Why You’re Losing Traffic and How to Make Them Stay

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Don’t make these common mistakes that turn off your visitors, never to return

If you’re like most website owners, chances are you’re losing a large percentage of your visitors before they complete a desired action on your website. Although the number of factors that drive potential consumers away can be varied, I’ve noticed many common mistakes in my work of designing websites for optimal performance. Here’s where many sites go wrong.
 1. Lack of a Clear Purpose
Why was your site designed? What is the purpose of your site? Are you selling a product or service? Are you sharing information or serving as a forum to aggregate ideas and comments? Are you providing a social benefit?
If your website doesn’t communicate its purpose in 3 seconds or less, you’re going to lose visitors. I’ve seen this on numerous occassions, especially among companies who don’t know what they want their site to be or communicate. Make sure your website has a clear purpose and everything else will follow.
2. Making it Long-Winded and Complicated
Today, individuals have less time than ever before. As a result, time is their most precious asset – don’t waste it. The majority of people using the internet today still prefer brevity over verse. Try to say what you need to say in as few words as possible. If users have to scroll through 2 screens or more then it’s too much.
When writing for your site, highlight things of importance. You can use bulleted lists, short paragraphs, bolded and underlined text. Some of you may be asking about the marketing websites with long copy. If you know what I’m talking about, these are generally marketing pages (squeeze pages) that have been developed to promote a single product or service. This is not what I’m referring to here. For websites, copy should be brief and to the point.
3. Giving Web Visitors Too Many Distractions
As I alluded to before, websites should be designed with the single purpose of directing visitors to the information they want. A real prospect is one that needs the same information you want to provide; the art of sales is directing potential clients to relevant information, and presenting it in a way that visitors see your product or service as fulfilling their needs.
This is the reason why I don’t promote Google Adwords on my website. Why? Because it distracts potential buyers from purchasing what I have to offer. Don’t get me wrong, I make a nice living promoting affiliate products, but I do so on my own terms and I only promote those products that I haver personally reviewed and approve of.
4. Eroding Your Own Credibility
Does your website give first time visitors plenty of reasons to trust you? Website visitors are constantly looking for reasons why they should abandon your site. Does your site have a number of spelling errors or images that don’t display? How easy is it to find your 800 number or other contact information?
If you want to develop trust among your visitors, make sure that the basics are covered, that your site looks and feels the part of a well established company. Present important information in obvious places, have an about section, and make it easy for visitors to contact you via email or phone. This will establish trust and confidence in their buying decisions.
5. Not Giving Web Visitors Enough Options
When offering a product or service, it’s a true benefit to offer multiple options, but not too many. You want to make sure that website visitors have more than one item, price point, or model to choose from. When analyzing why people leave websites, I’ve found that the reasons are much to often simpler than you might think; “I didn’t want everything in the package, only the trading cards…”, “They had X but didn’t offer Y”, “The price was too high…”, etc.
People like options. Identify the most compelling bundles or most popular products and offer solutions at various price points. This is the most effective way to position your products or services.
6. Giving Web Visitors Too Many Obstacles
Removing obstacles to a purchase is the most important thing you can do to ensure optimal sell through. Do you make people go through the order processing system before they can find out how much something costs, or do you demand potential customers read all of the fine print that only a lawyer could understand? Is your order process long and complicated?
When evaluating the effectiveness of a website’s checkout process, I’ve always found a large drop off rate. In fact, the majority of consumers who click, “buy now” never finish the purchase. There are a lot of reasons why, and its unrealistic to think that 100% of these individuals will convert, but a major reason is that the purchase process is much too long and complicated. Keep yours simple.
7. Giving Web Visitors Too Many Forms To Fill-in
Do you attract your visitors with special offers or free white papers and then demand that they fill-out complex forms, surveys, and questionnaires before you give them access to what they came for? If you do, you are probably losing a lot of people you attracted. Keep your sign up forms very brief.
Many websites loose a significant number of individuals who are just no longer willing to complete a long form. Keep your questions to a minimum – only collecting the information you need to take the next step with your prospect.
Conclusion
There are a number of ways to keep visitors on your website and improve conversion rates. I just described a number of the most common mistakes that websites are making today. Start with a clear purpose and put yourself in the shoes of a first-time visitor. Is your website clear, authoritative, trustworthy, and easy to navigate? Think like a potential customer and make your user experience second to none!

