Top 10 Ways To Make Money Copywriting

Words are weapons. They can be locked and loaded. You can fire them at will to attain the objective of your choice. Words can be used to persuade other people. But they can also be used to repel. Yes. The words you use matter. Especially in business. Words can help attract customers. To magnetize them. To generate leads. And to make money hand over fist.

Every copywriter understands this. They know that words are weapons. They can be used like atomic bombs. Those bombs can be dropped to obliterate the competition in any market. The truth? Expert copywriting can propel a business forward unlike anything else. Why? Because words are at the heart of everything. They’re part of every piece of communication a prospect sees.

These concepts aren’t new. Everyone knows that copywriting can help you make money. Lots of money in many ways. It can help you make money in your sleep. From your phone. While traveling. In real estate. As a web developer. In graphic design. Or as any kind of freelancer. Copywriting can help you make money as an affiliate. And every other way possible.

How To Make Money As A Copywriter

Copywriters are a dime a dozen. They come from all walks of life. Everywhere you turn you’ll find another person claiming to be a copywriter. But good copywriters are few and far between. And the top copywriters? You’ll be hard-pressed to find experts at their craft. And when you do they won’t come cheap. The world’s best copywriters know that they can charge exorbitant fees for killer copy.

That doesn’t mean you can’t make money as a copywriter. There are companies at all levels with all budgets. As long as you’re good enough at your craft you can make money copywriting. You just have to understand where to look and how to approach things. This isn’t just about earning an hourly wage. Sure, you can do that. You can easily get a job as a copywriter if you’re good. But this isn’t about that. This is about earning far more money than working for a meager hourly wage.

Other avenues exist for making real money with copywriting. I won’t tell you they’re easy. They’re not. But if you’re a good copywriter, you have options. If you’re not? You can certainly learn. There’s nothing wrong with that. You can find plenty of courses about how to be a great copywriter. But there’s nothing that will help you more than real-world experience.

Actual boots-on-the-ground experience is irreplaceable. Invaluable. It allows you to learn copywriting in a different way. That does mean getting a job as a copywriter. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. Will you make a lot of money with a full-time job as a copywriter? Maybe. But it’s likely you won’t unless you’re the best of the best.

What Is Copywriting?

Before finding ways to make money with copywriting, let’s explore the topic. The question? What is copywriting? At the end of the day, what does it boil down to? And what does it mean to be a copywriter? What objective does a copywriter achieve? A copywriter has a single and sole purpose in any business. And that is to increase conversions.

The goal of a copywriter is to create content across different communication channels. And that content must be designed to optimize conversions. Those conversions can be of many types. They can be lead conversions that are generated from a lead magnet or a lead generation funnel. The conversions may also be sales conversions of direct purchases. They can be application conversions with content designed to get more people to fill out applications. And so on.

Many conversion objectives exist. And the sole purpose of a copywriter is to maximize those conversions no matter what medium or channel they stem from. To do that you must first understand the customer. A great copywriter can get deep inside the mind of a customer. They know who they are implicitly. And I do mean right down to the very fiber of their existence.

That’s because you must understand the customer to understand their problem. Their problem is at the core of everything you do as a copywriter. The problem is the basis for increasing sales, boosting revenue and ensuring you maximize the average order value of every sale. Once you understand the problem, you can create copy designed to target that problem. And to sell the products or services the business offers that solve that problem. That’s it. That’s what copywriting is.

1—Freelancing

One obvious way to make money as a copywriter is to do freelancing. Freelancing means that you’re hunting for clients on existing platforms like Upwork, Freelancer, and even Fiverr. That doesn’t mean you’re going to rake it in. Those platforms have plenty of competition. And most who hire freelancers rely on their reviews. If you don’t have an existing track record, you’ll find it hard to compete.

Freelancing can make you good money as long as you stick it out. You’ll need to bid on jobs constantly. And you have to ensure your best work is portrayed in your portfolio. Learn the fundamentals of copywriting first before you hunt for real clients. Take classes and educate yourself. Find successful copywriters and devour their content.

2—Digital Products

To make real money in copywriting (or in any other profession) you must disconnect your ability to generate revenue from your time. Working for clients directly is rewarding but also time-consuming. It’s also taxing on the mind. It requires a lot of creativity and effort. That leaves you with very little energy at the end of the day. That’s why digital products are the key to making money as a copywriter.

If you understand copywriting and you have a proven track record, consider turning your knowledge into a digital product. Digital products can take on many styles, shapes and forms. They can be intensive, in-depth videos, cheat sheets, PDF documents, case studies, and more. It’s up to you to create something of real value. Make sure that it directly solves a problem a prospect is experiencing.

