PDA

View Full Version : Copywriter Networking Groups



christinagilman
01-05-2012, 01:26 AM
I'm fairly new to freelance copywriting, (The majority of my professional writing experience comes from writing while working for a business). Now that I'm on my own, I think I'd benefit from some type of networking with other copywriters, either in person or online.

Do any of the copywriters/freelance commercial writers on this forum have a networking group they'd recommend?

vangogh
01-05-2012, 05:50 PM
I may not be a copywriter, but I thought I'd chime in anyway. First I would ask why you want to network with other copywriters. I'm guessing the idea is to have a group to ask and answer questions and generally help with being a freelance copywriter.

I just did some quick searching and didn't find any social networks specifically for copywriters. You may want to search for some copywriting blogs. It wouldn't surprise me if some also have forums on their site. Coincidentally enough CopyBlogger (a great blog on copywriting and marketing) posted a list of 13 copywriting blogs (http://www.copyblogger.com/copywriting-blogs-2011/) today. The few I checked didn't have forums attached, but you can always converse with people through the comments on the blog. There's certainly networking potential there and if you ever come across a post on any of them about social networking in general they'll likely list places to network and it would be a good time to ask the same question you're asking here.

You may also find sub communities within larger networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Another quick search on LinkedIn led me to some copywriter groups within and I'm sure there are similar groups on Facebook.

One other thought is once you have an audience around your blog and people are commenting you could always add some social components to your own site and bring the network to you.

You also have one new subscriber to your blog. :)

Dan Furman
01-06-2012, 11:37 AM
There was one I belonged to years ago, but it was more geared towards over the top salesletter writing, and also was heavy on people who thought they were personalities. Just not into the "rock star" copywriter thing.

If you ever want to chat, Christina, or have a question or anything, I'm always happy to help. Pop an e-mail to me (e-mail - not a PM from here - for some reason, the site doesn't contact me when I get a PM, even though I have it set to, so they go unread for days/weeks.)

christinagilman
01-06-2012, 01:23 PM
VanGough- Thank you for taking the time to look things up on the internet. I love Copyblogger, but I actually hadn't seen the post on 15 copywriting sites. Good stuff. I also looked around on the internet and was surprised to find there are no (good) forums for copywriting. The ones I found were laden with spam. I also did join some groups on Linked in, but again they are pretty spammy, not a lot of good conversations going on. But I'll remember your advice - maybe when my blog gains some momentum I will start my own forum !

Dan - Thank you in advance for the offer to help, I really appreciate it! You'll be hearing from me soon :)

vangogh
01-06-2012, 02:11 PM
Glad to help. Don't by shy about just networking here too. Obviously Dan is a copywriter as well as some others here. Then there are more of us, myself included who may not be copywriters, but do write a lot of copy. Plus even though you're a freelance copywriter and someone like me is a freelance web designer, we end up dealing with many of the same business issues. At the core we both offer a service and likely to similar people and businesses.

@Dan - Strange about the PMs. I just checked your settings on the admin side and it does look like you should be getting emails when a PM is sent. I'm not sure why you aren't.

Dan Furman
01-06-2012, 05:58 PM
Glad to help. Don't by shy about just networking here too. Obviously Dan is a copywriter as well as some others here. Then there are more of us, myself included who may not be copywriters, but do write a lot of copy. Plus even though you're a freelance copywriter and someone like me is a freelance web designer, we end up dealing with many of the same business issues. At the core we both offer a service and likely to similar people and businesses.

@Dan - Strange about the PMs. I just checked your settings on the admin side and it does look like you should be getting emails when a PM is sent. I'm not sure why you aren't.

The internet hates me.

vangogh
01-06-2012, 08:09 PM
Too bad it can't send you a PM to let you know why. :)

enjisweet
01-08-2012, 02:44 AM
I am new to freelance copy writing, I was looking for a writing buddy to share business goals with interested?

