5 Tips on Helping Clients to Value Your Writing Services

August 23, 2020

WRITING | FREELANCING

Tested strategies from a professional B2B and B2C writer

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in 15 years of freelancing is that if you don’t value your writing services, your potential clients won’t value them either. Here are some ways I help clients to see my value.

1. Show Them the Science

Use stats and facts about the value of your services if it’s appropriate. As a writer, I know that using professionals to create content pays dividends for business. And I know that content is key not just for sales, but for engaging and retaining customers and producing engaging content remains a top challenge for marketers and the businesses they serve. The Content Marketing Institute publishes annual stats roundups for B2B and B2C marketing that you can use to make the case for the value of good writing.

2. Highlight the Benefits

All businesses want to look good to their customers. Professional writing helps with that. That’s why my services page includes some of the benefits of good content, along with testimonials from past clients. That’s how they know I’m worth the rates I charge. After all, if I’m helping clients create trusted information or improve their site’s search ranking, that has a value to them in terms of authority and sales.

3. Be Visible Online (and Offline)

I’m a big believer in the importance of having your own online space to showcase your work (in other words, a website). But you also need to be wherever clients are searching for you. They’ll expect to find you when they Google you, as well as on social media.

So share your bylined content widely (bylined, because that builds your authority). I share practically everything I write on Twitter, and also selectively on LinkedIn, and my Facebook page, Facebook profile. I even had a Pinterest portfolio at one time (it’s still up there, though I no longer update it, as I’m pretty sure my clients aren’t looking for me there).

If you have stats about how well a particular piece of content does, share that, too. I’ve also used Buzzsumo to find my most shared content, and I’ve created an infographic with Visme to show key career stats.

You can also:

  • Add content to a portfolio site. My favorite is Contently, but I use many others

  • Show testimonials (and you can use excerpts of LinkedIn recommendations, too)

  • Highlight your best work on your website. I do an annual portfolio post with all my bylined work , which I update at intervals during the year.

You don’t have to put every piece of work on every site. Aim for a spread which gives clients a snapshot of the type and quality of writing you can do.

Don’t forget about offline networking. If you’re getting clients from the local community, attend events where you can give out information about your services. I’ve found it useful to create a one-page sheet which briefly describes my background, key clients, key metrics and writing services. It’s a conversation-opener which has brought me a few clients in the past.

4. Set Limits and Expectations

You don’t have to be available all the time. When you’re new, it can be hard to get out of the scarcity mindset. But the truth is there is a LOT of writing work out there, and you don’t want to end up burning out because you tried to do too much.

Let’s face it: no matter how much we love writing, we all have other things to do with our time, so we have to make time for those things. Here’s how I did it:

  1. No more weekend work.

  2. Worked during school hours only when my daughter was young

  3. Built in lead time for each writing job, aiming for at least a week.

  4. Blocked out time each week to work on my writing business (still not as successful at this as I’d like to be).

  5. Started putting external events that were important to me in the calendar FIRST, and building writing time around that.

I’ve found that if you’re not instantly available, clients who really want you will wait. I also have a small network of trusted freelancers to recommend if I really can’t fit something in.

You have to be firm. A prospective client once offered to triple my usual rate if he could jump ahead of the line. Honestly, I could have used the extra money, but I had to explain that it wouldn’t be good business to treat my existing clients that way. After all, he wouldn’t like it if I did that to him as soon as someone threw more money at me.

5. Create a Pricing Baseline

Another part of setting expectations is giving clients a ballpark figure to work with. I do this by putting guide prices on my site. (The word “guide” is important, as it gives me leeway to adjust my estimates for different types of writing jobs.) This eliminates time wasters, and starts negotiations off right.

Using these strategies have helped prospective clients shift their mindset from seeing me as a hack for hire to considering me a valued partner. What would being valued by clients look like for you?

This is a significantly updated version of an article that originally appeared on Lori Widmer’s Words on the Page blog. Other articles in the series include:

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Sharon Hurley Hall is a professional B2B writer and blogger, and co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast.