Divine Write Copywriting Forum

Hello,

Have any Australian copywriters on this forum attempted to find clients from other countries? I am playing with the idea. Naturally a face to face presence is always preferable, however in the age of Skype and webcams regular online client consultation is extremely inexpensive.

Regards,

David.

Hi David,

Yes. I've had quite a few with varying degrees of success - although I must say, on the whole, they've been positive.

I gave Elance a go for a while but IMO it's a complete waste of time, bar a couple of exceptions. The jobs are all wayyy underpriced and it's all a bit ridiculous with Elance fees etc. Seriously, I don't know how writers on their survive - 10 x 500 words for $10 each? Crikey, how much work is involved in that? You're better off waitering/waitressing or something.

I then started a 'cold emailing' experiment to companies I searched for on google in various industries. While it probably helped that I speak a couple of languages other than English, it's not imperative that one does. And from that, I've had quiet a few jobs by word of (that particular client's) mouth.

And, as you say, with instant messaging there's no real need for face to face contact. It probably works out even better if you have a website (which I don't yet) but as 'Imaginewrite' talked about in another post here.

A couple of tips:

Research the company you're emailing and read up about them so you at least have some indication what they do. If all the info is in a foreign language, you can translate it on Babelfish (or whatever it's called) and while it's not that great, it will give you the gist of what they're on about.

Secondly, get the fee situation clear from the beginning and my advice is to get a portion up front if you're not sure about the company or person.

Gioff

Dear Gioff,

Thank you for such a detailed response.
I have a few follow up comments and questions:
• I agree about Elance. It is insanely underpriced. I think that many writers on it must be living well below the poverty line.
• What was your success rate like ‘cold emailing’ as opposed to ‘cold calling?’
• Did you make follow up calls to cold emails?
• How upfront should I be in clarifying my rates? Do you mention rates in the initial cold email, or the client’s first response to your email, or at the beginning of the first job?
• I can point you to VERY cheap webhosting services if you want to get a website up. They are overseas and I will not make a cent out of the referral!

Many thanks,

David.

Bonjour!

(I'm not French, but since you were talking about other languages )

Don't write Elance off completely. I've never used it to find work, but my wife recently hired someone in USA from it to edit her book (I'm too busy to do it for her!).

She had 25 responses - some offering to work for RIDICULOUS fees. Yes, we looked at the cheap ones, but when they wrote terrible English in their email to us we thought twice. Then we shortlisted them, and asked them to edit a sample page for us - and that eliminated all but one. And she was the dearest of the lot. You get what you pay for.

It's all about positioning. In pitching for our business this woman made it clear she wouldn't be the cheapest, but she "sold" herself to us, telling us her qualifications and experience. And then of course, her actual work made the decision easy.

Time to use your copywriting skills to sell YOU!

All the best,

Paul

Good point Paul, thank you.


It is hard to imagine people better placed to 'pitch' themselves online than copywriters.


David.