How to find freelance clients as a copywriter

Where the work is

Advertising agencies book freelance copywriters for pitches, for campaign peaks and to pair with a freelance art director as a team. Branding and design studios need tone of voice, naming and website copy around identity projects. Content and social agencies run on freelancers for volume. In-house marketing teams at brands and software companies book for launches, email programmes and long-form content.

The agency route pays for concepting and headlines; the in-house route pays for reliability and volume. Many copywriters do both, and the emails to each are different.

Who makes the call

At agencies it is the creative director, an associate creative director, or the creative resourcing manager who keeps the freelance list. At studios it is the creative director or strategy lead. In-house it is the head of content, head of brand or a marketing manager with a project and a budget.

Copy is often the last thing briefed and the first thing needed, so the person who books you is usually under time pressure when they do. Being already known, and known for a specific kind of writing, is what gets you the call.

What to send

Write it like the work. Three or four lines, in your voice, about them, not you. One specific observation about something they made. One link to the piece of yours closest to their world. One small ask. If you write funny, be funny once; if you write plain, be plain.

Do not send samples as attachments and do not send five links. Pick the one piece that answers the question they have about you, and let them ask for more.

Keep it warm

The follow-up is where copywriters win, because a good follow-up is itself proof of craft. A line when they launch something, a note when you publish something relevant, a hello after a quiet stretch. Keep track of who you wrote to and when, and never write without a reason.

Creative directors change agencies often. Each move is a new door with someone who already knows your work behind it.

Where Soloish fits

Soloish does the research half of this. It reads your portfolio, works out what kind of writing you do and for whom, and finds the agencies and studios in the markets you choose that hire that kind of work, ranked by fit with the reason beside each one.

Connect the email you already use for work and it shows who you know at each company and who is due a hello. It only sees who you emailed and when, never what was said. When you don’t know anyone there, it finds a person with the right title in the right office and checks the address is real; if it finds no one, it costs nothing.

Every email is written for that one company and shows the piece of yours that fits them best. You edit it and send it from your own Gmail or Outlook, so nothing goes out that you didn’t read. Soloish watches the companies you follow for news worth writing about, notices replies, and brings a follow-up back on the day you choose.