Increase Traffic to Your Website and Affiliate Products With Ezines

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Take advantage of Ezine marketing to drive traffic.

Let’s begin with defining what an “ezine” is and how it can help you drive tons of traffic to your website and help you sell products and services. An ezine (electronic magazine) is much like a traditional magazine or newsletter. However, it is only delivered via email. People sign up to receive ezines for free or a monthly subscription fee. Most ezines are published weekly, but some are published daily, monthly or bi-monthly.
Generating Traffic with Ezines (Ads)
Classified Ads: the cheapest ads you can buy. Classified ads are limited to two or three lines and placed at the end of the ezine. Unless you place a classified ad in an ezine with 30,000 subscribers or more, your chances of getting a response are very small.
Sponsor Ads: these are more expensive than classified ads, but will give you much better response. Sponsor ads can be placed at the top, middle or bottom of an ezine issue. You can include more text in a sponsor ad so it’s a good way to test your copy before going all out on a solo ad.
Solo Ads: these are the king of all ezine ads because your offer is sent exclusively to everyone on the mailing list and gets the full attention of the subscribers. No articles or other content is included. Solo ads can be expensive, but they can increase your response by as much a 100% over sponsor ads. You can usually expect a 10% response rate from a good solo ad. In other words, if you purchase a solo ad for $100 in an ezine with 10,000 subscribers, you should expect about 1,000 highly targeted visitors.
Note: Solo ads can be purchased for as little as $10. You will usually get a better response from a $10 solo ad sent to 500 subscribers than you will from a $10 classified ad sent to 5,000.
Here’s your step-by-step guide to successful ezine advertising.
Step One: Subscribe to 3 or More Ezines
Subscribe to ezines that offer top sponsor and solo ads within your budget. Subscribing to ezines before you place your ads will allow you to determine the quality of the list and potential profitability of your campaign before you spend any money. You can also make sure your ad goes out.
You can find a wide variety of ezines in these directories:
http://www.ezine-dir.com/
http://bestezines.com/
Step Two: Contact the Advertisers
The surest way to maximize your results from any ezine is to ask people who have already advertised. Take a few minutes to contact one or more people who have placed ads similar to the one you want to place. Tell them you’re new to ezine advertising and are afraid of losing money. Most people will be glad to help you out. And if they had a bad experience, they’ll definitely let you know.
In addition, if you see the same ad running multiple times, that’s a good indication that it was profitable. Smart marketers will run the same ad at least three times if the first one was successful.
Step Three: Contact the Ezine Publisher
Contact the publisher to find out if anyone has else has purchased an ad within the last month for the same product you want to promote. This is critical because you don’t want to advertise the same product to people who may have already purchased.
Here are some additional questions to ask (if they are not stated on the website):
• Can I personalize the subject line?
• Can I personalize the message?
• If yes, what are the personalization codes?
• How often to you publish?
• When is your next opening?
• What is the maximum word count?
Step Four: Set Up an Ad Tracker
You will want to create a tracking campaign for each ezine that you advertise in. The system will create a link for you to use and it will track your visitors and commissions just like your regular affiliate link.
Never pay for adverting unless you can track the response. You need to know how many visitors and sales you get for each ad you place so you can determine whether or not you want to run another ad in a particular ezine.
This information is critical for determining how well each ad campaign does and how well you’re converting visitors into sales. Sometimes you just need to tweak your ad copy and run the ad again for better results.
If you get good results the first time, run your ad again in a week or two. Not everyone will buy the first time around. And many who were “on the fence” the first time they saw your ad, may purchase the second time around.
Step Five: Write Your Ad
Most affiliate programs provide pre-written ads for you to use. While that is convenient, you’ll get much better results if you don’t repurpose them word for word. Make them unique and follow some of these suggestions:
• Add a personal endorsement. With all the hype online, people are more likely to read and click on something that you personally recommend.
• Use a testimonial from the sale letter for the product you are promoting. That’s an easy way to get content for a good solo ad.
• Use other people’s ads. One of the bests ways to come up with ideas for good ads is to read ezines. Look for ads that catch your eye. Modify them to fit the product you’re promoting and add your own personal touch.
Step Six: Place Your Order
This is the easy part. You simply fill out a form with your ad copy and credit card information. After you process the order you will receive a confirmation telling you when the ad will run. And since you are already subscribed to the ezine, you can verify it yourself. Don’t rely on them to send you a “courtesy copy.”
Step Seven: Put Half Your Profits Back Into Advertising
Once you start generating sales from your ezine ads (this is why you need to track them accurately), take half of your profit and use that to purchase more ezine space. This ensures profitable growth and proper allocation of your marketing spend.
Ezine marketing and advertising is the same as any other online marketing vehicle. The key is to start small, test, evaluate the results, and channel your marketing to those ezines that produce a positive return. Once you’re up and running, continue to tweak your ad to see if you can increase response rates.

