Copywriting: How to Start in 3 Simple Steps

When I first started my copywriting business, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I was freelancing for very little pay and working in restaurants to make ends meet. It was the opposite of living the freedom lifestyle dream. If you’ve Googled anything about how to start a copywriting business, you know that there’s a ton of info out there. Often it’s conflicting, vague, or just not helpful. I share my story of how I started my copywriting business, and how you can be successful in the copywriting world too, in an attempt to overcome that BS.

Copywriting is such a rewarding career—regardless of whether you choose to freelance, work in house, or get a copywriting job at an agency, you’re doing impactful work. You get to help others grow their businesses too. And I think that more people deserve to be making good money online.

Skip the messy parts of how to start a copywriting business

Now, my copywriting business is so much different than when I first started. I worked as a freelance writer for years before figuring it out… “It” being how to start a copywriting business and grow it to become a legitimate career bringing in legitimate money. Now I run a 6-figure copywriting business… And I only work up to 15 hours each week.

If you start off the right way, you can skip a lot of the growing pains I went through to grow your copywriting business a lot faster.

Copywriting: How to Start

If you remember anything, make it be this: There’s no 1 perfect way to do things. However, I’ve learned what works over my years of freelancing and growing my copywriting business. While I’d never want to tell you to copy and paste exactly what I did because there’s more nuance to starting and growing an online business, I also want you to have enough information that you can get started on your own.

With that in mind, in this blog post, I cover:

• How to start a copywriting business… Even if you have no experience.
• How to start freelancing in general, and where to learn more about how to freelance.
• A look at my journey to grow from overworked freelancer to copywriting business owner.

Let’s get into it…

How to start a copywriting business with no experience

I remember being new to this world. In the beginning, I didn’t even know what “copywriting” meant. But I figured it out through both trial and error and thanks to amazing mentors I’ve been lucky to have. One of my first editors was actually the one to introduce me to the term copywriter. I was doing the work of a copywriter without knowing the title for it… I just called myself a freelance writer.

Now that I’ve been there, done that, I can lay out an easy-to-follow roadmap for others who want to start a copywriting business too—and grow without all the mistakes that I made. It’s my way of paying it forward and helping others start a copywriting business just like my mentors helped me too.

Step 1: Learn how to write good copy

Ultimately, you need to learn how to write good copy. That’s step 1 to start a copywriting business. Your results will always be what makes you stand out. It’s okay if you’re still in the process of this or haven’t started officially, but that’s the number one thing you need to do to prepare yourself to become a copywriter.

This blog is about the step beyond the “learning how to write copy” stage. → You’re committed. You like writing copy. While there’s always room to grow, you know a thing or 2 about how to write good copy. Now you want to actually start the copywriting business you’ve been dreaming about.

So let’s talk about the businessy side of things. How to start, grow, and scale a sustainable and profitable copywriting business.

3 Stages to BUILD, GROW, and SCALE your Copywriting Business

There are 3 phases or stages of growing a copywriting business. First, you lay the groundwork in the BUILD phase. When everything is in place, you’ll start the GROW phase, where you increase numbers and your clientele. The natural next step is to SCALE, and if the first 2 phases are done the right way it makes scaling so much easier. 

Right now, you’re probably in the BUILD phase. You’re searching for answers and are likely boostrapping to build things from the ground up. This is the part where you’re getting the foundations in place.

You need to consider things like:

• How will leads find you? Or how will you find leads? → How will people find you so you can write copy for them?
• What does your sales pipeline look like? → What journey does your potential client take from first discovering you to becoming a client?
• What are your offers and rates? → What do you want to do for clients, and how will you make money?
• How many clients do you have capacity for? → How much work can you handle on a quarterly, monthly, weekly, or even daily basis?
• Do you need a website? → Do you want somewhere to send potential clients so you look legit?
  

There’s a lot of upfront work, but you can build each piece as you go. You don’t need to have everything in place before launching your copywriting business. But you do need to focus on these priorities first.

BUILD STAGE: How to start a copywriting business

Beyond actually studying copy to hone your craft (because providing ACTUAL value to your clients is a must—integrity is important around here) there are some essentials to starting a copywriting business.

Nail down your ideal client.

If you don’t know who you’re trying to reach, then you won’t capture anyone’s attention. And NO, your audience is not “everyone” or “anyone”… That is a major mistake that most freelancers make in the early days of their business!

