The 5 Most Frustrating Things About Trying To Find Clients Online As A Copywriter

Finding clients is one of the most frustrating and time consuming aspect of being a freelance copywriter.

  

To land a single client, you may have to email hundreds of potential clients and attend tens of networking events.

  

Reaching out to clients is even harder for new writers who have no income stream because many of the contacts never reply to emails.

  

Even those who reply and are interested in your services may not offer you a job immediately, but will instead inform you that they will contact you in future when they get work that fits your skills.

  

Yet, others will ask you to write for them for free in exchange for "exposure” and free publicity through their "site which receives thousands of unique visitors every month”.

  

All this can be very frustrating for new writers or those writers who are strapped for cash. When confronted with all these problems, many writers choose to either to change careers or work for content mills that pay them peanuts for their work.

  

Below are the five things that I found most frustrating when I was looking for clients for my business.

 

1. Prospects That Take Months To Reply (Or Never Do)

Every once in a while, a prospective client will respond to your email within an hour and you’ll land an assignment after a few back and forth emails. But, for the most part, expect to wait days, weeks, even months before signing a deal with a client.

  

Sometime, it can take more than a year for a client to get back to you.

  

Waiting for clients to respond to you is definitely first on the list of the most frustrating things you will encounter as you try to look for your first client.

  

If you are new to the field, be prepaid to wait for a few months to get your first clients, but if you are lucky, you may get your first client in a few weeks or a few days. 

  

Don’t give up after sending hundreds of emails and getting no reply. Keep on sending them and soon you will get that one client who believes that you can offer real value to their business and they will offer you a good deal for your services.

 

2. Clients That Ask You To Write For Free

After a round of sending emails to potential clients, you will likely get that one response from a company that wants you to write content for their site for free. The common reasons they will give you for asking to volunteer your services to their business include giving you exposure through the work you do for them or that the company has no money to hire a writer at that time, but they need help getting to the next level.

  

I am not completely against writing free content because I acquired some of my clients this way. However, you should avoid being sucked into the free content trap where you write free content to companies in perpetuity in the hope of landing a paying job in future.

  

So, you should avoid giving free services unless you believe that the company has a genuine potential for growth.

  

If the company has a potential to grow, they should be able to afford your services in a few months and would have no problem paying your fees, which would make up for all the hustle you went through when starting.

  

However, based on my experience, many of the people who will ask for free content in exchange for ‘exposure’ will offer you no value.

  

To be safe, avoid any offers for free content and continue to look for companies that believe that your services are worth the price you ask for.

 

3. People That Steal Your Content

Every writer that I know has had a client who refused to pay him or her after they delivered the work they were contracted to do.

  

The common trick that scammers use is asking you to write a sample and promising to pay for it. However, the scammer will come up with excuses for not hiring you, but they will use the sample anyway.

  

Other scammers ask you to submit a free sample, accept it, and give you a writing contract. But, once you send them the first batch of articles, they will stop replying to your emails without paying you for the sample or the first batch of work! However, they will still use the sample in their website or sell it to other people.

  

To avoid such scammers, never accept to send a free sample. You should also ask the client to pay you a retainer once they accept your first sample and are ready to commit to a long-term relationship.

  

If they are not willing to pay a retainer, ask for payment for the first batch upfront, or until you develop enough trust to be able to work for them and receive your payments either monthly or weekly.

 

4. Clients That Steal Your Ideas

Some companies will ask you to send pitches, but once you send them some good topics or ideas, they will decline to use your services and then steal your ideas.

  

This is not only a poor business practice, but it is also theft of intellectual property.

  

Too many times, I read of stories by writers who saw their ideas appear in print or online, implemented by the business prospect they sent the pitch to.

  

Fortunately, some of these (although very few) have gone on to apologize and take on the services of the freelancer after being put to task about it.

  

But, in most cases, they will steal your ideas and there is nothing you can do about it.

  

Sadly, there is nothing that writers can do to prevent an unethical company from stealing their ideas. However, you can raise the issue with the managers to see if they will compensate you for your ideas.

 

5. Prospects That Don’t Value Your Skills

Unfortunately, some people think the skills of freelancers such as photographers, web designers, graphic artists, and writers are worth nothing.

  

Therefore, they think that it is ok to ask you to work for free or in exchange of something of lesser value!

Writing and other forms of freelancing tasks take a lot of time and effort.

  

So, if a company doesn’t think that your services are worth the money you are asking for, you should move on and look for someone else who values the skills enough to want to pay you a decent price.