Affiliate Marketing: Have I hitched my workhorse to the wrong wagon?

[LPcopywriter]

Hey all, this is my first serious thread on here, I believe, but this has been troubling me for a long time, and am getting nowhere.

I'm probably just looking for external approval to confirm my suspicions, but I'd still love to hear thoughts from all positions.

Some background:

After trying my hand at affiliate marketing for a couple years (~2006 to 2008), I gave that up to write copy for affiliates. I was terrible at managing cash flow, and enjoyed the marketing itself more than all the other aspects of AM.

Things were going pretty well. People were making a killing on dem acai berries, and I was able to establish myself as a provider of advertorial copy, and eventually all kinds of diet/fitness/beauty copy by proxy. I was able to raise my rates quickly too, and charging $300+ for a very basic page was easy, and the clients many.

But things seem to have plateaued.

I don't know what caused it. Maybe AM isn't as profitable as it once was. Or maybe I just wasn't marketing myself as heavily as I should have been. Perhaps a combination, or something different entirely?

Whatever the case, I've failed to attract higher paying clients or expand my current base. I'm caught in the $300-450 range for a short form affiliate lander (with some exceptions of course), and have been for a couple years now. To make matters worse, the volume of projects I take on has gone on a slow decline in the last 18 months or so.

Is it time to jump ship?

Whether or not I should make a dramatic pivot has been on my mind for long time. With dwindling business, the urge is growing.

There are a few things that are making me lean towards the edge of the boat:

• Business is dwindling, am I in a dying industry?
• Affiliate marketing isn't the most reputable biz, and I worry it prevents me from being taken seriously in other markets.
• Selling shitty products, to stupid people, isn't exactly personally rewarding.
• I think the growth potential as an affiliate copywriter is extremely limited when compared to related fields; e.g. content marketing.

I know this is a question only I can really answer, but I'd love any insight you have to offer.

Also happy to answer anyone's copywriting questions as a way to give back to the community, but perhaps I should start another thread for that... I guess just ask 'em and if there's enough interest, I'll make one.

 

[RomesFall]

In the last 12 months I've seen a lot of guys take hits in their client bases, myself included. This ranges from SEO, PPC, Web Design and as you say Copywriting too.

I'm not sure of the reasons and I haven't been around long enough to know if this is a regular fluctuation that happens every few years...

What I have learned though is that I was worrying excessively about maintaining something that was basically making me miserable anyway. Like you, what I really enjoy is the marketing... All of the other stuff was basically noise, frustrating noise that kept me from doing what I really love to focus all my energy on.

So I basically left it behind, slowly but surely and now I'm 100% client work free and I'm able to focus on what I love doing solely, as well as being able to select what it is that I work on.

So my advice is to go with your heart, transition out of what you're currently doing and find an alternative source of income or save some capital to give you some security while you move into what you really want to be doing.

I would love to know what copywriting books you actually recommend, there's a lot of them out there and I see most of them get recommended at some point. It would be good to know what ones have advice that can actually help measurably and 'quickly'.

 

[c4yrslf12]

@RomesFall may be right.. it may be the niche.

However... if you can't market yourself in the niche you know, are you sure a change in niche alone will be enough to light a fire and get things going?

Only you can really assess if you've done enough over the past 6 months to a year to really drive sales and push the envelope towards higher paying clients. If you can honestly look back over this time period and say you've hustled like a mad man and still don't see results, maybe you need to change your process or change your product.

But until then, I'd try harder than ever with what you've built. Worse case scenario, 6 months from now, you've gotten enough growth to sell the asset and start fresh elsewhere.

 

[LPcopywriter]

What I have learned though is that I was worrying excessively about maintaining something that was basically making me miserable anyway. Like you, what I really enjoy is the marketing... All of the other stuff was basically noise, frustrating noise that kept me from doing what I really love to focus all my energy on.

So I basically left it behind, slowly but surely and now I'm 100% client work free and I'm able to focus on what I love doing solely, as well as being able to select what it is that I work on.

So my advice is to go with your heart, transition out of what you're currently doing and find an alternative source of income or save some capital to give you some security while you move into what you really want to be doing.