Pricing Your Products and Services for Ultimate Growth



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Developing an attractive price for what you have to offer is both an art and science. These tips make it easy!

One of the most challenging things you can do as a marketing professional, entrepreneur, or business owner is to price your products appropriately. Often times, individuals have no real strategy for pricing products or understand the perceived value that pricing can create. In this article, I’ll share my 12 year of product experience and what I’ve learned by pricing dozens of products – pricing them to sell.
When considering how to price a product, there are a number of methods for arriving at a starting price. The most popular include zero sum pricing and competitive pricing. Those who price their products using the zero sum method generally begin at zero, add all their costs including manufacturing, overhead, and so on, plus some type of margin to reach an initial price. The margin used in this calculation is based on industry norms or existing margins on similar products.
Competitive pricing is a method where you evaluate the products your competitor is selling and at what price. If your product or service is the same or similar, you’d want to price your product in the same general area. If your product is different, you’d adjust your price up or down based on features, benefits, and value derived.
Another model is called premium pricing which is used when considering a competitive pricing grid. Companies like Cadillac use premium pricing. This method charges ‘top dollar’ for a product that is of better quality or perceived quality. Rolex is another example. It doesn’t tell time any better than a Seiko but it costs much, much more.
Once you’ve determined your preferred pricing method, the next step is to develop multiple pricing options. Too often companies stop with the selection of a pricing method. The top marketing professionals know that the only way to optimize price is through tiered pricing and testing.
There are way too many individuals still pricing their product based on gut feel. The dialogue usually goes like this, “How much should we charge?” “I don’t know, what does competitor X charge for it? $39.95? Let’s charge $34.95 so we can out sell them”. Don’t laugh…this is how 90% of the products are priced out there.
This method would be okay if after you evaluated your costs and were able to charge less. However, using pricing options allow you to charge both more and less for a given product compared to your competitors. Let me explain what I mean.
To illustrate pricing options, let’s use a popular example, the fast food restaurant. Fast food establishments use tiered pricing all the time. Would you like the single hamburger, double hamburger, or the triple? Smal, medium or large drink? Small fries or large? Regardless of your industry, product, or service, you must give the consumer options.
A number of my clients have said that they can’t offer that type of pricing. When I ask why, the answer is often that their product is one size fits all. If that’s the case, determine how you can offer your product in increments. An attorney that charges by the hour can offer his services by the hour or on retainer. A landscaper can add-on additional services such as weeding, edging, or trimming. And an online publisher can provide a basic or premium package. It’s all in the mind set.
Conclusion
When developing a pricing strategy, understand the direct and variable costs associated with your product, the competitive landscape, and the varying needs of your market segments. Only then can you develop a winning pricing strategy. Choose the strategy that you believe resonates with your market and test, test, test. Be sure to offer tiered pricing to give your prospects options and you’ll soon be working at the optimal price.

