22 Mar Here’s why my business is growing so rapidly. And it’s got nothing to do with me.
As a freelance copywriter for over 12 years, working from home has been heaven.
Nothing beats the short commute (from my bedroom to my study) – or the sound of my washing machine doing its thing while I place the finishing touches on a copywriting project.
But last month, I finally moved into an office. A real office. And I appointed my first staff member.
Whoa! What a change.
Many people asked me why the sudden need for my business to ‘grow up’ after all these years. At first, I couldn’t come up with anything other than the plain, boring obvious: more clients, more work, not enough hours in my day.
(I wished I could have said that it was the result of the world’s most brilliant marketing campaign. But no.)
However, upon reflection, I now have a different theory. Here goes.
When I first began writing website content all those years ago, a typical phone call from a new prospect went something like this (c. 2004-2014):
THEM: ‘Hi there. I’m ringing up about getting content written for our company’s website.’
ME: ‘Sure. Are you launching a new website or are you refreshing your existing one?’
THEM: ‘Oh, we’re launching a new one. In fact, we’re going live next week!’
ME:’ Next week? Wow, that’s tight. But first let me clarify: you have a new site designed ready to go and you now need the words to fill it. Have you set aside a budget for this part of the project?’
THEM: ‘Well, not really. In fact, we’ve pretty much spent it all. We never gave much thought to the content until our web designer asked us to send it through yesterday. We assumed they were looking after it!’
But these days, phone calls more typically go like this:
THEM: ‘Hi there, we’re thinking about launching a new website for our business and wanted to find out more about your services.’
ME: ‘Sure thing. Have you started the web design process?’
THEM: ‘No, not at all. We’re just in the early stages of this project. But we think it will be better to talk to you before the web designer so you can help us work out what pages we need, what content to include and how to present our brand more generally.’
And this my friends, is what we call the very promising signs of a maturing market.
Smart businesses and successful brands no longer consider content as an afterthought – but as a key driver for their overall website project and marketing efforts. They also now understand that website copywriting is a specialist skill (that’s very different from web design and development).
What’s more, they can see how critical it is to nail their information architecture (i.e. the way their website information is organised and structured) before any content writing and web designing begins.
For me, this means:
- More clients with allocated content budgets
- More clients who value fresh content and blogging as part of their ongoing marketing communications strategy
- More clients who understand that quality, engaging content is critical to their brand integrity and competitive edge
- More clients engaging me to plan their site and create their information architecture
Although I write more than just online content (such as newsletters, brochures, fundraising letters, annual reports, press releases and more), it does account for 7 out 10 projects that cross my desk every week.
So why the rapid business growth?
It’s all because of YOU – my other smart, savvy clients.
You now ‘get’ content and your business is reaping the rewards.
As is mine ;-).
