Copywriter earnings – 5 steps to a higher salary

How much does a copywriter earn?

Nevertheless, experienced writers can count on earnings of up to several million naira per month.

It is assumed that a copywriter can write from 200,000 to even 500,000 characters with spaces in a month, assuming that he or she has regular orders.

A copywriter may be employed under an employment contract, contract of mandate or specific work, but a common practice in this profession is to run one’s own business or settle accounts via Upwork.

Copywriter earnings – what does income level depend upon in this industry?

If you write marketing/sales copies for a living and wonder why others in the industry earn more (or less)  than you – here are some factors that affect copywriting earnings:

• scope of work (e.g. writing only, independent selection of keywords, planning topics, creating graphics for texts, publishing content),
• method of settlement (e.g. for characters with spaces, for the number of words, for entire
• projects, subscription for monthly cooperation),
• the nature and quality of orders (e.g. simple SEO texts, social media posts, substantive blog entries, persuasive product descriptions, specialized articles),
• form of employment (self-employment, work in a company, work in a copywriting agency),
• number of orders processed per month,
• specialization in a specific topic,
• writing in foreign languages,
• experience,
• location..

How can a copywriter increase his/her earnings?

Some factors determining income in copywriting are beyond your control. However, there are several practices that allow you to increase your earnings in this profession.

1. Find your specialty

If you ask business people what they miss in the services of copywriters, many people will answer that it is difficult to find specialists in a specific field among people dealing with any topic. Filling this gap is a ready-made idea to gain a better position on the market and, consequently, increase your earnings.

In unusual businesses or technical industries, where there is a lack of people with a pen as light as a copywriter’s, earnings may differ significantly from standard ones – to the advantage of the author.

2. Be your own copywriter

As a busy copywriter, you may not see the point in creating additional texts for yourself that no one will pay you for. Mistake!

A website, blog or social media represent you in the eyes of potential customers. Thanks to these, people interested in your services can read your texts and assess what kinds of jobs you can deliver.

If they are at a high level, you will attract people who care about quality, not quantity. Thus, rates for specific projects will increase. Therefore, you should treat creating attractive content for your own communication channels with customers as one of your most important tasks!

3. Be organized

If you make money writing for businesses, waiting for inspiration is not very profitable. Planning your work and proper organization helps you know what tasks lie ahead of you. This means you can start working faster. Therefore, you save time by eliminating unnecessary steps and not reducing the quality of the texts.

This way, you increase your efficiency – and it is worth remembering that a copywriter’s earnings should be assessed primarily on the basis of the time spent on orders.

4. Ask your customers questions

If you are the one who determines the details with the client, learn as much as possible from your clients about the company’s activities, products or services, target group, their expectations regarding the order and the purpose of your work. In an ideal situation, the client comes with prepared guidelines. Often, however, this information is not comprehensive enough to create tailor-made content. Therefore, it is worth creating a solid template brief for the client, which will allow you to obtain all the necessary information.

How will this affect copywriting earnings? A larger amount of information translates into the ability to better identify the expectations of the customer and target group. Knowing them allows you to create more effective content. This way, you avoid misunderstandings that may result in corrections (and thus the need to devote additional hours to completing the order). In return, you gain a satisfied customer who will be happy to entrust you with further tasks or recommend you to others.

5. Write well, not quickly

It may seem that generating a large amount of text quickly will have a positive impact on a copywriter’s earnings. This is partially true, but it does not pay off in the long term.

First of all, because with each order, a copywriter should not only earn money, but also improve his craft. By creating a lot of low-quality texts (and these will mainly be the result of working to beat time), you do not enrich your portfolio with valuable content and you do not develop new skills. You’re standing still. This may make you lose job satisfaction.

You should also remember that your writing speed will improve with each assignment. This means that by focusing on quality, over time you will learn to complete tasks faster without losing accuracy.

However, the final reason is the client  you’re creating contents for. Hurried contents will ultimately affect the willingness to continue using your services, the nature and value of subsequent orders and the possibility of recommending you to others.