Web 2.0 – What You Need to Know

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By now you’ve heard the term “Web 2.0″… but what does it mean and why is it important for all marketers? Here’s a quick explanation and my thoughts on the importance of the Web 2.0 movement.
“Web 2.0″ is a weird phrase. It began as the name of a conference, but the people organizing the conference didn’t really know what they meant by it. Mostly they thought it sounded catchy. However, “Web 2.0″ has since taken on a meaning. There are some interesting new trends on the Web, and it’s the nature of a phrase like that to adhere to them.
From what I can gather, Web 2.0 is all about the social networks being created on the web. Websites like Digg, MySpace, Flickr, Blogger, Wikis, etc. are all operating inside this bubble we call Web 2.0. If you want a really detailed explanation of Web 2.0, visit the site that started it all at http://www.oreillynet.com. I’ll save you a lot of reading… it’s complicated – but incredibly simple at the same time.
Web 2.0 simply defines the evolution of the world wide web. It describes the Internet as it was intended to be – a resource that allows for information creation, sharing, and dissemination. Why is this important to us as marketers? Because marketing is all about WOM (you guessed it, “Word-of-Mouth”), building brand, and communicating your message.
If you’ve been following the blogging circles lately, you’ve not doubt heard of the latest controversy- blogging for payment. The idea that someone would actually pay you to blog about their products or services would only be possible in the Web 2.0 world. Yet it’s indicative of Web 2.0. In this environment its all about information sharing, ideas, and communities with similar likes and dislikes.
The viral nature of Web 2.0 is contagious. Just visit Digg or Del.icio.us and you’ll soon find out what I’m talking about. As a marketer in this environment, you have to understand the importance of viral marketing and managing your marketing messages – even creating a buzz around your products.
Some of the leading brands have been doing this for ages… Nike giving away their sneakers to the best athlete at a school; PowerBar giving away samples to athletes, and so on. The only thing that’s changed with Web 2.0 is vehicle. In addition to ‘feet-on-the-street’, there are now online tools – communities that are available to spread your message.
Developing a Strategy
The best way to utilize this new technology is to really understand the value that each has to offer. Begin with a clear understanding of your desired outcome. Then, consider the tools in your tool box. For example, if you want to communicate how customers feel about a given topic or issue, maybe you want to blog about it… or conduct an interview via a podcast.
You should approach your Web 2.0 with the same strategy you use when developing your traditional marketing plan. An integrated approach always works best. Regardless of the vehicle, apply the same basic marketing standards you do today. Use messaging points, create value, and segment.
*Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert and the President of MarketingScoop.com. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and had appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. Visit MarketingScoop.com for further details and more free marketing articles.

Energize Your Writing and Increase Your Output

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Every writer can benefit from a study of the effectiveness of their individual writing process. You can write more and you can write better by making some adjustments in your writing strategy.
Recently one of my writer friends complained about their declining word output.
“I spend more time at the computer than I ever did before and I’m just not producing like I used to,” she griped.
After spending a day in writing conferences coaching my struggling novice writers, my response came without conscious thought on my part: “Tell me about your writing process.”
“My what?” She asked.
Ah-ha!
I regularly coach my beginning writers about how to develop their own personal writing strategy or process and as a teacher of writing I think about mine quite often, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that experienced, professional writers rarely spend time talking about this critical element.
What a mistake!
It is easy to understand why. Many of us are simply too busy writing to think too much about the actual process. We have deadlines to meet, assignments to pursue, and pitches to create. When we do spend time with other writers our interactions typically fall into three categories–seeking admiration for our success, input for our end product, or escape from writing.
Many writers also take their writing process for granted and simply follow the old adage–if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But what happens when it does break down as it did with my friend? If you don’t understand your own writing process then you can’t fix it. And just like many of the machines in your life, regular maintenance checks just might prevent a major breakdown in the future.
My friend’s problem was easily identified and solved once we actually studied her writing process and writing life. Yes she was spending more time in front of the computer but she had lost a big chunk of her prewriting time due to changes in her home life. Once she understood that problem she was able to make adjustments to her schedule and she is seeing her daily word count rising back to her old levels.
So how is your writing process?
Many writers shy away from the term as it brings back fearful memories of a rigid structure forced on them in school. That is not what I want to talk about at all. Frankly, I always teach my students that there is no such as thing as the writing process.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe we each have our own individual writing process, I just don’t believe in the one-size-fits-all type strategy that many writers were force-fed. Just think about it. How could there be just one writing process–every writer I know is an individual with various strengths and weaknesses and personality traits. Every writer is wired differently from every other writer. That is one of the things that makes reading such a pleasure. It follows very logically then that every writing process should differ just as every writer differs.
Having said that I should point out that although the actual shape and form of each writing process is individual to the unique writer there are certain constants:
~ Generating ideas and choosing a focus
~ Organizing those ideas
~ Writing
~ Revising
~ Editing
The amount of time you spend on each stage of the writing process varies according to the writer and the task and this is especially true for me. Many writing tasks are so familiar to me that I spend very little time choosing a focus or organizing my ideas so I can leap right into writing. On the other hand I often generate four or more pages of fiction in about an hour at the computer because I spend a lot of time generating and organizing my ideas before I sit down.
I have spent years honing my personal writing process and know that the step I actually spend the least amount of time is writing. I have learned to let my creative juices flow and not to worry about such petty concerns as grammar, sentence structure, and word choice. I rarely waste a moment on organization or paragraphing. I just let the words flow through my fingerstips until I have emptied my budget. Then I hit save and print, tidy up my papers and set them aside.
Revision is usually the lion’s share of my writing process. It may take me two or three drafts to reorganize and shape a piece until I am willing to share it with others. Depending on how difficult and/or complex the subject then I may need to loop back through brainstorming, organizing and writing to improve my project. I may make a few minor adjustments to grammar or spelling or sentence structure, but primarily I concentrate on the larger issues of focus and development and organization.
When I am finally satisfied my article, chapter, or essay is working as a whole then I begin the actual editing process of cleaning up word choice and sentence structure and any other stray problems that have been overlooked. I usually spend only one draft on this actual process.
If you are serious about improving your writing quality and productivity then you need to spend time analyzing your personal writing process. You might be surprised by what you learn–and I know you can put the knowledge to good use.

