How $8 domains helped me land more copy clients

5 replies
I remember going through Gary Bencivenga's copywriter seminar a few years back and something he mentioned really stuck out to me.

Gary said that when he first went solo, he used to have different letterhead for the different leads that came into his office.

So, if he got a financial lead, he'd send out a proposal on paper that had "Financial Copywriter" at the top of the letter.

He talked about specialization... and how people tend to go with the specialists in any given field. Runners buy running shoes. Walkers buy walking shoes.

Anyways, back when I was starting to branch out freelance, I thought of ways to take Gary's specific letterhead idea online.

so what I did was, I bought several different domains in three of the niches I wanted to specialize in: fitness, finance, and internet marketing.

I chose those 3 because I had produced some winners already, so I figured to go with the niches I had done well in.

So, I registered 3 domains that had the roots of "fitness-copy.com", "financial-copy.com", and "internet-marketing-copy.com"

then, I put up some of my samples on each, and those samples were related to each of those niches.

And when running Adwords, I'd use the terms "health and fitness copywriter" to send prospects to the health and fitness copy site.

same with financial copywriter and internet marketing copywriter.

So when someone contacted me at my site, filling out my quote form, I'd then reply using the email that was specific to that niche.

so, if a health and fitness prospect contacted me, I'd contact them back with "shawn@fitness-copy.com" and so on.

Everything I sent was related to health and fitness... my email, my site, my samples, etc...

I wanted to appear to be the specialist in that niche.

Over time, after getting bombarded with fitness copy requests and financial copy requests, I narrowed my focus down to those 2. Then in 2010 or so, it was just fitness related because I became overwhelmed with fitness leads.

Now, I didn't really track and see if setting it up this way worked better than having a non-specific domain or site.

But I did get a dozen or so people over the years specifically tell me that they went with me because I appeared to be the one who had the most experience.

And back when I started using the specialized domain approach, that first year I had over 100 clients and it's only gone up since then.

So, I definitely don't think this approach hurt... even now I think it would help if you started to focus on a specific niche... and become the leader in that niche.

Maybe there's a certain specialty you can focus on, and try to become the leader and forerunner in?

I really think we're heading to becoming more and more specialized online... where you can carve out a great copy business by focusing on one niche.

Become the leader in that niche, become so specialized that your name becomes synonymous with that niche.

Fitness, dating, financial, Internet marketing, etc... it may seem at first that you'd lose business by focusing on just one niche, but I assure you... if you get great in a specific niche... top players will hunt you down.

Most of the A+ writers all focused on a few specific niches... finance and health to be specific.

Maybe there's a way to use this specialization in your copy biz?
#clients #copy #domains #helped #land
  • Profile picture of the author joe golfer
    Yup, it works great. You can niche it down even more with financial email copywriter, fitness autoresponder copywriter, fitness video sales letter writer, etc. Good tip.
    Signature
    Marketing is not a battle of products. It is a battle of perceptions.
    - Jack Trout
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8983592].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author shawnlebrun
      Originally Posted by joe golfer View Post

      Yup, it works great. You can niche it down even more with financial email copywriter, fitness autoresponder copywriter, fitness video sales letter writer, etc. Good tip.
      Awesome point Joe... you really CAN niche it down to a single service in a single niche... and still get all the clients you want.

      A lot of copywriters will think this narrowed-down approach will hurt their chances of landing clients, but the opposite is true. It's really counter intuitive... but if you can become great in one single area, offering one single service... that's when clients seek YOU out. You're no longer pounding the pavement, looking for work... the work finds you.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8984146].message }}
  • Shawn,

    So you installed websites on each domain by the sounds of it? And just drove traffic with Adwords etc directly to them?

    Do you have any tips for setting up the sites? I'm already starting to carve our a few small niches, so this technique is right up my alley!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8985530].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author shawnlebrun
      Originally Posted by theconversionwriter View Post

      Shawn,

      So you installed websites on each domain by the sounds of it? And just drove traffic with Adwords etc directly to them?

      Do you have any tips for setting up the sites? I'm already starting to carve our a few small niches, so this technique is right up my alley!
      Yes, I bought 3 domains and hosted them on 3 separate sites... and catered the copy and samples to that specific niche.

      On Adwords, if I bid on "health and fitness copywriter", I'd use the domain and site for health and fitness copy and samples.

      Over time, you can decide if you want to stick with this, or just focus on one niche. For me, I started seeing where one niche was going to be much bigger and more profitable, just based on adwords and leads alone.

      As far as setting up the sites, I just had a simple site with a home page, a samples page, and way to contact me. Something like a form at the bottom that allowed the person to either get a call back or even a critique.

      But for me, the most profitable and top converting leads usually came from phone calls.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8987409].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author multipliedmike
    Couldn't agree more. It's all about perception.

    If you have...

    1. Any kind of work to show for a given niche. I've started a spin-off brand before based on a single website I did (was a very specific niche).
    2. The right messaging for that niche (to convince them you understand them better than a general service provider) &
    3. as a plus, a reputable looking brand/name/domain

    then you're in a fantastic position to better sell to specific niches.

    At this very moment, I have 3 different cards in my wallet for myself. Two are geared towards specific niches (with specific offers on them). The third is general.

    For those who think this is shady in any way, here's how I look at it. I am specifically catering to certain niches based on what I've learned about them. You don't have to be the best in the niche. It's the idea of making the prospect feel more comfortable that counts.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8985577].message }}

Trending Topics