Last week, I talked about why I have such a good track record of hiring copywriters. My hypothesis is, if you see what I’m looking for and how I hire, then you’ll develop yourself as a writer to become more hirable.
Let’s start with a high-level, overarching lesson.
This may sound simple, but when I’m hiring writers, I know exactly what I’m looking for.
What I mean by this is: I know my industry. My clients are typically direct response companies who use long-form VSL funnels. This is a very specific kind of writing. My employers don’t need content writers, not ecomm writers, not brand driven writers.
Not journalists. Not poets. Not technical writers.
However, whenever I put up a job posting, I inevitably get all of the above (minus the poets**).
Worse, I get writers who say they can write anything. Or they think their skills in one type of writing are transferable to my highly specialized form of copywriting. Unfortunately, no, sorry, that’s simply not true. That’s like saying Stephen King can write Romantasy.
So LESSON NUMBER ONE is: whether you’re actually a multi-hyphenate or not, don’t sell yourself as such to a job posting, gig, or client. Not in regard to writing at any rate.
Instead, know your target. This is marketing 101. The job, project, client, or whatever you’re after… what do they want?
Be in the thick of what they do, what their competitors are doing, and how they do it.
Here are questions I would want you to be able to answer if you were looking to land a job in my industry (direct response companies that use long form VSL funnels):
- What do they sell? Who else sells it?
- Who are they targeting their ads at?
- How do they sell it? What kind of funnels do they use?
- What kind of ads, emails, and landing page styles do those funnels typically use?
- How is this niche’s style of writing unique? What are their quirks? Why do they use language like that?
There are a couple of ways to get this knowledge. The hard way is to use AdSpy software, subscribe to a bunch of email lists, follow “gurus” on social media, buy courses, join Facebook groups with other copywriters, and do a lot of manual research.
The hard way is a lot of work and what’s more… it’s just not very good. Not when you’re looking to know an industry deeply and inside out.
The problem with knowledge you can get freely on the Internet is that the Internet will give you generic, high-level “helpful content”, cleaned up, opinionated, made to entertain. Or it’s AI or SEO content slop meant to feed the search algorithms and not necessarily human eyes. Or it will give you hyper-specific information that has very little context, framework, or direction.
That last one is a lot more dangerous than you think, especially when you stumble upon it and think, “wow, that’s so insightful” with zero context.
Here’s what I would recommend instead.
The easy way to figure out an industry is to find people inside willing to talk and ask them questions. And it won’t be just one or two. You’re going to need to be an investigative journalist with red yarn on a corkboard. You want to ask who the “big players” are. Who the heads of whatever are at each company. What their biggest projects are.
I’ve talked about this strategy elsewhere, but the key here is to build out that family tree.
Most industries tend to be a handful of power brokers, influencers, and heads of departments. Figure out who they are. Watch what their companies are doing. Look at the writing they’re publishing or the funnels they’re using. Find their gaps so you can slip in.
If you do this right… When you get a chance to talk to a potential client, employer, or agency, you’ll immediately deliver value by being able to speak about “the landscape”. What you see they’re doing, what their competitors are doing, and what you think you can bring to the table.
That’s demonstrating value… or at least an awareness of their world.
This, of course, requires you to know their business model. It requires you to think at a much higher level than simply being a “writer” who can wrangle words. It requires you to be aware of how your writing can actually directly impact their bottomline.
It also requires you to be the kind of person who isn’t afraid to make friends, cold email, and network. This is, ultimately, the introverted, monastic writer’s worst nightmare.
My words of encouragement to you? Make it a game. You’re simply researching and asking questions. You’re curious. You want to know how things work. You want the industry tea.
Next week, I’ll start breaking down my hiring process in earnest. Talk soon.
** Except that one time I got a NYC slam poet champion, who actually turned out to be a damn good copywriter as well…