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It’s a bit of an understatement to say that securing freelance writing work for content marketing services can be difficult - and getting regular or repeat work more so. In this industry, ingratiating yourself with the editors you work with, keeping to deadlines, and building up a reputation for turning in ‘clean’ copy is absolutely essential to making sure you’re able to sustain yourself financially. With this in mind, here are some editorial tips on how to appear (and actually be) proficient. Read Everything Carefully Before you take to the keyboard, you’re guaranteed to have materials to read through. Although it sounds obvious, paying close attention to everything that’s given to you to read will make the whole process run more smoothly and increase your chances of getting more commissions down the line. Whether it’s the spelling of your editor’s name in an email, sticking to the house style guidelines and what’s said in the brief, or understanding the sources you’re working from, be sure to check everything carefully. If you’re making mistakes despite already having all the information you need, it won’t bode well for the quality of your future work. Use the Right Tone As a freelancer, you’ll undoubtedly be working on a variety of projects for a range of different content marketing services at any given time. Capturing the desired tone for each piece of content will make your writing stand out. It takes skill to be able to switch seamlessly from a light-hearted caption promoting a fun and action-packed tour on Instagram to composing a serious, factual blog post for an insurance company’s website. Do Your Research Occasionally, you’ll land a job because you’re already an expert on the topic that needs to be covered. More commonly, however, you’ll need to carry out in-depth research on a topic you’re unfamiliar with in order to fulfil your commission. Don’t be lazy when it comes to this preparation. Fact-check everything and never draw from one source alone (especially not a source as unreliable as Wikipedia). At the end of the day, if your research is poor, it will reflect badly on your reputation. Be Easy to Work With Editors at content marketing services are busy. Very busy. They’ll value your work much more if you make their job easy. That means ensuring your copy is engaging, handed in on time, and, most importantly, ‘clean’: delivered with good grammar and structure, without typos, and in the correct style. If an editor ever sends your writing back to you to make revisions, accept those comments gracefully and return the revised copy in as soon as possible. The deadline has passed and the article needs to be delivered to the client. It’s just not worth seeming high-maintenance and potentially losing future work over the occasional rewrite. If you follow these tips, you won’t just be the average freelancer. Rather, you’ll become a trusted resource that editors know they can rely on to produce great work in the timeframe they give you—essentially, the ideal writer for the job. Author Plate Kit Jones is a professional consultant at LeadGeneratorsDigital, a successful online marketing agency focusing on a variety of digital strategies including content and SEO marketing. The agency provides affordable content marketing services for businesses looking to not only boost their Google rankings, but also their conversion rates and the overall quality of their site.
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