project, though some will be by the hour.
The key is to factor in all of the elements of a project (the kickoff, concepting, outlining, writing, editing, the creative review, a round or two of revisions, any client calls, etc.) before coming up with your project price to ensure you’re making a solid income on the project.
If you skip any of this and just “pick a number” you will, invariably, end up working for peanuts and resenting your client.
When you’ve carefully considered all of the elements of a project before you price it out, you can be sure you’re being well-compensated.
7. Learn the right way to reach out to clients/for jobs
This one is for both would-be freelancers and would-be employees, so don’t either of you skip it.
Most freelancers (in any industry) struggle because they never learned a system for finding and landing clients. They rely on referrals or, worse, sites like Upwork to make work randomly fall in their laps.
Commit this to memory: Wishing and hoping is not how you build a career.
You need a system for outreach that breaks through all of the crud emails that people get and that clearly and immediately demonstrates your value.
(Our students regularly report would-be clients thanking them for reaching out.)
If you want an on-staff job, this goes for you, too. You cannot use the “one-click apply” or direct website application forms. You’ll get lost in a sea of other applicants.
You’ll also likely get tossed out by HR gatekeepers who are scanning resumes and cover letters looking for keywords.
You need to use the same value-providing outreach system to connect with the key decision people for an on-staff role.
8. Re-pitch previous clients, continue outreach
The easiest clients to land are the ones you’ve already landed.
A shocking number of freelancers work with a client for a project once and move on, figuring that if a client wants to work with them again, “they’ll just come to me.”
Wrong.
It’s not their job to fill your pipeline of work, it’s your job.
PLUS, when you suggest additional projects to clients, you’re providing additional value by helping them build and improve their businesses.
Clients don’t want people who just produce, they want partners. And you can be a partner by continually looking for ways to benefit your clients—both current and previous clients.
And, at the same time, continue your new outreach, as well.
Every outreach email is planting a seed for potential future work. If you stop planting the seeds…you can be 100% sure that you’re not going to see any future projects sprout.
9. Increase your rates as your experience increases
The more work you do and then more you learn, the more your skill will increase.
You should plan on raising your rates every few years, but you don’t have to raise them drastically; $5/hour increase will often be appropriate.
I know: $5/hour sounds absurdly small but let’s run through the math.
If you’re making $70/hour and working 35 hours a week for 50 weeks, you make $122,500.
When you increase your rate by just $5 to $75/hour…you jump to $131,250.
And don’t forget that you should keep increasing that rate every few years.
❌ What’s not on this list & why
Social media
Can you have a professional social media presence? Absolutely.
Do you need one? Absolutely not.
Social media might help support a potential client decide to reach out. It might help them find you.
It might.
But, at best, it’s a dotted line to clients, which means it’s not somewhere you should spend most of your time.
Direct outreach (the right way!) is a straight line to clients and it’s always going to be the easiest way to fill your client pipeline.
Mass pitches
If you want to land work (and I assume you do?!?), don’t send out mass generic pitches to a whole group of people.
All mass pitches demonstrate is laziness and no one wants to work with someone who’s lazy.
Your pitches need to be specific, personalized, and based in providing value.
Plus, the kinds of clients who reply to mass pitches are not and never the high-paying, high-quality ones.
Upwork
I know: It seems so easy. “People post jobs they want done and then I just apply for them!”
If only. Here’s what Upwork really is: It’s a place for people who want the highest possible skill level for the lowest possible fee.
Truly: The whole structure of the site is based on it.
People are bidding for work, which means that you need to drive down your rate to even be competitive.
And you’re bidding against people who don’t know any other way to find work (because they never learned systems), so they’re going to bid very low rates because they’re desperate.
You never (in any scenario) want to be competing with someone who’s desperate.
Best case scenario, you win the work and end up working at a rate that’s much lower than what you should be. (And when you could be just working at your standard rate instead.
Worst case (and far, far more common) scenario, you waste hours sending out tons of quality proposals, never get any work from it, and end up frustrated and disappointed.
There’s a path to follow:
There’s nothing mystical or luck-based about building a thriving copywriting career, whether you want to be freelance or on-staff, part-time or full-time.
You follow the steps of the people who’ve been successful before you.
If you’d like to dive in a bit more into what a copywriting career looks like, check out the free, on-demand video workshop I’ve put together right here.
About the Author
Nicki Krawczyk has been a professional copywriter for 20+ years, writing for clients including Hasbro, adidas, Reebok, TripAdvisor, Barnes and Noble, and plenty more.
Since 2012, she’s also been teaching people to create professional copywriting careers of their own via the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy, the #1 all-in-one online professional copywriting training program.
To learn more about the CCA and about beginning your own copywriting career, check out our free, on-demand video workshop.