C*H*U*D
01-10-2012, 10:42 AM
Hi everyone,

I'm new here, but very interested in copywriting (something I've never really put much thought into before). One question I have for those of you that provide the service, is how do you write for a subject you know nothing about? What I mean is if a person comes to you with a hobby/business you've never heard of before, do you rely on the client for the information or do you research on your own? I hope I'm explaining this correctly.

Juan

vangogh
01-10-2012, 01:52 PM
As I said above I'm not specifically a copywriter, but I'll offer some thoughts.

It's a combination of getting information from the client, researching the general industry and market, and applying solid principles of copywriting. From the client you want to understand their brand message and story and understand who their customers are. Naturally you want as much detail as you can get about specific products/services as well.

Researching the industry can help with a more general understanding of the market and your client's position within the market. You can gain an understanding of how your specific client might stand out and what's unique about their business in comparison to the industry at large.

When doing the actual writing you're applying solid copywriting principles to the copy. You want to take the message of the client and figure out how to best communicate it to their customers so the customers take action. Most everyone can string together a series of words together to create copy, but most can't string those words together in a way that gets people to read, care, or ultimately buy.

Dan Furman
01-11-2012, 12:30 PM
Hi everyone,

I'm new here, but very interested in copywriting (something I've never really put much thought into before). One question I have for those of you that provide the service, is how do you write for a subject you know nothing about? What I mean is if a person comes to you with a hobby/business you've never heard of before, do you rely on the client for the information or do you research on your own? I hope I'm explaining this correctly.

Juan

A little bit of both.

But most importantly, I try to look at it from the site visitor's (or ad reader's) point of view. Because in the end, that's who I'm writing for.

vangogh
01-11-2012, 03:09 PM
But most importantly, I try to look at it from the site visitor's (or ad reader's) point of view.

Great point. That's ultimately who your copy is meant to persuade. It's another component that goes into this mix. When I'm asking questions of a client or researching their industry before designing a site, I'm doing so through the filter of my client's customers. Not that you can ignore the client. There are times when a client insists on doing something a certain way and my experience and research suggests it's not the best way to do that thing. When that happens I'll do my best to convince my client and give him or her what information I can so they can make the best decision.

billbenson
01-11-2012, 07:10 PM
I'm not a copywriter, but rather someone who has had some copy written for me. My product is technical and in a very unique industry. I would never be able to find a copywriter who is familiar with the product. The way I would approach it is I would write what I think is good copy and give it to the copywriter. I'm sure there would be errors in the copy which I would need to correct and give it back to the copywriter. If I planned on having a lot of pages written, I would find a copywriter who would have a background that would allow him to pick up and understand my product over time. Initially, at least, I think it would need to be an iterative process.

vangogh
01-11-2012, 08:18 PM
I would never be able to find a copywriter who is familiar with the product.

No reason they need to be. It would be ideal if they were very familiar, but it isn't necessary. It might mean a copywriter would need to spend more time working with you to get the specific technical information and learn more about the product than they would with a more common product to better understand it.

Knowing your product I do know how hard it is to write copy for. :) You've helped me understand it a lot and still I know my knowledge of what you sell is limited. I also know information online isn't readily available outside the manufacturers descriptions.

Yet the same basic principle of communication with you and researching both the product and the potential market for the product will still work. It might require more time and effort, but the basic process would still apply and work.

billbenson
01-11-2012, 10:14 PM
So, in my case, you don't think it would necessarily need to be an iterative process?

billbenson
01-11-2012, 10:26 PM
Another question on the same lines, I have thought at times about hiring Dan or someone similar to write copy. But is that really necessary in my case? The manufacturer has presold the product for me. My site ideally has all of the products and prices on it and is easy to purchase from. For immediate assistance they can give me a phone call. For that reason, the real call to action is to make the site easy to buy from. Obviously SERPS placement is very important in my case.