Choosing your ideal client is part of the process of picking a niche. You need to know who you want to work with in order to position yourself in the market.

But where do you start sorting through all of these strategy details? Figuring out who you want to reach and what value you provide is something that you can learn inside my free guide and workbook, 4 Steps to Profit.

Make a website for your copywriting business.

For most freelance copywriters, a website is a crucial piece of your sales pipeline. If you don’t have a website, there’s a gap in the process to get qualified leads. (In other words, people who are actually a good fit to work with.) Either those leads fall off track, or you have to manually do the work to convert every single one. This isn’t an efficient way to start and run a copywriting business!

If you can build a website with copy that converts your ideal clients, so you don’t have to work so hard for every lead… That is a foundational piece of your copywriting business that will set you up for long-term success. If you already have a website for your copywriting business that just isn’t working well for you, it’s time to look at how you can increase website conversions.

Choose a lead generation strategy.

You need leads. Leads are potential clients → people who need what you can give them. How do you want to find them? I touched on this a bit above: Your website is a part of your sales pipeline. You could also explore cold pitching, networking, and referrals. However, my preferred method of getting leads for my copywriting business is developing that pipeline around the website, then focusing on organic content marketing to attract the right people.

Whatever strategy you choose, you need to stick with it! Overnight success doesn’t exist. But consistent effort over time will help you grow.

How to get copywriting clients

All of the above steps are meant to help you get copywriting clients. Consider those just the starting point though. A business is in constant evolution. Your growth isn’t linear, and you may need to return to previous stages to refine and realign.

Here are some other resources that might help you get copywriting clients:

• How to Find Copywriting Clients as a Newbie
• How to Get Started Copywriting and Land Clients on Autopilot
• How to Make (More) Money as a Copywriter

After you BUILD, it’s time to GROW and SCALE

After you make it through the BUILD stage, GROWING is when you have the core pieces in place, and now you’re ready to streamline internally. In this stage, you should be asking yourself questions like…

• Where can you optimize your processes to become more efficient?
• What can you refine to bring in more dollars, but also make more of an impact for your clients and customers?
• Where can you keep the momentum going forward?
• Are your rates appropriate?

Often, this revolves around processes, structure, auditing and improving, but it will also tie back to improving those initial marketing systems you set up too.

With the pieces in place, you set up to scale.

SCALING requires an intense focus on business development… I mean CEO time dreaming up what comes next then actually acting on that.

Why follow this process to grow your copywriting business?

If you don’t have the marketing and sales systems in place, it’s going to be really hard to bring in enough dollars to support the scaling stage. And if you don’t have a clear internal structure, you’re going to have a really hard time actually finding the time to focus on scaling stage activities. If you check off boxes 1 and 2, box 3 can have your full attention.

This process is what has worked for me, but also many of my clients. The reason is because when you can get sales coming in consistently, that frees up space for the other stuff. So we go after those sales first.

How to start freelancing

Starting a freelance business of any kind can feel like it’s a lot of work, but I promise you can do it! If you’re caught up in the business weeds of how to start a freelance copywriting business (versus the marketing or writing side), these resources may be helpful for you:

• How to Start Freelancing
• How to Charge for Freelance Work

My journey as a freelance copywriter

I often openly share my journey… and all the wrong turns I took to get here. I started freelancing years ago, fresh out of university. Each year, little by little, I figured things out. Honestly, it didn’t need to take this long to get here. But now I share my story to hopefully help you grow your copywriting business faster too.

If you want to learn more about my freelance business story, watch this video.

Get help to BUILD a copywriting business

This might feel like a lot! 4 Steps to Profit is for beginners just like you starting your own copywriting business. This is the roadmap I made to point copywriters just getting started in the right direction. 4 Steps to Profit gives you the foundation you need to not only BUILD, but later GROW and SCALE—your way and in alignment with your life.

The big question you need to answer first is this: Think critically about the current state of your business from the perspective of this path I’ve outlined… Where do you sit?

Tools to start a freelance copywriting business

If you’d prefer to work smarter, not harder, and get help with the business structure and marketing side of starting a copywriting business, you may want to check out The Biz Bar. There’s plenty of resources around writing website copy that converts, email marketing, and how to align your business with your ideal lifestyle.

Best of luck on your journey to become a freelance copywriter!