Are you tired of grinding your way to burnout writing $8 and $15 articles in content mills?

There’s a better way to build a business as a freelance writer. Breaking into B2B writing allows you to tap into an incredibly valuable form of content development, one that marketing managers are spending as much as $5.2 billion every year. 

If you’re a naturally talented writer with a healthy curiosity about how businesses operate, you could jump on stable, profitable assignments that run upwards of $1 per word.

Here’s a bit of background information about B2B writing and what it takes to be successful in this lucrative writing field.

What is B2B writing?

B2B writing stands for business-to-business writing. It’s the other side of the coin with B2C writing, or business-to-community writing. In B2C writing, you’re helping a company sell products to consumers like you and me. In B2B writing, you’re helping a company sell products to other companies.

Think of it this way: in B2C writing, you’re writing ad copy and emails to sell the cute holiday sweater in an e-commerce store, or the delicious pineapple in the grocery store. 

In B2B marketing writing, you’re helping the e-commerce store choose the right platform for selling sweaters, and you’re helping the pineapple growers understand the best shipping and logistics software to get their pineapples to the right store at the right time.

Your job as a B2B copywriter is to write the blog posts, white papers, case studies, infographics and more to help those companies make their value clear to their customers — which happen to be other companies. 

Why it’s worth becoming a B2B copywriter

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2021 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends survey, businesses need content.

Ninety-three percent of organizations engage in content marketing for their businesses, but they often run into roadblocks keeping up with demand. That means there’s a huge built-in market for writers who know how to talk about business problems and sell products and services to other businesses.

These clients already know they need your services and they already know your services are worth the cost. They just need to meet you and get sold on the fact that you’re the right writer for them.

Skills you need to be successful in B2B copywriting

You know the market is there, so how do you know you’ll enjoy the work? Here are three skills you’ll need to be successful or desirable as a B2B copywriter:

1. Writing talent: You know how to put words together into convincing and well-received sentences. You know how to convey meaning clearly for readable, relatable online content.
   
2. Business awareness: You understand that businesses invest in products and services to make more money and then re-invest that money in their products and services. You know how customer service, marketing, leadership and sales work together to keep a business afloat (and if you run your own business, you definitely know this!)

3. Digital research savvy: You know how to perform research online to uncover interesting statistics and quickly understand the lingo businesses use for their products and services. You have a basic knowledge of SEO keywords and writing for search engines to help businesses get online traffic.

If you aren’t strong in any of these three areas, that’s where you can hone in on your training to grow your B2B skills and become a great B2B copywriter.

How B2B marketing writing is different

Writing for a B2B audience is a topic that could be a whole course. But you can get started in this field by understanding a few simple principles.

First, understand that the B2B audience is made up of people who represent a company. While for B2C writing you write to an individual who is making choices for himself, when you write for a B2B audience you’re writing for an individual who is making choices for his place of work. He’ll need to justify this purchase to his boss or his boss’s boss, and he’ll want to know all of the technical details up front.

Second, know that the B2B audience values statistics and information about the return on investment (ROI) that comes from the products or services being advertised. Essentially, they want to know that spending $1,000 on the product you’re advertising will net the company $2,000 or $5,000 more revenue. Any investment needs to provide a return.

Finally, B2B audiences take in information in the marketing age in many different ways. B2B marketing writing can take the form of blog posts and articles on a company’s website, or articles via a high-traffic publication like Forbes or Inc.

B2B audiences also might need to receive content in the form of press releases, white papers and case studies, each of which have their own format, best practices, and price points.

If it sounds like B2B writing could be a good fit for you, don’t waste another minute writing for low-paying content mills.

Dig deeper into which businesses could benefit from your writing specialty and craft a few example pieces with these principles in mind.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova from Pexels

In the process of determining that rate, you consider the pay scale of jobs you’ve worked in the past, consult industry pricing sheets, and read every “How much should I charge?” resource you can get your hands on.

And after reading all of those blogs and getting pep talks from the best writers out there… you still turn around and charge $15 or $20 an hour for all kinds of writing services.