I see my sites success as:

1. Place 1 in SERPS
2. Easy to find product and show price (I'm the only distributor that I know of that tries to put all of the products and prices on the their site).
3. Visible phone to call with questions or to order by phone.

jamesray50
01-11-2012, 10:54 PM
Hi Christina - I can understand you wanting to belong to a networking group for your industry. I belong to a "chat room" through a bookkeeping association. You may check to see if there are any associations for copywriters that have forums. Also, I belong to quite a few different LinkedIn groups specific to my skills. You may check on LinkedIn to see what groups there are and join them. Also, another group I belong to is on FaceBook. It is a private group, small, made up of virtual friends that are also in the other groups I mentioned. The benefit of this group is that is private, so the we can be a little bit more vocal in what we say. If you can't find any groups, you can create you own group on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Good Luck!

vangogh
01-12-2012, 12:38 PM
So, in my case, you don't think it would necessarily need to be an iterative process?

I think an iterative process is fine. Most things do well with an iterative process.

Where search is concerned I don't think you do nearly as well as you could be doing. Most of your traffic comes from Adwords and a couple of choice phrases all based on your domain name. However I think with unique copy you could get a lot more search traffic. Most of the copy on your site is the same copy every other distributer is using setting up a lot of duplicate content across the industry.

With better, and more importantly, unique content I think a lot more of your pages would bring search traffic. I think it could probably get more people to contact yours well.

billbenson
01-12-2012, 03:07 PM
Actually, I shut down my adwords when I had my database crash in August and am still swamped with leads. So my calls are coming from natural SERPS. I want to put some adwords back up, mostly so Google still likes me for adwords. Not for the traffic.

vangogh
01-12-2012, 03:41 PM
I understand. I'm not saying you don't get any traffic through organic search, but that you could be getting a lot more. When I look at the keywords driving traffic to your site they overwhelmingly use the manufacturer's name or part of it in the phrase.

Obviously it's good that you rank well when the manufacturer's name is used, but what about all those people who are looking for your product, but don't necessarily have a specific manufacturer in mind? That's leaving a lot of potential sales on the table.

How about people who aren't going to automatically buy from the first site they land on. Those people see your copy and the copy of a few other sites and it's all the same. I doubt all those people decide they'll buy from you just because they found your site first. Or how about the people who do land on your site, but don't go on to buy for whatever reason. Better copy on the site could certainly increase how many people call and also buy.

I think where you are is good. I'm not trying to suggest what you're doing now is bad in any way. I am suggesting it could be better and better copy could help make it better.

Dan Furman
01-12-2012, 09:43 PM
Another question on the same lines, I have thought at times about hiring Dan or someone similar to write copy. But is that really necessary in my case? The manufacturer has presold the product for me. My site ideally has all of the products and prices on it and is easy to purchase from. For immediate assistance they can give me a phone call. For that reason, the real call to action is to make the site easy to buy from. Obviously SERPS placement is very important in my case.

I see my sites success as:

1. Place 1 in SERPS
2. Easy to find product and show price (I'm the only distributor that I know of that tries to put all of the products and prices on the their site).
3. Visible phone to call with questions or to order by phone.

If you want an evaluation, shoot me your site (dan at clear-writing dot com) - I'll give you an honest opinion, and keep things confidential (because I know you are private about your biz). If I feel I can help you, I'll say so (and why). If I feel it's great for what you are doing, I'll say such too. You've known me long enough here to hopefully trust that I'll be honest in this (truthfully, I refuse work all the time because I feel what they have is good, or I feel their money is better spent elsewhere.)

billbenson
01-12-2012, 10:58 PM
Vangogh is currently redoing my site. He's waiting on me to do some testing and after that it'll go live with the new site. I'd appreciate your opinion, so once its live I'll shoot you an email.

Thanks!

On edit, I'll shoot you an email. I can show you the old and new site. Give me a bit to actually write the email as it will take some explaining.

christinagilman
01-14-2012, 01:38 AM
enjisweet - if you'd like to send me a PM I'd be happy to discuss business goals.
CHUD - That is a good question, and I think Vangogh also answered it pretty spot on for not being a copywriter. I've worked with both types of clients: those who gave me very little information and those who gave me a lot. For the ones with little information given- I use a lot of research myself to fill in the gaps.

