www.bly.com\/newsite\/Pages\/portfolio.php<\/a><\/p>\nNotice 3 important things about my portfolio:<\/p>\n
>> First, it’s big. Really big. I don’t know of a copywriter who
\nhas more samples posted online than I do, although there may be —
\nI haven’t looked hard.<\/p>\n
By having so many samples, I increase the odds that I have
\nsomething online that will impress the client and make him want
\nto hire me.<\/p>\n
>> Second, it’s organized in two sections: one by media (e.g.,
\nbrochures, landing pages, white papers) and the second by product
\nor industry (e.g., financial, health care, software).<\/p>\n
For the client who, unbeknownst to me, is browsing my site, this
\nmakes it easier for him to find what he is looking for.<\/p>\n
>> Third, each sample has a unique clickable hyperlink that I can
\ncut and paste into an email or document.<\/p>\n
This allows me to send to prospects I am in contact with the
\nsamples that best fit their needs and interests within a minute
\nor two — by pasting their URLs into an email and sending it to
\nthem.<\/p>\n
I have constructed my online portfolio this way because if a
\nsample is well written and generated good response, the closer
\nthe sample is to what the client wants me to write for them, the
\nmore likely I am to be hired, all else being equal.<\/p>\n
Yes, I understand that, when you are a newbie (I never use the
\nterm “copy cub”), you don’t have a lot of samples at the
\nbeginning of your career.<\/p>\n
But my advice is: get as many samples of your work as you can —
\nand ask the client’s permission to post them on your site. So you
\ncan build a bigger portfolio rather than a smaller one, as
\nquickly as you can.<\/p>\n
Two warnings: Never post or share a sample of your work unless
\nthe client has given you the okay.<\/p>\n
And never post a promotion that you did not in fact write.<\/p>\n
Aside from being completely unethical, for all you know the
\nprospect you are showing it to is the person who actually did the
\npromo you just tried to pass off as your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last month, I wrote an article saying I am against copywriters working “on spec” — with rare exceptions. Subscriber DW agreed that spec work is a bad idea for writers. But when she added, “In my opinion, it’s right up there with sending prospects samples of your work,” I immediately replied “On that, we do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions\/1311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}