Good advice. It has become more of a chore lately.

@RomesFall may be right.. it may be the niche.

However... if you can't market yourself in the niche you know, are you sure a change in niche alone will be enough to light a fire and get things going?

Only you can really assess if you've done enough over the past 6 months to a year to really drive sales and push the envelope towards higher paying clients. If you can honestly look back over this time period and say you've hustled like a mad man and still don't see results, maybe you need to change your process or change your product.

But until then, I'd try harder than ever with what you've built. Worse case scenario, 6 months from now, you've gotten enough growth to sell the asset and start fresh elsewhere.

Honestly, I haven't been hustling my hardest. I feel like I owe it to myself to give it one last push, but I'm not sure I'd like where I am when I get there. I'm starting to see a trend here...

I would love to know what copywriting books you actually recommend, there's a lot of them out there and I see most of them get recommended at some point. It would be good to know what ones have advice that can actually help measurably and 'quickly'.

Ca$hvertising is one of the most commonly recommended books, and it deserves it.

Basically all the old Ogilvy stuff is worth reading, I don't know if I could recommend one in particular though. It was a totally different time, but it almost all holds up.

Direct Mail Workshop is another oldie-but-goodie. It's got several hundred tactics in it that, if you internalize enough off, makes banging out copy pretty easy. And apparently you can get it for under $1.

 

[NormCharlton]

This will get long but your situation honestly reminds me a lot of my own about a year ago and I am in a much better position now. Plus I love this community so it seems like a good time to add some value.

I started off as a copywriter and still take on clients, even though I have some other projects that bring in alright income for me.

I'd seen things tail off quite a bit myself. I attribute it to a few things - SEO being a shell of what it once was, fewer people making reliable money online as time goes on, copywriting being the de facto go-to service for beginners, etc.

I think there is a plateau for "copywriters," who aren't going the agency route and are working with small businesses on a freelance basis. Especially if you don't want to go the "guru" route and want to just have great clients, write great copy and be a valuable asset. There's so many people out there claiming to be rockstar copywriters and it's SO easy to get lost in the crowd.

I mean...just throw up a project for a sales page on eLance and observe the type of retarded drivel these people pitch. And by the dozens too.

After seeing my work trail off I ended up re-branding myself as a CRO consultant instead of a copywriter and it turned things around almost instantly. In a nutshell I run split tests and lift the conversion rate of pages, usually with Optimizely or whatever platform the client already uses. I like it because...

A) I still get to write copy, which is actually what I love doing. It was never meant to be just a stepping stone for me like 90% of copywriters, I actually love the work which makes everything easier.

B) It's extremely results-focused. Before, I could pitch clients all I want on how my copy will increase their conversions, but the fact is that a lot of people would never bother to split test and didn't fully understand the value. They just wanted copy that fit their vision and sounded good to them. Plus, now I get to actually show results with every project and become a valued part of their business, rather than just that guy they message on skype when they need a sales page.

Instead of that guy that wrote the cool sales page they never split tested, I'm the guy that gave them a 25% revenue bump in a month's time. It's a much better position to be in. I'd done split testing before but it was always minor jobs, tweaking this or that. Now, if a page gets enough traffic I might split test 50-60 things before being "done" with that page.

Every project is a potential case study to show future clients. Having that track record of consistent results makes pitching a breeze.

C) Because it's results focused, pitching is incredibly easy. Before I relied a lot on referrals and the freelancing sites (which are a cesspool but there are actually some awesome clients there if you know what to look for). I was honestly scared to cold pitch random businesses. Just emailing them promising to make them more money if they let me re-write their sales page was awkward. Not the case now.

D) I can tie my pricing to value so easily.

E) The work is so easy. I'm rarely writing 1,000 page sales letters anymore. I pick the people I pitch to very carefully. Just based on that fact, most of the people I reach out to already have a solid copy foundation. I'm not re-writing the entire sales page, I'm tweaking things and watching the results.

F) Every single page you split test can turn into long term, monthly revenue streams. There is almost an unending number of things you could split on a given page. Multiply that by all the pages on the site that see significant traffic.