Get Started as a Freelancer from Home

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A Freelancer, or Free Agent, is someone who works on a contract or freelance basis. As a freelancer you are acting as a specialist, or expert, in your field. This is not to say you need dozens of awards hanging on your wall, you just need to be proficient and knowledgeable in the duties you perform.
Freelancers are in high demand by employers for many reasons -when a project deadline must be met, when the company lacks adequate expertise or experiences sudden and explosive growth, and so on.
Many times an employer simply cannot justify the additional expense associated with hiring another employee. Since you are not an employee of the company, you keep 100% of the money you earn and are responsible for your own taxes. On the whole, you don’t have to be licensed, insured, or have a business of your own. You just have to be a person that can do the project.
Truly, this is self-employment at its best!
The type of projects available for freelancers include accounting, translation services, language consulting, creative writing, Web design, programming, technical and business writing, data entry, Internet and off-line research, and everything in between. Believe me, there are all kinds of projects out there (including some really extravagant and offbeat stuff).
To help you get familiar with the process of finding freelance work, let’s talk about some concepts you should be familiar with.
First, when you take on a project you are promising to complete the specified assignment within certain parameters… the time it will take you do the project, the pay you expect for completing the project, etc.
For you to get hired to do a project you must “bid” on it. The term “bidding” can be misleading… you are not paying any money to get the job, rather you are offering the employer a price you will accept to complete the project.
Let’s say you find a company seeking someone to write a series of press releases for their new product line. You bid the project at $75 per press release with three revisions allowed each. The company will likely have several bids to look at, and will choose the service provider they deem most suitable.
So how does the company determine the best candidate for the job?
The lowest bid doesn’t necessarily get the job. The company only partly bases their decision on the bid. They especially want to know whether or not you are qualified for the job.
Your qualifications are determined by your resume, or portfolio. Keep in mind that many companies hire for services on a continual basis, therefore your skills and experience level should accurately represent your abilities in order to secure future projects with the company.
Is there a catch, you ask?
There is no real catch. What you will notice are the dynamics of a marketplace with supply and demand features. That is, lower skilled projects tend to be more competitive, as do specialized projects where the market is flooded with experts.
How do you compete when there’s a large pool of bidders?
Be the best competitor on the block, that’s how. Get additional training if you need to upgrade your skills, or take an internship to enhance your experience level.
Actually, you want to be the best competitor on several blocks. Bid as many projects as you reasonably can within your area of expertise. Never lay dormant – search for projects and bid, search and bid, search and bid…
Now then, for you to get started as a freelancer here are the necessary steps:
Register at sites that list projects. It’s free to register in most cases and makes you a member of the site. Register at several sites to increase your chances of getting projects. Many freelancers work several projects at the same time. Just be careful not to take on more than you can handle.
Not only must you register, you must submit your skill set at the project site. Your resume must be in tip-top shape. It must be current and an accurate representation of your experience and skills.
If you’re not comfortable writing a resume you should consider hiring a professional to do it for you. You don’t get a second chance to make a great first impression.
Now just search the listings for projects you feel qualified for. When you find one… bid on it!
To go a step further, set up your website as a showcase of your talents. Direct prospective clients to your site and give them a tour of the *benefits* only you can give them. Further extend your reach into the worldwide community by advertising your services both offline and online. Go global!
So what are you waiting for? If you’ve been searching and searching for a home-based job and you’re feeling frustrated with the whole thing… this could be the perfect way for you to start working from home.

