Success With Freelance Content Writing
What does it take?
If you are a good writer, freelance content writing is a great place to be in. There are a whole lot of fields to choose from based on your interests and there are a whole lot of content writers too, which makes this occupation a promising one, once you learn to climb the ropes. But to be able to do that successfully, it requires strategy and hard work.
In this feature, two experienced freelance content writers, Surobhi Banerjee and Sruthi Subramaniam share their experiences in the field and provide helpful pointers that will come in handy, while signing up a content writing project.
Surobhi Banerjee chose to give up a full time career to be able to care for her child and found opportunities in the field of content writing on a freelance basis. She is a freelance writer in the field of technology and entertainment. She does subtitles for Korean serials and is a technical content writer, writing articles for clients based out of the U.S, U.K, Australia and Canada.
Sruthi Subramaniam worked for a decade in the field of Human Resources before deciding to quit, to take care of her child. Her search for flexible work options, led her to stumble upon content writing as an alternate and interesting career option. She has been working in the content writing industry for more than two years now. She has contributed content for a variety of industries such as HR, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Academia, IT, Real Estate as well as non-profit NGOs.
MerryGoWork(MGW): How has working remotely on a freelance basis helped you?
Surobhi Banerjee: Apart from flexibility, freelance writing opens up the arena to learn. Diversity in projects is an enriching experience. Once you learn to identify genuine clients, steady income begins to come in. Although I do technology based writing, it is not boring as each time I get an assignment it is about a different technology, about which I need to learn about and write. For instance in a project I undertook, I learnt five ways of tracking someone’s location through groups without any extra app download.
Sruthi Subramaniam: Content writing has helped me get a glimpse into different fields of work, re-kindled my curiosity to learn more, and enabled me to understand stakeholders through a new perspective. Apart from that, working remotely on a freelance basis has given me the power of flexibility in several ways.
- Choose the kind of work I want to do,
- Choose the kind of people I want to work with,
- Set the time duration of work that works best for me,
- No pressing need to have a support system for child care. Lesser stress thereby in the absence of a support system.
- Make adequate quality time to spend with those who matter (children/elderly, friends, etc)
MGW: What are the challenges you have faced while writing on a freelance basis? What would be your advice to newcomers in the freelance content writing industry?
Surobhi Banerjee: One of main challenges I have faced is finding genuine clients. It is a lot nicer to work with clients from abroad. Apart from a good pay for quality work delivered, they are extremely professional and treat me with respect.
Something extremely important that I learnt early on in my writing career, is to always have written agreements regarding the length of the project, payments, mode and time of payments. Also ensuring that if the client uses your work, you are given due credit and paid for it.
Always have written agreements regarding the length of the project, payments, mode and time of payments.
It is equally imperative to make sure that you discuss with the client, the number of times you would agree to have an article to be edited. By “edits” I am not refering to grammatical error corrections but changes to the content to meet some other requirement. At times, clients specify a certain set of requirements and when the writeup is delivered, they want to completely change it. At that point it becomes hard to renegotiate terms. It is best to put forth your terms right at the beginning and state clearly that for edits beyond a certain reasonable number, would mean extra payment.
It is equally imperative to make sure that you discuss with the client, the number of times you would agree to have an article to be edited.
Sruthi Subramaniam: A project can get frustrating if there is no clarity in the following aspects.
- Pitching and understanding the scope of every new opportunity:
This is time intensive. It calls for patiently, eliciting in depth responses from a potential client to understand the scope of the assignment, negotiating after understanding the market rates and ensuring delivery of the promised quality of work.
- Stakeholder clarity
When the stakeholder is clear about what he/she wants and the raw data that needs to be worked on, the assignment can be completed without delays. Dealing with stakeholders who arrive at a better understanding of what they actually want, based on your first draft, can be frustrating. Asking the necessary questions and keeping the client updated pro-actively helps to a large extent.
Asking the necessary questions and keeping the client updated pro-actively helps to a large extent.
- Dealing with changed scope
If the scope of the assignment is inadvertently changed during the middle of an assignment, it can cause a lot of re-work. The freelance content writer must assertively state facts backed up by data to emphasize the change in scope that has led to a delay and/or increased costs. For such clients, calls can be summarised with brief “Minutes of Meeting” on the points agreed upon, to ensure everyone is on the same page.
The freelance content writer must assertively state facts backed by data to emphasize the change in scope that has led to a delay and/or increased costs.
- Interacting with stakeholders:
When there are multiple stakeholders in a single project/assignment, one might need to manage stakeholders ego’s from de-railing the project. Being politically correct also helps.
- Receiving payment:
Follow-up for payment is a delicate yet important activity.
- Forsaking a project midway:
There are times when assignments may not turn out to be what one expected it to be. Getting back to the client stating that it would not be possible to complete it, is a tough task. But the sooner it gets done, the better. If this happens, I make sure that I explicitly mention the reason in a polite way. I believe that it is extremely important to part ways in an amicable manner.
Getting back to the client stating that it would not be possible to complete a project for some reason, is a tough task. But the sooner it gets done, the better.
The experiences of these two women clearly demonstrate that freelance content writing can get tough at times but with the right strategies in place, it can be a rewarding experience.
Here are three crucial lessons from their experience in the field.
- Engage in detailed discussions with the client to zero in on the exact requirements and rule out any room for ambiguity
- Insist upon written agreements that clearly state the scope and requirements of the project.
- Never hesitate to talk about payment upfront and follow up.
Coming up soon on MerryGoWork, an exploration into the remote working option for employees of large companies. Stay tuned.
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