If you do ever work with a copywriter, however, I'd suggest giving him or her as much information as you can. That way, you'll get more effective copy and it probably won't cost as much (most copywriters will charge for any research they must perform).

vangogh
01-14-2012, 01:41 AM
I think Vangogh also answered it pretty spot on for not being a copywriter.

I find it's very similar to being a web designer as far as the approach to the project. In the end we're both trying to communicate the client's story to the client's audience. We do it in differently, but in many ways we're doing the same thing.

Some of the sameness is likely due to our business being very similar. Essentially we're both freelancers working for similar types of clients and again the work is a different form of mostly the same thing.

christinagilman
01-14-2012, 01:49 AM
My product is technical and in a very unique industry. I would never be able to find a copywriter who is familiar with the product.
Bill - there are times when hiring someone who doesn't know anything about a technical product can actually be a good thing. I don't know who your customers are, but if they were not highly technical people, or were not very familiar with the inner workings of your product type, hiring someone who starts from zero and learns about your product might be able to write better easier-to-understand copy than someone who is very knowledgeable.

And even if you are selling to people who are just somewhat familiar with the technical side, but not experts, it can be helpful to get a fresh perspective on how your product works. You (and others who would have your level of expertise) are so close to the product that when you write about it, you might assume your reader knows certain things that seem obvious to you - but are not obvious to them. This can create gaps in your writing.

Again, I'm not sure how much this applies to your business, but it's just another perspective on writing for highly technical products.

Paul Elliott
01-14-2012, 03:16 PM
As I said above I'm not specifically a copywriter, but I'll offer some thoughts.

Christina and Juan, don't allow VG to fool you. He understands the business very well and does an excellent job of copywriting. ;)


It's a combination of getting information from the client, researching the general industry and market, and applying solid principles of copywriting. From the client you want to understand their brand message and story and understand who their customers are. Naturally you want as much detail as you can get about specific products/services as well.

Researching the industry can help with a more general understanding of the market and your client's position within the market. You can gain an understanding of how your specific client might stand out and what's unique about their business in comparison to the industry at large.

When doing the actual writing you're applying solid copywriting principles to the copy. You want to take the message of the client and figure out how to best communicate it to their customers so the customers take action. Most everyone can string together a series of words together to create copy, but most can't string those words together in a way that gets people to read, care, or ultimately buy.

These are beautifully concise and cogent statements about the process of good copywriting for any client! Any freelancer should follow this pattern.

I often get the client to write or tell on an MP3 exactly what they want to say about their product or service. You should also ask for copies of any sales and marketing materials they have already used as well as current and previous web copy they have used. NONE OF THIS is to use directly but to give you an idea of what they have said about their product and service so you understand more about their business from their perspective. When you understand these things well, you are in a much better position to craft much better work for them.

I use a cover letter with a checklist of the things I need before we even start. Of course, you will likely need to have signed a confidentiality/non-compete agreement before they give you these things. That protects you as well as your clients.

Paul

Paul Elliott
01-14-2012, 03:33 PM
I think an iterative process is fine. Most things do well with an iterative process.

Where search is concerned I don't think you do nearly as well as you could be doing. Most of your traffic comes from Adwords and a couple of choice phrases all based on your domain name. However I think with unique copy you could get a lot more search traffic. Most of the copy on your site is the same copy every other distributer is using setting up a lot of duplicate content across the industry.

With better, and more importantly, unique content I think a lot more of your pages would bring search traffic. I think it could probably get more people to contact yours well.

Bill, I agree that your page/s should have unique copy that will make your pages unique in your industry. As Christina said, a good copy/technical writer, unfamiliar with your product/s, can often explain things much better for the customers' understanding than someone who is very knowlegeable. The knowlegeable person may make too many assumptions about the customers' understanding which would not translate well.

Paul

vangogh
01-15-2012, 10:35 PM
Thanks for the compliments Paul. Nice to see you again too. :)

Good point about asking for all the marketing material. I do that too. Sometimes I have to see it because I need to stay consistent with colors in an existing logo or similar. I did have a client a couple years back who couldn't really provide much more information to me than what was in his brochure. I used it and some general research to write a few pages of copy for his site.

