1 Tiny Sales Letter = 2 Six-Figure Blogging Gigs
Here’s how a single short sales letter brought me six figures worth of freelance writing business.
Story by Rick Schettino
I love my occupation. As a freelance writer, I set my own schedule. There’s no commute. No cubicle. No boss. I live in a perpetual state of awe and gratitude.
For the past ten years, I’ve been a digital nomad, needing nothing but a laptop, Google docs, and a mobile internet connection.
My partner now works with me. We get to travel to our heart’s content. Over the past few years, we’ve been on road trips to destinations across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
Check out and follow our new digital nomad travel blog called, To-Do List.
Before I became a full-time freelance writer, I was into advertising and marketing communications. For the first half of that time, the vast majority of my clients came through a temp agency. All on-site work replete with a daily commute.
Then in 1999, I had a yearning to go freelance and work from home. So I did.
Then I found a niche
A few years later, a former client called me and asked if I had heard of CBD. I said no. The client explained that CBD comes from cannabis and has medicinal benefits like THC in marijuana except it doesn’t get you high.
He said he was starting a new business around CBD. He hired me to write a business plan, press releases, blog articles, etc.
In a few months’ time of writing for this client, I accumulated extensive knowledge about the cannabis industry. I realized that the cannabis industry offered a tremendous opportunity for growth. So I decided to focus my consulting practice on the cannabis industry.
In an effort to attract new marketing and advertising clients I started reaching out to cannabis startups and placing ads on industry sites.
Up until I decided to focus on being a freelance writer, I did far more advertising design work than writing work. And let me tell you, advertising design is a pain in the bute.
I worked almost exclusively with entrepreneurs/startups. These kinds of clients always had a clear vision of the image and messaging they wish to convey. As such, oftentimes a project went back and forth several times before the client was happy. That cut deep into flat rate work and didn’t help my blood pressure.
The lightbulb went on
Then I discovered how easy it is to make money writing articles.
For the most part, when I submit an article to a client there are very few revisions if any. The frustrations that came with advertising and marketing gigs were, for the most part, absent from the good freelance writing gigs.
I can’t overstress how glad I was to discover this.
On top of that, not having to go back and forth with a client, and with no need for long meetings, I easily doubled my effective hourly rate!
That one tiny letter…
So I composed an email only offering writing services only to cannabis companies. I included links to some of the articles I had written for recent clients. I kept it short.
Then I realized that sending out spam emails could get my domain blacklisted. So I went to Fiverr and paid a VA $50 to go to cannabis companies’ websites and send them the letter via their contact forms. I figured this way the letter wouldn’t get flagged as spam.
I get these kinds of letters all the time and usually just delete them without reading them. So I didn’t expect a huge response rate. However, being in advertising, I know that all it takes is a one or two-percent return to load up with new clients.
My Fiverr VA submitted that letter to about 200 prospective clients.
You could just as easily pay a VA to scrape the mailing addresses from websites and then mail a postcard or letter to the marketing dept.
The sales letter went something like this:
Hello. I’m a freelance writer specializing in the cannabis industry. Below are links to some of the articles that I’ve written recently. I have room for another client or two. I’d appreciate it if you would pass this email onto whoever handles marketing there. Thanks.
One short phone call later…
Within a couple of days, I got a call from the owner of a marketing agency that focused on the cannabis industry. He explained that he had just taken on a client whose corporate blog was penned by writers whose native language was not English. And he needed someone to rewrite all the posts. So I did.
That one client kept me busy for almost two years doing mostly blog work and a few press releases for both the agency and their clients.
During that time, I interfaced with an affiliate marketer. He was working an affiliate program for one of the agency’s clients. He reached out to me about writing for his network of cannabis websites.
Over the past two years, my partner and I have ghostwritten very near 1,000 articles, an ebook, and a full-length book for this client.
These two clients were both landed as the result of sending out a single, short letter and getting a 0.5 percent response rate. They have kept me busy for the past four years.
Building on this success, I’ve also had other clients that found me on Upwork and Fiverr (no affiliations) and hired me because of this vast portfolio of cannabis articles I have accumulated.
My next post will offer specific tips for freelance writers and digital nomads for finding cool blogging gigs. Read that post here:
Be sure to follow us for more articles like this.