I know why you do it. I was there. I started my writing business charging $35 an hour and I felt pretty darn lucky to get the business that came in (and, truth be told, I was indeed lucky to get it because I was just getting started).

Because no matter how many articles I read telling me to charge more, I never quite understood why I should charge more, or how I should go about it.

Well, new writers, your day has come! Here’s a look at the real consequences of charging $20 an hour to write and how to make the switch to a more profitable rate you deserve.

What’s a good hourly rate for a freelance writer?

The truth of the matter is that a minimum writing rate is however low you’ll go when you need money.

It’s important to know that number for business purposes, but using that number to guide your pricing is a huge mistake. It points the nose of your plane at the ground and limits your ability to earn from the get-go.

For some, it’s thrilling to surpass the minimum wage at $15 per hour, and it beats unemployment. Many others, including myself, realize after a few months that charging this low rate is not the equivalent of a full-time writing job, and is simply not sustainable.

Beyond the threat of going out of business because you aren’t making enough, charging too little makes freelancing stressful and hard. It makes you work overtime, and on projects (and with people) who don’t feed your love of writing.

If you love freelancing and you are getting great feedback from your clients, the time has come to raise your rate. But trust me, if you go from $20 to $100 an hour, you’ll lose all your clients.

So how do you do it without alienating the people you want to work with?

What’s better than hourly freelance writing rates?

Here’s the rub: Raising your prices when you work hourly is extremely difficult. Going from $20 an hour to $50 an hour will feel like an unwarranted hike for your clients and you’ll feel the need to justify every dollar of that increase.

And worse yet? It still won’t help you achieve the freedom you want to achieve. Even charging $100 per hour (which few clients will pay for writing) won’t disengage you from the need to be active in your business 40 hours per week, because of all the unpaid time spent invoicing, marketing, paying taxes, and hunting down new work.

All hourly pricing turns your time into a commodity. Instead, you need to shift to the most profitable way of charging for you and the most convenient form of billing for your clients: Project or value-based pricing.

Transitioning to Project Pricing

When switching your current clients from a low hourly rate to an equivalent project rate, you don’t have to make it a huge deal.

Simply translate how much you’re billing your client hourly right now and match it with the tasks you’re performing. Then round up to get a “project rate” for the assignment.

For example, let’s say you’ve been writing four blog posts for a company at $20 an hour and you’ve been invoicing four-to-six hours each month for the past few months for a total invoice of $120. Simply take the six-hour rate ($120) and turn it into a per-post rate of $40 for each of the four posts.

Boom, you have a project rate.

Here’s a simple email template you can use to switch your clients to a project rate in that scenario:

Hello Client,

Thank you so much for paying [most recent invoice]! I really enjoyed working on this project, and I can’t wait to get started on [next assignment].

Regarding my future invoicing, I am shifting my business to a project rate model. This won’t affect our relationship very much — in fact, this will make it easier for you to predict your invoice each month and we won’t have to track pesky hours all the time.

Instead of charging $20 per hour, I’ve analyzed the data from our invoices the past few months and set an equivalent project rate of $40 per post. Moving forward, I’ll bill at this itemized rate so you can know exactly what you’re getting into with each new project.

Let me know if you have any questions — I’ll be happy to discuss this with you over the phone!

Sincerely,

[You]

Now that you have this project rate established, you can start implementing the secrets all high-earning freelance writers use to maximize their income: Learn to write faster (thereby increasing your hourly income) and (over time, of course) raise your project rate so you make more with each project.

You can also pitch new kinds of more valuable work (ghostwriting jobs, email copywriting, white papers, and website copywriting) at a higher project rate, thereby avoiding the discussion of hourly rates altogether as you grow your business.

Why should people pay writers this much?

One of the deepest issues writers have with charging a high rate is confidence in what you do. You naturally love to write, after all, so who are you to charge for something that comes easily to you?

I cry baloney!

Listen: Businesses make money selling ideas to their customers. Those ideas are expressed in words on their marketing material, websites, blogs, and product descriptions. Therefore, the only way any of these businesses ever makes money is…

You got it. Through the words they use.

