Day 31 – How to land high paying clients by cold pitching
On day 29 I finished the guest posting section. I’ll re-iterate the importance of guest posting for establishing social proof as a freelance writer.
Guest posting allows you to leverage the name and prestige of major publications. Also, when pitching it’ll allow you to command higher rates.
Today I shift focus toward cold-pitching which is the best way to land high paying clients and become a freelance writer. Bamidele is a strong advocate of it and so is Jorden Roper.
I mean Jorden offers a “Killer Cold Emailing Course”, where she says, “Stop fucking around. Start winning high paying clients.” It works. There are no two ways about it.
It’s a technique I used to kickstart my freelance writing career. I landed two clients from approximately 100 cold pitches, which allowed me to make my first $1000 in two months.
One client paid me $300 aa article. Yes, $300! That’s a far cry from the early days where I was earning $15 a post writing for Lifehack. I have friends who achieved similar feats. The likes of Richard Rowlands and Ciaran Gilligan.
So I can tell you cold-pitching works.
But, it’s a numbers game. You’ll need to put in the hard work and send a lot of pitches.
Many people won’t reply, even after you’ve sent follow-ups.
You should not let this deter you. If you put in the hard work, you will land a client. I guarantee you this much.
All I ask is that you use the strategy and templates I provide.
If you’ve sent hundreds of pitches and aren’t getting responses please send me your pitch together with the subject line of your emails.
The reason I say this is because someone emailed me the other day saying he’s sent close to 200 pitches with a very low response rate. I immediately knew something was wrong.
I analysed the subject line of his email. It read something like this: “Hire Me to Improve Your Content Marketing”.
That title doesn’t work as it’s too pushy. You’re asking them to hire you before they’ve even opened and read the email. Chances are his open rates were low.
Also, he was using a solid pitch template, but there were spelling mistakes and issues with his English. That’s off-putting for any editor.
So, whilst the strategy works it’s important to make sure your pitch, subject line, and English are up to scratch, else you’ll get nowhere, and at best get the odd reply. And I don’t want that for you. I want to see you succeed.
So, in the posts that follow I’ll be showing you how to succeed as a freelance writer with the technique of col-pitching. I’ll be focusing on:
- Criteria for selecting clients.
- Techniques to find these clients and their contact details – many of these I’ve already mentioned in the guest posting section.
- Crafting a pitch – I’ve shared a guest posting pitch template, but I’ll also provide you with a template for cold pitching. I’ll also share a nice subject line that has great open rates. I use it all the time.
- Following up – again this is a technique I touched on in the guest posting section. Use the 3-7-7 formula.
- Tracking your progress – it’s important to track your progress in a spreadsheet. If you don’t, you’ll get overwhelmed as you try to track all the pitches you’ve sent.
That about covers it.
So, prepare yourself for the final few posts that will provide you with enough content, tips, tricks, and information to help you become a freelance writer.
The goal here is to land high-paying gigs, not $5 for a 500-word post. That’s a slap in the face, and you should not be writing for that amount of money.
But, I want to re-iterate the following: I can’t make you take action. I can’t control your mindset or motivation. It’s not up to me. It’s up to you.
If you’re complaining that you’re not getting results and you’ve only sent 20 pitches, send more. This is hard work. How bad do you want this?
If you’re still seeing no results after 100 plus pitches with minimal response rates, send me your pitch and subject line, and I’ll review it for you.
Also if your English is poor, well then you need to improve it. How can you expect an editor to hire you if you’re making basic mistakes that are noticeable to someone who’s fluent in English?
This strategy works. I’m proof of that and I want you to get results. I want you to become a freelance writer and/or help you climb out of that pit you’re in, writing for content mills, earning peanuts. But I can only guide you.
The ball’s in your court.
How will you proceed?
Feel free to email me at nick (at) nickdarlington (dot) com if you need help