On Bill's behalf I'll add that his customers will understand the technical side of his products. They aren't anything the average person would generally buy.

Paul Elliott
01-15-2012, 11:05 PM
I just found this copywriting board. The Copywriting Board (http://www.copywritingboard.com/) Not sure, yet, whether it is good or not.

Paul

Patrysha
01-16-2012, 09:22 PM
I know the names of the moderators...they were on the old copywriters forum hosted by Michel Fortin. That's the real deal when it comes to great marketing and copywriting advice.

Paul Elliott
01-16-2012, 11:48 PM
I know the names of the moderators...they were on the old copywriters forum hosted by Michel Fortin. That's the real deal when it comes to great marketing and copywriting advice.

Thanks, Patrysha. Has Michel Fortin gotten out of the business?

Paul

christinagilman
01-17-2012, 01:47 AM
Thanks for the link Paul

billbenson
01-17-2012, 01:08 PM
Bill, I agree that your page/s should have unique copy that will make your pages unique in your industry. As Christina said, a good copy/technical writer, unfamiliar with your product/s, can often explain things much better for the customers' understanding than someone who is very knowlegeable. The knowlegeable person may make too many assumptions about the customers' understanding which would not translate well.

Paul

On Bill's behalf I'll add that his customers will understand the technical side of his products. They aren't anything the average person would generally buy.

Paul, the best analogy I can come up with for my product is selling some specialized chemicals. Heavily regulated, very unique to the industry. You buy things with chemicals in them every day. Pretty much only a niche of the chemical engineers within the manufacturer of the chemical product you bought know what the specific chemicals are and what the specifications mean. It might be that only a couple of companies in the world make those chemicals. Its not just knowing the chemicals, but all of the regulations that govern the manufacturing of them.

Dan Furman
01-17-2012, 02:34 PM
Is anyone else having trouble with this thread? I cannot, for the life of me, see page 3. It keeps kicking me to page 2.

vangogh
01-17-2012, 03:57 PM
I can get to all the pages in the thread. Is anyone else besides Dan having an issue?

@Paul - I know Michael Fortin is still blogging. I'm subscribed and he posted earlier today.

billbenson
01-17-2012, 05:06 PM
I got to page 3 with no problems.

Paul Elliott
01-17-2012, 05:53 PM
Paul, the best analogy I can come up with for my product is selling some specialized chemicals. Heavily regulated, very unique to the industry. You buy things with chemicals in them every day. Pretty much only a niche of the chemical engineers within the manufacturer of the chemical product you bought know what the specific chemicals are and what the specifications mean. It might be that only a couple of companies in the world make those chemicals. Its not just knowing the chemicals, but all of the regulations that govern the manufacturing of them.

Bill, even if they contact you only to fill an order--I suspect you are not merely an order taker--is there anything you tell them about the chemicals, delivery, your service, or anything else that make ordering from you any better than anyone else? If so, perhaps you could add that explanation on your site in such a way to distinguish yourself from every other vendor.


Is there any other way you can distinguish yourself from your competition in the sales arena that you could project on your site?
What service do you really offer other than simple order taking?
Is there anything you can offer in the sense of a value-added service that would make someone order from you, return to order from you, tell others of your existance/service, etc.?

Paul Elliott
01-17-2012, 06:02 PM
I am new to freelance copy writing, I was looking for a writing buddy to share business goals with interested?

Feel free to throw out your stuff here, EJN. Members here are pretty good at giving you good interaction.

Paul Elliott
01-17-2012, 06:09 PM
@Paul - I know Michael Fortin is still blogging. I'm subscribed and he posted earlier today.

Thanks, I need to resub ... that was too many broken laptops ago.:(

jamesray50
01-17-2012, 07:26 PM
I'm having no problems either.

billbenson
01-17-2012, 07:49 PM
Bill, even if they contact you only to fill an order--I suspect you are not merely an order taker--is there anything you tell them about the chemicals, delivery, your service, or anything else that make ordering from you any better than anyone else? If so, perhaps you could add that explanation on your site in such a way to distinguish yourself from every other vendor.