Earn a Six-Figure Income as a Freelance Writer

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I started freelancing full-time in 1982, and except for that year and the next, I have earned more than $100,000 a year as a freelance writer for 20 consecutive years. Last year, I grossed $500,000, as I did the year before that.
I tell you this not to brag, but to illustrate that making a 6-figure income is a realistic goal for even an average freelance writer like me (I’ve never written a bestseller, nor have I sold a script to the movies or TV). Following are some suggestions to help you achieve and exceed the $100,000 a year mark:
1. Get serious about making money. “Before we can accumulate riches in great abundance, we must become money-conscious until the desire for money drives us to create definite plans for acquiring it,” writes Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich (Fawcett Crest, 1960).
If money is not a concern, you can write whatever you want, whenever you want, as much or as little as you want, without regard to the fee you will be paid, how long it will take to write the piece, or the likelihood that you will sell the piece.
If you want to consistently make $100,000 a year as a freelance writer, you need to avoid the “poverty mentality” that holds so many writers back from earning a high income.
A doorman in New York City earns around $30,000 a year. If an unskilled laborer can make $30,000 just for opening a door, surely you can earn $50,000 to $100,000 for your skills.
2. Have a daily revenue goal. To make $100,000 a year, you need to earn $2,000 a week for 50 weeks. For a 5-day workweek, that comes to $400 a day — a quite modest and achievable sum.
The question then becomes: What writing-related work can you do that people will pay you $400 a day for? Proofreading won’t hit the mark, but ghostwriting books, annual reports, fundraising letters, speeches, or ad copy probably can.
Do you have to make $400 each and every day? No. Some days you’ll be writing queries or doing self-promotion, and earn nothing. Other days you’ll get into a writing groove, finish a $1,000 article in 6 hours, and still have time to write more queries. You’re safe as long as your average revenue is $400 a day, or $2,000 a week, or approximately $9,000 a month.
Of course, the higher your average project fee, the easier it can be to meet your $400 a day goal.
Robert Otterbourg specializes in annual reports, with an average price tag of $10,000 per project. By doing several of these jobs in a month or two, he can get way ahead of his income plan, leaving him time to write the career books that are his avocation.
3. Value your time. If you earn $100,000 a year and work 40 hours a week, your time is worth at least $50 an hour. You should base decisions about how you spend your time on that figure.
For instance, if you spend an extra half hour to go out of your way to save $10 in office supplies, it costs you $25 in lost productivity, and you are $15 in the red.
My time is worth at least $100 an hour. Therefore, virtually any service I can buy for under $100 an hour — including lawn services, handymen, and tax preparation — I outsource.
Of the two resources, time and money, time is the more valuable. You can always make more money. But time is a non-renewable resource. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.
4. Increase your personal productivity. Except for royalties and product sales, writers are paid only for their time. So the more efficient and productive you are, and the faster you write, the more money you make.
Develop habits that help you get more done in less time. The easiest is simply to get up and start work an hour earlier than you do now — say at 7 am or 8 am instead of 9 am. That first hour will be your most productive, because you can work in peace without interruptions before the business day starts, the phone begins to ring, and the messages come pouring into your e-mail box.
“I am most productive at 5 in the morning,” says travel writer Jennifer Stevens. “It means I can get into the shower at 7 or 8 having made a dent in whatever I’m working on.”
Nancy Flynn, author of The $100,000 a Year Writer (Adams Media, 2000), maximizes her productivity by avoiding in-person meetings unless absolutely necessary. “You can accomplish a tremendous amount — including establishing and maintaining successful business relationships — via telephone, e-mail, and fax,” says Flynn.
5. Outsource. I have not gone to the post office in 8 years. Why not? Because doing so is an absolute waste of time I could be using to write and make money.
The only thing you get paid to do is write, research, and think for your clients and publishers. All other activities are non-paying and therefore should be farmed out to other people who can do them better and more cheaply than you can.