So, I'll just give you my whole process. There's more work out there than a million copywriters doing this same exact thing could handle.

For disclosures sake I still do get a lot of clients from eLance or rather UpWork now I guess, but I probably will stop that soon as my new cold pitch process is just slaying it and eLance probably isn't worth my time. I actually still do my video pitches on the freelance sites too, and it works there as well.

How I find and close high value clients, step by step;

1) Research...learn everything you can about your target. The most important part. I poke around the search results, blogs, PPC campigns (using ppc spying software), forums, etc. I target businesses that meet a few simple criteria;

• They are making money and spending good amounts of money on marketing. If someone is spending $5,000 on PPC and has a fucking terrible landing page they clearly haven't split tested - I instantly know I can improve their bottom line and provide value.
• They get enough traffic. A page needs to get thousands of visits per month to really benefit from split testing and allow me to charge enough.
• I can learn not just about the business, but learn about the owner/founder as well. Gotta know who you are pitching to.
• I can get the decision-makers email without asking for it. I use Email Hunter and am able to find it 75% of the time without issue.

2) Pitching...Give them actual value for free. I cold email a personalized video pitch to them specifically about their website. I mention things about their company and about their founder. They are usually about 5 minutes long. I take a screenshot of their page, load it up into Powerpoint, and step by step give them recommendations of changes to their page that I think I could split test to increase their conversion rate. I never mention money. I never mention payment. I give them awesome tips for free, and just ask them to reach out if they want to talk more about it.

Some targets might require a bit of education about split testing and why it would benefit them. I include that in the video if needed. It's case by case though.

In all the videos take about a half hour to make. I might knock out 5 on a free day.

I'd say at least 75% people reply, 50% of people want to hear more, and 25% actually end up paying me. But, for those that don't pay me - I've still given them some value and actually had them refer other people to me.

The irony here is that I am not split testing my pitches, lawl.

3) Trial period...create some quick measurable results. They reach out, and I ask that they run a 2 week trial...this time frame really depends on the traffic that they get. You have to wait out each split test for statistical relevance. Some might only require a day or two, others weeks. You also need to give yourself time to run multiple tests so you can be sure that you can show some results at the end of the trial period.

Usually I ask that they give me a deposit $250-$X,XXX depending on the size of the client. That's just to make sure that they are willing to shell out some dough on this service. I tell them the deposit is completely refundable at the end of the trial if they don't like the results. Never had someone ask for a full refund because I've never failed to produce increases in conversions. I have ended up lower than expected though and gave them a portion back, but that's whatever.

4) Close as a monthly client...tie pricing to value. Okay so I've run some initial split tests. Let's say I've raised their conversion rate on a page from 3% to 5%. I've already created $X of value.

Then I put together a new pitch. This one just done through email or phone.

I say that I've already got their conversion rate up 2 points to 5%. I give them a conservative estimate that over the next few weeks I could get that up to 7% - again, super conservative. This sets their expectations and makes it easy for you to exceed them. Trust me they will have no problems re-negotiating if you get that bitch converting at 12%.

I do the math. A 7% conversion rate would mean X number of new sales and generate X revenue for your business. It's a little more complicated for information capture but you can still see the math out and come up with hard figures.

Let's say the math adds up to $5,000 per month in additional profit for their business, and they'll have these results for the foreseeable future. I might price them at $1,500 or $2,000 per month. Really, it doesn't matter what you charge them as long as they are still profitable off of your work.

In all...the whole process is less fucking work than a 2,000 word long form sales page that I would have been paid $400 ONE TIME to write.

Or, if I'm super confident they have shitty copy and I'm going to get stellar results, I might just pitch them a flat percentage on how much lift I give them. Maybe 25% of all new revenues generated by your conversion increases. Get them to sign a contract, and then invoice them each month. That's more complicated though.

So... yea. That's what I did and it's worked out suprisingly well for me. I actually got the idea from Devesh Khanal who I found on some podcast. I copied his method almost to the T, so credit where credit is due.