3—Online Courses

Online courses allow you to share extensive information about a topic. It’s the perfect medium for teaching any form of copywriting. You can explain all the ins and outs of how to write copy that sells. You can dive deep into how to position content the right way to create true desire in the prospect. And you can explain the art of persuasion and how to trigger a buying frenzy with psychological levers like urgency and scarcity.

Online courses are one of the best ways you can create value and earn money online. It disconnects your revenue generation from your time. It allows you to scale your capability to make money by building a product you can sell over and over again. Plus, online courses are not difficult to build. You can use a course builder like this one to build and promote the entire online course yourself.

4—Sales Funnels

Sales funnels allow you to take your knowledge of copywriting and turn it into a profitable business. A sales funnel is like a magic money-making machine. It allows you to sell any product or service by leveraging a proven marketing model called AIDA. This allows you to Attract (A) prospects, create (I) Interest, build (D) Desire and compel (A) Action.

You can easily build sales funnels with a sales funnel builder. It can propel your existing business to higher conversions or you can use it to create and sell new products and services. You can build many sales funnel types for copywriting. You can create application funnels to find clients, webinar funnels to run a presentation, or you can use it to create a tripwire offer.

5—Affiliate Marketing

Many copywriters turn to affiliate marketing to make money. Especially copywriters who are familiar with SEO. Affiliate marketing is an ideal way for copywriters to make money. You can build bridge pages designed and written to help convert visitors with ease. Bridge pages allow you to capture contact details before forwarding them to the affiliate offer.

Affiliate marketing boils down to the promotion of affiliate links. It helps to have an existing audience somewhere. Whether that’s an email list, a YouTube audience, a social media following, or something similar. But you can still make money as an affiliate even without a list. You’ll need to use the power of paid ads to do that.

6—Sales Letters

Sales letters are one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of any copywriter. Sales letters are long-form letters designed to help sell a prospect something. They’re written to persuade and create true desire in a prospect to purchase. When approached the right way a sales letter can make you a lot of money as a copywriter.

You can create sales letters for businesses or you can create them for any product or service you decide to sell. You can build a sales letter into a sales funnel to supercharge your money-making capabilities. Sales letters that are well-written understand the prospect implicitly. And they understand the problem. The framework often used for sales letters is called PAS. It stands for Pain-Agitation-Solution. You highlight the pain, agitate it, and then you present the solution.

7—Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting is the art of writing for others. Except you’re writing as them and it can happen across many mediums. You can ghostwrite an entire book for someone or do something as simple as a blog post. You can ghostwrite emails and other forms of communication. Copywriters who are skilled in their craft can act as the voice of someone else to help them free up time to do other things in their business.

You can find ghostwriting clients in many ways. Talk about your writing skills on platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook. You can reach out to people in your network or even find ghostwriting jobs on platforms like Indeed or other similar sites. You’ll need to know the person and their business inside and out to ghostwrite. Depending on the application, you’ll also need to know the customer and their problem.

8—Newsletters

Newsletters allow you to share your knowledge and insight with an audience. You can create a newsletter in any industry or niche and build a real following. Newsletters help you convey ideas and concepts with ease. It provides a recurring way to share stories and insights with an attentive audience. And you can use that newsletter to sell any product or service you have to offer.

Newsletters can be paid or free. When building out a free newsletter, you’ll have to find some way to monetize it. You can use affiliate relationships, sell products or services, or approach it in many other ways. Paid newsletters will require you to deliver real value regularly. It takes time and consistent energy. But it is well worth it.

9—Membership Sites

Membership sites allow you to share wisdom and real-time information with customers regularly. This works best when you’re dealing with content that requires freshness. For example, membership sites about stocks, bonds and crypto are popular. You can share insights and wisdom into market movers. You can also build membership sites about other ever-changing topics such as SEO, online marketing, sales persuasion, and more.

As a copywriter, you have the power of persuasion and storytelling. You can use that to build emotion-inducing content. This is not just to give people updates in an industry or niche. This is also for helping to sell and get customers to spend more money with you. Membership sites also allow you to generate recurring revenue that keeps going even after the first purchase is complete.

10–Coaching

While many ways exist to make money copywriting, coaching offers one of the highest revenue-generating opportunities. You can do private coaching or group coaching. Private coaching allows you to make more money from an individual client. However, it requires more of your time for that client. On the other hand, group coaching allows you to compress your time by helping many people at one time. If you can charge a lot of money for group coaching then that should be where you start.

To coach others you must be skilled at your craft. You can teach people how to become great copywriters. And you can also teach business owners the process behind creating great copy that sells. After all, every business needs more leads and sales. And copywriting is at the heart of every lead generation and purchase decision a customer makes. So people are always willing to pay a lot to learn this skill.