You do not need to hire a full-time secretary to outsource routine office work and administrative tasks. There are plenty of bright high school and college students eager to work with writers for the glory, glamour, and a relatively modest fee of $10 an hour or so.
Or you can hire a word processing or typing service; most advertise in the local town paper.
I once had a secretary on staff. When she quit about 6 years ago, instead of hiring a replacement, I started calling word processing services advertising in the classified section of my weekly town newspaper. I said, “I will buy 40 hours a week of your time, every week of the year, and pay you a month in advance. In return, I want a better rate.”
All were eager to take me up on this offer. I chose one, and she has been with me ever since.
6. The secret to eliminating Writer’s Block. Profitable writers are productive writers. We write consistently, every day, whether the mood strikes us or not. “The professional writer must establish a daily schedule and stick to it,” writes William Zinsser in On Writing Well (HarperResource, 2001).
The best way to maintain a steady output and avoid Writer’s Block is to have many projects on various subjects and in different formats. The variety keeps you fresh and prevents you from getting bored or fatigued, which are the key causes of Writer’s Block.
This is the method I use, and it has never failed me. If I am writing a magazine ad and get stuck on the headline, I can put it aside and switch to the direct mail package I’m writing for a software company. If I get to the point where I need more information from my software client to proceed with their sales letter, I can put that aside and work on an article or book.
You can decide the mix of assignments and workloads that works best for you. Personally, I always like to have half a dozen projects in the works at any one time. Less limits my variety and my options.
“My interests remain varied,” says Robert Lerose, a freelance direct mail copywriter. “I try to go after work in other areas, such as speechwriting and editorial writing.” Another freelance copywriter, Sig Rosenblum, has written poetry, novels, short stories, a musical comedy, movie music, “and a few other forms.” Gary Blake, a book and magazine writer, branched out into teaching business writing to corporate executives.
7. The secret to getting paid more. I have read at least 100 articles and letters in writers’ magazines that go something like this: “I was writing for a long time for a magazine that paid 10 cents a word. Finally, I told the editor that I could not work for less than 15 cents a word. At first he said no, but I stuck by my guns and, by gosh, he paid it. See … you can get paid more for your writing!”
To me, the practice of going to low-paying markets and trying to convert them into high-paying markets is unproductive. Even if you get an extra 5 cents a word — which in my example represents a 50 percent pay hike — we’re talking about only $50 more for a 1,000-word article.
If you really want to get start making big money from your writing, don’t haggle over nickels and dimes. Don’t try to get a penny a word market to pay two cents a word, and then feel pleased that you doubled your fee. It’s still pennies.
Instead, target high-paying markets and assignments — large-circulation consumer magazines, Fortune 500 corporations, and mid-size businesses. These folks are used to paying top dollar, so you won’t have to do a song and dance to get the fee you deserve.
Moving to higher-paying assignments accelerates your climb to the $100,000 a year mark. It’s much easier to meet your goal of $400 a day when you get $2,000 per project instead of $200.
When considering the profitability of assignments, calculate your earnings per hour rather than per project or per word. If it takes you 10 eight-hour days to do a $2,000 feature article for a glossy magazine, you make $25 an hour. If an industrial manufacturer hires you to write simple press releases for the trade at $500 each, and you can do two per day, you make $125 an hour.
8. Royalties, sales, and mark-ups. Dentists have a saying: “The more you drill and fill, the more you bill.” That means, despite their high pay, they are still in essence hourly laborers, getting paid only for their time — just like writers.
Dentists get around this by hiring other dentists to work for them in their practice, and collecting more in revenue from the work of these dentists than the salaries paid to them.
For writers there are basically three options for escaping from the limitations of “drill, fill, and bill”:
* Royalties. When you write books or music, you get a royalty for each book or CD purchased. You can make thousands of extra dollars a month from products on which you are paid a royalty — without doing any more work. Direct mail writer Dick Sanders, for instance, charges his clients a mailing fee per package mailed in addition to his flat fee for writing copy. If a publisher pays him 3 cents per package mailed, a mailing of 1 million pieces earns Dick an additional $30,000 in mailing fees.