The thing that probably excites me most about it is how easy CRO actually is. The plan is to eventually have Virtual Assistants doing all the split testing for me. I don't even need to get access to their site, Optimizely just gives me a javascript code they can place in the header of the page I'll be split testing and I can edit everything through Optimizely from there on out.

But...

I didn't write all this to say "HEY COPYWRITING IS DEAD, MOVE TO CRO AND DITCH ALL OF YOUR ASPIRATIONS."

It's more about the pitching process. I give high value clients a shit ton of value for free before I even ask them for a single dollar. I always price so they are profitable from my work. Also puts you in an awesome position to recommend other changes to their sales funnel and upsell new services to them. They trust you. They know you get results.

If you can find a way to give them value for free before ever working with them - I am confident this strategy would work for any service that delivers real value.

But yea - niche down. Don't be a "copywriter." Be a CRO, or an "infusionsoft consultant" or an "eCommerce conversion consultant," "sales funnel designer" or whatever. You could niche by technology (infusionsoft, optimizely, aweber, etc). You could niche by industry (fitness, b2b, etc.)

The work might be slower initially but it makes everything so much easier.

 

[Janiform]

Is it time to jump ship?

Before I say anything, I think we need to consider the paradigm of being a service provider so we can then shift it. Let's do the math:

There are 12-16 (working) hours in a day and 7 days in a week. It takes you XYZ hours to write a landing page, so this means you can create a maximum of 7x12 to 16 hours / number of hrs per landing page = ABC landing pages a week. It's not humanly possible to create more. What does that mean? You can only create more LP's = more revenue by doing one of the following things:

• Increase prices. Same time per landing page but more $ earned per hour of work. If the market forces you to stick to your current prices (this is something you should test), then you can either go find (or create!) a higher end market in which you can charge more or...
• Automate. what part of the writing can you automate? Can you use more/better tools to cut down the time required? Can you limit the number of edits a client can ask for so you'll cut down support time? It may be just as simple as creating an input document and an output document that's always the same except for the client name and the creatives you're sending to save time. Remember, 5 minutes saved on sending emails a day = saving 30 hours a year = XYZ LP's extra. Fix the process.
• Outsource it. Get a junior copywriter trained. Give him/her half of what you earn per LP. Take into account that it takes about twice as long at first for them to do your work and the time required to train the person and you can easily output 1.25-1.5x more LP's per week. In time, this will increase to 1.75-2x with proper training of the junior.
• Productize your service (templating): instead of making a custom LP to match whatever need a client has, look for trends among your clients so you can create different templates for different markets. Example: let's say many people are in electronics or in fashion. Create a LP template for each where all you need to change is the colors, the company logo, the headline and maybe some small text changes. The position of all the elements remains the same. Result: cutting down the time needed to create a LP by 50-75% while charging the same price = more money in the bank.
• Productize your service (going meta): why not turn the service into a product? An ebook on how to make great landing pages? Or a video course where you show people the creation of their own landing page including instructions. Set up a site, email marketing software, go do SEO, etc. Now the amount of money you earn is no longer on par with working hours (and your junior's hours) but can increase exponentially. Why? Because instead of being able to only produce X LP's a week, you'll then be able to sell an infinite amount of information products.

P.S. Watch CNBC's The Profit to be inspired. It involves a billionaire turning around struggling businesses using similar number games as the one I used above. Must watch for business owners as far as I'm concerned.

 

[LPcopywriter]

This will get long but your situation honestly reminds me a lot of my own about a year ago and I am in a much better position now. Plus I love this community so it seems like a good time to add some value.

And what a killer contribution it is! Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

I'd seen things tail off quite a bit myself. I attribute it to a few things - SEO being a shell of what it once was, fewer people making reliable money online as time goes on, copywriting being the de facto go-to service for beginners, etc.

Was your service directly or indirectly tied to SEO? I wouldn't say mine is. There's certainly some overlap, but I don't think there's enough overlap to explain the decline. I could easily be wrong.

I think there is a plateau for "copywriters," who aren't going the agency route and are working with small businesses on a freelance basis. Especially if you don't want to go the "guru" route and want to just have great clients, write great copy and be a valuable asset. There's so many people out there claiming to be rockstar copywriters and it's SO easy to get lost in the crowd.