Is there any other way you can distinguish yourself from your competition in the sales arena that you could project on your site?
What service do you really offer other than simple order taking?
Is there anything you can offer in the sense of a value-added service that would make someone order from you, return to order from you, tell others of your existance/service, etc.?


Kinda sort of maybe :)

A lot of my competition are very large distributors who have all kinds of products. Their sales people don't know the product I sell. To a large degree it's a consultative sell. Particularly when it comes with the expensive products. It's not unusual to spend half an hour on the phone with a customer explaining what he needs. Then again I can get a $7k order online. My real distinguishing factor is I know the product inside and out and I've been selling high ticket technical items for 30 years. For 22 years I sold $1M plus telephone switches to phone companies. If I get them on the phone I can usually sell them if they are a real prospect. So I do distinguish myself in product knowledge and sales skills.

One thing I should mention is I have spent a lot of time writing programs to allow me to quickly get a quote to the customer. If a customer calls me looking for a product, whether they know the part number or not, I just ask them for phone, email, name, and find the part number(s) and hit click and they have a quote.In most cases thats a two minute process. I don't want to give them time to surf for better pricing. I don't sell on price.

I wrote my web site 5 plus years ago. I think its pretty ugly,

I think one of three things happens when someone comes to the site.

- Its ugly and hard to navigate and they leave.

- They either get frustrated with the site and call me or they just call me. The phone number is prominently displayed in the header on all pages.

- They buy online.

I'd like to improve the buy online part. Normally you do this by quality content. Unfortunately, there are 4000 plus products that need good information put on the web. It's kind of hard for a one man show. I'm hoping my new web site which isn't up yet will improve people that come and just leave because the sites ugly. It won't solve the quality of the content and getting all of the products on the site though.

Vangogh mentioned above somewhere improving my search results by getting more searches for generic terms coming to my site ie "hp printer" vs "printer". Personally I don't really think that will do much in my case. But there are products I have that could lend themselves to that approach. I just think people almost always know my brand when they look for our products. In fact I bet 80% or more of my orders are actually placed by purchasing agents.They are told by engineers or others what to buy.

So a sample order process might be: I talk to the engineer and he gets the order budget approved. Purchasing is given the part number to order and goes to Google, finds me and buys.

vangogh
01-17-2012, 11:52 PM
Bill you might be surprised by what people search for. I just checked a few of your product categories in Google's keyword tool. There's a significant amount of searches done on them. With organic results you usually only rank when the manufacturer's name is also included in the search. I think you can get more traffic for the searches where their name isn't included.

Keep in mind you have some big ticket items for sale. It wouldn't require a lot of traffic for it to make a difference to you.

billbenson
01-18-2012, 09:39 AM
Certainly worth investigating Steve. I've been real busy playing sales guy but I'll try to get to the site soon.

vangogh
01-18-2012, 11:30 AM
Oh no rush on things. Just trying to convince you to try when you're ready.

EBrooks
07-22-2013, 10:49 AM
I can suggest to look for copywriters groups on LinkedIn. There are huge amount of specialists on this field.

Paul Elliott
07-22-2013, 11:29 AM
I'm hoping my new web site which isn't up yet will improve people that come and just leave because the sites ugly. It won't solve the quality of the content and getting all of the products on the site though.

Bill, is your new site operational?

Paul

Sarah_CopyShoppy
05-30-2014, 12:29 PM
Copywriter groups on LinkedIn are definitely the best option, I think. Here are a few good ones that I use and am a member of (I am the CMO of a copywriting marketplace called CopyShoppy.com, so have some sense of this area!)

1. Copywriters and Small Businesses network - https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=4952571&trk=my_groups-tile-grp
2. Copywriters Elite - https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=6665758&trk=my_groups-tile-grp

CopyShoppy also has a decent copywriter community / group active on Facebook through our fan page here: https://www.facebook.com/CopyShoppyFanPage

Hope that helps! Happy to connect with you if you have more questions!
Sarah