* Sales. You can create and sell your own information products, such as books, e-books, subscription Web sites, newsletters, videos, audiocassettes, and special reports. This is the “self-publishing” option Dan Poynter discusses in his book The Self-Publishing Manual (Para Publishing) and his columns in Writer’s Digest.
* Mark-ups. Some writers make money by buying products or services, marking them up, and reselling them to their clients. For example, a freelance corporate writer may supervise the printing of the brochure he wrote for his client. The printer bills the writer directly. The writer sends his own printing bill to the corporate client, with the actual cost marked up 20 percent to compensate him for his project management services. On a $20,000 print bill, your mark-up would be $4,000. “Never miss out on the opportunity to coordinate printing,” says Flynn. “The profit potential is too great to pass by.”
These three strategies may enable you to make money outside of your own hourly labor, but they are not without pitfalls. What happens if you print 3,000 copies of your self-published book and sell only 100 copies to friends and relatives? What happens when the corporate client declares bankruptcy (can you say “WorldCom”?) and you are stuck with a printer’s bill for thousands of dollars of color printing?
9. The secret to solving the “supply and demand” problem. To earn 6-figures as a freelance writer, you have to be pretty busy most if not all of the time. Writers who suffer prolonged periods without work are going to have a difficult time meeting their revenue goals. If your goal is $2,000 a week and you make zero this week, you’re going to have to make $4,000 in an upcoming week to get back on track.
To minimize downtime and ensure a full writing schedule, you have to create a demand for what you are selling. And one way to make sure you are always in demand is to specialize.
You can specialize in a subject: gardening, content management, wastewater management, investments, interpersonal skills, health and fitness. Or you can specialize in a format or medium: multimedia presentations, Web sites, e-mail marketing, direct mail, speeches, annual reports.
Must you specialize? No. But as a rule, specialists earn more than generalists, are more in demand, and have an easier time finding work than generalists.
A few more words about specializing:
* Being a specialist and a generalist are not mutually exclusive. You can develop a specialty — even several specialties — and still take on general assignments as they come up. My friend Richard Armstrong has three specialties: writing direct mail for publishers; speechwriting; and political fundraising. Dan Poynter also has three specialties: parachuting, self-publishing, and being an expert witness.
* The narrower and more focused your specialty, the greater your value to clients and editors who need someone to write on those subjects. An example of a narrow focus is mutual funds, a sub-topic within the broader area of investing and personal finance.
* The less popular your specialty is with other writers, the greater your competitive edge. If you are only one of a handful of known experts on your topic, the demand for your writing services will exceed the supply, and you can pick and choose your assignments.
10. The secret to getting repeat business. The most profitable assignments in freelance writing are repeat assignments from current clients.
Why? Because you are familiar with the client and their organization, your need to learn about them diminishes with each new assignment. You can charge the same price per job, or maybe even more if they like you. But you can do the jobs much faster because of the knowledge you have accumulated.
How do you get lucrative repeat assignments?
* Give every writing job your best effort. The more satisfied the client, the more likely they are to give you another job.
* Provide excellent customer service. Don’t be a prima donna. Clients avoid working with writers perceived as difficult or demanding.
* Ask the editor or client for another project. Often you won’t get the work unless you ask.
Doing good work stimulates referrals as well as repeat business. Freelancer Charles Flowers was chosen to write A Science Odyssey, a companion volume for the PBS series, because the editor knew him from another project.
May I share a secret with you? In the aftermath of 9/11 and with the anthrax scare, my main business — writing direct mail — got hit hard. And 2002 was the worst year I’d had in some time. Yet despite that, I still grossed well over $300,000.
The point? There is no “bad time” or “good time” for freelance writing. There is only now. And right now, you can make $100,000 a year writing. Just follow the advice above and watch the checks come rolling in.