I mean...just throw up a project for a sales page on eLance and observe the type of retarded drivel these people pitch. And by the dozens too.

Your plateau sounds dead on. There's doesn't seem to be much room in the middle of small biz freelance and agency work. You're either dealing with small budgets or trying to break into the agency world, which I have zero interest or knowledge of how to do. It's a really weird niche. There doesn't seem to be a ton of demand, but plenty of newcomers and guru types. Not very fertile grounds I suppose.

Don't get me started on freelance sites. I try elance or guru every year or so, and it's almost always a waste of time. I have picked up a couple good consulting clients there though. Might have to try out your vid pitch technique.

After seeing my work trail off I ended up re-branding myself as a CRO consultant instead of a copywriter and it turned things around almost instantly. In a nutshell I run split tests and lift the conversion rate of pages, usually with Optimizely or whatever platform the client already uses. I like it because...

Interesting! I've tried to make some half-assed inroads to CRO. It seems like a natural progression from copywriting since that's pretty much what I already do, but with data at my disposal.

A) I still get to write copy, which is actually what I love doing. It was never meant to be just a stepping stone for me like 90% of copywriters, I actually love the work which makes everything easier.

Sounds nice. I also have always intended to remain a writer.

B) It's extremely results-focused. Before, I could pitch clients all I want on how my copy will increase their conversions, but the fact is that a lot of people would never bother to split test and didn't fully understand the value. They just wanted copy that fit their vision and sounded good to them. Plus, now I get to actually show results with every project and become a valued part of their business, rather than just that guy they message on skype when they need a sales page.

This is the exact position I'm in. I feel like most people don't even know what a copywriter does. One theory is that copy is usually provided as part of a larger service, and gets wrapped in with sales or marketing or something. When you do get a job, they have an idea of how they want to portray themselves or their product, and as long as you fulfill that, they don't care how it performs. Nor do I ever really get the chance to find out how it does.

Instead of that guy that wrote the cool sales page they never split tested, I'm the guy that gave them a 25% revenue bump in a month's time. It's a much better position to be in. I'd done split testing before but it was always minor jobs, tweaking this or that. Now, if a page gets enough traffic I might split test 50-60 things before being "done" with that page.

Every project is a potential case study to show future clients. Having that track record of consistent results makes pitching a breeze.

C) + D)

I rarely got access to any kind of data or results, so it is almost always a difficult sell. Ironic that I'm often unable to demonstrate value as a copywriter...

E) The work is so easy. I'm rarely writing 1,000 page sales letters anymore. I pick the people I pitch to very carefully. Just based on that fact, most of the people I reach out to already have a solid copy foundation. I'm not re-writing the entire sales page, I'm tweaking things and watching the results.

F) Every single page you split test can turn into long term, monthly revenue streams. There is almost an unending number of things you could split on a given page. Multiply that by all the pages on the site that see significant traffic.

So, I'll just give you my whole process. There's more work out there than a million copywriters doing this same exact thing could handle.

For disclosures sake I still do get a lot of clients from eLance or rather UpWork now I guess, but I probably will stop that soon as my new cold pitch process is just slaying it and eLance probably isn't worth my time. I actually still do my video pitches on the freelance sites too, and it works there as well.

The way you're selling it, it sounds like you want another competitor, and you might just get one

How I find and close high value clients, step by step;

1) Research...learn everything you can about your target.

Recommendations for a PPC spy tool? Haven't used one since my affiliate days. Curious to know which you think is best to invest in.

2) Pitching...Give them actual value for free.

What do you use to produce your video pitches? This technique has never actually crossed my mind, but it sounds like it could work in all kinds of service-based niches.

25% conversion is pretty damn good!

3) Trial period...create some quick measurable results.

Do you have a general rule for how many sessions you'd ideally have recorded? When you gave partial refunds, was it requested by the client or just out of the kindness of your heart?

4) Close as a monthly client...tie pricing to value.

Do you find clients are open to giving you specific numbers so you can accurately price these things out?

In all...the whole process is less fucking work than a 2,000 word long form sales page that I would have been paid $400 ONE TIME to write.

Sounds like a god damn dream.

The thing that probably excites me most about it is how easy CRO actually is. The plan is to eventually have Virtual Assistants doing all the split testing for me. I don't even need to get access to their site, Optimizely just gives me a javascript code they can place in the header of the page I'll be split testing and I can edit everything through Optimizely from there on out.

Wow, I didn't know Optimizely gave you that kind of control.
I'd be interested to hear how the outsourcing goes for you, sounds like a sticky wicket.

But...

I didn't write all this to say "HEY COPYWRITING IS DEAD, MOVE TO CRO AND DITCH ALL OF YOUR ASPIRATIONS."

It's more about the pitching process. I give high value clients a shit ton of value for free before I even ask them for a single dollar. I always price so they are profitable from my work. Also puts you in an awesome position to recommend other changes to their sales funnel and upsell new services to them. They trust you. They know you get results.

If you can find a way to give them value for free before ever working with them - I am confident this strategy would work for any service that delivers real value.

But yea - niche down. Don't be a "copywriter." Be a CRO, or an "infusionsoft consultant" or an "eCommerce conversion consultant," "sales funnel designer" or whatever. You could niche by technology (infusionsoft, optimizely, aweber, etc). You could niche by industry (fitness, b2b, etc.)

The work might be slower initially but it makes everything so much easier.

I wouldn't feel like I was giving up on copywriting at all actually. Still solving similar problems, probably more, and getting paid a lot more to do so.

While I debate making a shift, I'm going toy with different ways to adapt your pitching process to what I'm already doing, or creative ways to package copywriting/CRO together. I'll be sure to report back if I come up with anything.

This gives me a shit ton to think about. I can't thank you enough.

 

[LPcopywriter]

Before I say anything, I think we need to consider the paradigm of being a service provider so we can then shift it. Let's do the math:

There are 12-16 (working) hours in a day and 7 days in a week. It takes you XYZ hours to write a landing page, so this means you can create a maximum of 7x12 to 16 hours / number of hrs per landing page = ABC landing pages a week. It's not humanly possible to create more. What does that mean? You can only create more LP's = more revenue by doing one of the following things:

And herein lies the the problem with being in the business of providing services. Scalability is a bitch.

I'd be more interested in cutting costs if I had the volume of work to justify it. Nonetheless, some very good points here...

• Increase prices. Same time per landing page but more $ earned per hour of work. If the market forces you to stick to your current prices (this is something you should test), then you can either go find (or create!) a higher end market in which you can charge more or...

I think I'm SOL on raising my prices, after quite some time testing prices, but finding/creating a higher end market is definitely an option. The cost of creating a market is an investment I'm not at all eager to make at this point. Finding one is an option, but difficult in copywriting (I think) for reasons previously outlined.

• Automate. what part of the writing can you automate? Can you use more/better tools to cut down the time required? Can you limit the number of edits a client can ask for so you'll cut down support time? It may be just as simple as creating an input document and an output document that's always the same except for the client name and the creatives you're sending to save time. Remember, 5 minutes saved on sending emails a day = saving 30 hours a year = XYZ LP's extra. Fix the process.

I've got the actual production of copy, and dealing with customers, pretty finely tuned. Marketing could DEFINITELY by streamlined though. I frankly don't even know where to find new clients anymore, but that's a different problem entirely.

• Outsource it. Get a junior copywriter trained. Give him/her half of what you earn per LP. Take into account that it takes about twice as long at first for them to do your work and the time required to train the person and you can easily output 1.25-1.5x more LP's per week. In time, this will increase to 1.75-2x with proper training of the junior.

I've tried this a couple times, but damn, most of us writers as flaky as hell. Might make this part of my exit strategy though. I might be able to entice the right talent if I'm giving them all incoming orders.

• Productize your service (templating): instead of making a custom LP to match whatever need a client has, look for trends among your clients so you can create different templates for different markets. Example: let's say many people are in electronics or in fashion. Create a LP template for each where all you need to change is the colors, the company logo, the headline and maybe some small text changes. The position of all the elements remains the same. Result: cutting down the time needed to create a LP by 50-75% while charging the same price = more money in the bank.

Not as doable with copy as it is with design. Though I do have proven outlines I work off of that cut down on production time.

• Productize your service (going meta): why not turn the service into a product? An ebook on how to make great landing pages? Or a video course where you show people the creation of their own landing page including instructions. Set up a site, email marketing software, go do SEO, etc. Now the amount of money you earn is no longer on par with working hours (and your junior's hours) but can increase exponentially. Why? Because instead of being able to only produce X LP's a week, you'll then be able to sell an infinite amount of information products.

Might also make this part of my exit strategy, though it'd probably be better to put new content towards whatever my next endeavor is. Still, this might be the most profitable option, if I do shift gears.

P.S. Watch CNBC's The Profit to be inspired. It involves a billionaire turning around struggling businesses using similar number games as the one I used above. Must watch for business owners as far as I'm concerned.

Fucking love The Profit, all business-related reality TV for that matter, but currently have my addiction under control. I might try to open a shitty bar one day so I can get Jon Taffer to come yell at me.

 

[NormCharlton]

And what a killer contribution it is! Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

Was your service directly or indirectly tied to SEO? I wouldn't say mine is. There's certainly some overlap, but I don't think there's enough overlap to explain the decline. I could easily be wrong.

No, I wouldn't say it was directly tied to it, but inevitably my copy was used for SEO pages and whatnot. I think more than anything, SEO fading away as a reliable source of income for many took away a stepping stone that led to bigger projects, more serious businesses and paid advertising work. I know I started out building shitty affiliate sites and buying spammy links before getting into more serious businesses. I wasn't adding much value but it paid pretty well, lol. Success isn't nearly as prevalent for newbie IMers now, I feel like. So they never reach that point where they would hire someone like me to write their copy. Which is funny because it probably leads to more copywriting competition as people try to stay afloat online.

Your plateau sounds dead on. There's doesn't seem to be much room in the middle of small biz freelance and agency work. You're either dealing with small budgets or trying to break into the agency world, which I have zero interest or knowledge of how to do. It's a really weird niche. There doesn't seem to be a ton of demand, but plenty of newcomers and guru types. Not very fertile grounds I suppose.

Don't get me started on freelance sites. I try elance or guru every year or so, and it's almost always a waste of time. I have picked up a couple good consulting clients there though. Might have to try out your vid pitch technique.

Yeah, I don't have much interest in the agency route either. The freelance sites have been decent for me but are always going to be a much bigger headache than finding clients through other means.

This is the exact position I'm in. I feel like most people don't even know what a copywriter does. One theory is that copy is usually provided as part of a larger service, and gets wrapped in with sales or marketing or something. When you do get a job, they have an idea of how they want to portray themselves or their product, and as long as you fulfill that, they don't care how it performs. Nor do I ever really get the chance to find out how it does.

Yeah, exactly. CRO does seem like a natural progression from what it sounds like, since you focus on landing pages. I would consider unhitching myself from "affiliate marketing" and branding as a PPC copywriter/CRO or something similar.

I rarely got access to any kind of data or results, so it is almost always a difficult sell. Ironic that I'm often unable to demonstrate value as a copywriter...

Hahaha, yeah. Almost never got any access to stats or anything after I delivered the copy. I think that's halfway them not caring/knowing and halfway me not asking to be included in those discussions. I have no idea why I wasn't trying to upsell conversion optimization for every landing page that I wrote...it seems like such a natural next step.

The way you're selling it, it sounds like you want another competitor, and you might just get one

There's more work out there than I could make pitches for in a lifetime. Just to give you an idea, I like to do my prospect research in my downtime. My excel file has 150+ solid targets that I haven't had time to pitch to yet. I suspect I won't have time to get to most of them.

Recommendations for a PPC spy tool? Haven't used one since my affiliate days. Curious to know which you think is best to invest in.

The best tool is without a doubt WhatRunsWhere which is run by someone on WickedFire, I forget who. But its damn expensive and probably more than you would need to research prospects. I don't pay for it any more and instead use ispionage.

Honestly though you probably don't NEED to pay for a tool if you know a fair amount amount digital marketing. I can usually spot the businesses that are making good cash. Shit, just being at the top of an expensive PPC keyword is a good indication that they have money to throw around.

What do you use to produce your video pitches? This technique has never actually crossed my mind, but it sounds like it could work in all kinds of service-based niches.

25% conversion is pretty damn good!

I use Camtasia for screen capture, and PowerPoint for slides and presenting. My videos are probably less professional than you are envisioning in your mind too lol. Sometimes I'll load up their website while recording with camtasia, talk about a couple of things, and then straight open up PowerPoint in the middle of my pitch, loading and all. I don't do much editing. The act of recording a video alone is honestly enough to impress.

More than anything, just make sure you speak with confidence in the video and plan out what you want to say ahead of time. Try to cut out "uhhs" and "umms" as best as you can.

I'm not really comfortable sharing my videos directly, but here are some links to the videos from Devesh Khanal that I literally copied when I was getting started;

Do you have a general rule for how many sessions you'd ideally have recorded? When you gave partial refunds, was it requested by the client or just out of the kindness of your heart?

There are a bunch of tools out there, you can Google "A/B significance calculator" or something similar and find a bunch.

https://vwo.com/ab-split-test-significance-calculator/

My rule of thumb is at minimum about 3,000 visitors before you can have any confidence in the data.

The partial refunds only happened twice. Once was my own error. I fucked up on a split test. I was testing some buttons and accidentally changed the "Buy now" button to link to the wrong page, so i lost them a bunch of money so I repaid them out of their deposit.

The other time I just overestimated their target market. They were converting TERRIBLY at like 0.5% or something like that. I figured I could get that way up no problem and asked for too large of a deposit based on that. I ended up falling short so I gave them money back to make sure they were still profitable from my work.

Do you find clients are open to giving you specific numbers so you can accurately price these things out?

Yes, I haven't had issues with that. I think the video and subsequent conversations I have with them build a lot of trust before I ask for anything. Optimizely gives me everything I need to know for the split testing, but for pricing based on value I need to know the Lifetime Customer Value and a few other metrics. I can get everything I need by having them share their Analytics account with me (assuming they have it set up right, which they usually don't lol) , which usually isn't hard because I also don't have to ask for access to their web server with Optimizely. Worst case scenario you can make an educated guess and price conservatively if they aren't willing to give up the goods for some reason.

Wow, I didn't know Optimizely gave you that kind of control.
I'd be interested to hear how the outsourcing goes for you, sounds like a sticky wicket.

Yeah I'm still on the fence about it honestly. I think it could be done, but I don't want a VA making a dumb mistake and wasting a clients PPC budget before I catch it.

Maybe one day down the line.

I wouldn't feel like I was giving up on copywriting at all actually. Still solving similar problems, probably more, and getting paid a lot more to do so.

While I debate making a shift, I'm going toy with different ways to adapt your pitching process to what I'm already doing, or creative ways to package copywriting/CRO together. I'll be sure to report back if I come up with anything.

This gives me a shit ton to think about. I can't thank you enough.

Hey that's awesome man, happy to help. You can hit me on skype at r.boze if you have any more questions or just want to bounce some ideas around.

Like I said before I pretty much copied this strategy verbatim from Devesh Khanal. Here are some resources where he talks about it in depth;

http://blog.videofruit.com/recurring-revenue/ (opt in at the bottom to get the video where he goes over everything in depth)

http://www.dirtcheapstartup.com/how-to-get-your-first-customer/

http://thepowerofparttime.tv/devesh-khanal/

 

[Janiform]

The cost of creating a market is an investment I'm not at all eager to make at this point. Finding one is an option, but difficult in copywriting (I think) for reasons previously outlined.

Have you ever read the Blue Ocean strategy? It's great food for thought on creating your own market/niche. It doesn't have to be expensive. It's all in the positioning.

Fucking love The Profit, all business-related reality TV for that matter, but currently have my addiction under control. I might try to open a shitty bar one day so I can get Jon Taffer to come yell at me.

Couldn't agree more rofl