If a business is successful or unsuccessful, it’s because it is communicating its value — with words — to clients who agree to buy. If you’re a part of that process, you’re a valuable business asset that is worth investing in — and paying more than $20 an hour.

And if you can help a business understand this process by pricing your rates according to the value you bring, they will begin to understand why investing in the best writer for the job at a market project rate is in their best interest.

Do you absolutely have to stop charging $20 per hour for your writing? Only if you want to stay in business.

Take this post as an opportunity to sit down and think through your pricing strategy so you can get on track to succeed as a freelance writer today.

What strategies have you used to determine or raise your freelance writing rates?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via JKstock / Shutterstock 

What if this person laughs off my email pitch?

Who’s possibly going pay me to write for them?

What makes me think I could be good at freelancing?

Congratulations. You’re officially a freelance writer because you’re dealing with a bout of impostor syndrome!

Impostor syndrome is a well-documented psychological phenomenon in which someone who’s qualified in a field starts to experience extreme feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy about their performance.

And without years of experience to reassure them they’re qualified, newer writers often succumb to impostor syndrome to the tune of decreased performance, accepting low rates, or even giving up on their business before it gets started.

And that’s simply unacceptable.

Let’s look at four ways established freelance writers overcome impostor syndrome whenever it pops up — even long after their newbie days are over.

Redefine confidence

As a freelance writing mentor, I’ve noticed a major problem in how new writers develop confidence. When new writers experience fear, they often think it’s a sign you’re doing something wrong, when in fact it’s just a sign you’re doing something new.  

Far too often, we think of confidence as our permission to do what we’re doing, Gina Horkey, the entrepreneur behind the 30 Days Or Less to Freelance Writing Success course, says. But that’s the opposite of how real life works.

“Confidence is just the belief that I can do something,” says Horkey. “It’s not proof that I’ve already done something. It’s the possibility. And when it’s low, it means I’m letting fear win. When it’s high, then I’m letting my belief in myself win.”

The next time you feel fear and you wish you were feeling more confident, remember that confidence is a result of success, not a cause of it. It’s up to you to step forward and try new things, even when you’re feeling afraid.

Take action to scare away fear

When Andrea Emerson first started freelancing, she wasn’t worried about finding clients because she knew how to get into her prospect’s head. In her previous job, she’d been in charge of hiring freelance writers.

But she was worried about generating enough work to sustain her in the early days of her business, and keeping her workload consistent over time.

Her solution? Taking action.

“I’ve found that taking action is a great antidote to fear—even if you start with teeny tiny steps,” says Emerson. “In terms of keeping my workload consistent, I persuaded clients to move to a retainer arrangement as soon we’d completed a successful project or two and I sensed they had a recurring need for content.”

Horkey agrees that taking action is a huge part of not feeling fear. Her husband quit his job to be a stay-at-home dad the year before she made the leap from predictable income to variable income, so it was all riding on her.

“I try to always do something when I get scared, because I know that fear is paralyzing,” she says.

“Taking that next step forward is the only way to work through fear. I don’t think I’d have gotten to this point without constantly busting through fear, doubt and uncertainty,” Horkey admits. “Fear will always be there, it’s just stronger during some times more than others.”

Reframe your fears

“Mindset is huge when you’re your own boss, and often the defining factor between success and failure,” Emerson says. “Prospective clients can sense confidence or fear in their interactions with you. They’re incredibly drawn to the former, and repulsed by the latter.”

Emerson also emphasizes the extent to which confidence is rooted in knowledge and training.

“Confidence comes from recognizing your skills and the tangible value they can deliver to clients,” she says. “It’s also a byproduct of understanding your prospects — what they need and how to deliver it. It turns out, for instance, that content marketing generates 300 percent more sales leads than traditional marketing. Prospects with big marketing budgets know that, and also know they can’t get those kinds of results without writers. That bit of industry knowledge is a great confidence booster.”

While much of a newbie freelance writer’s opportunities and client interactions might change from day to day, Horkey credits staying positive as one of her top fear-busting habit recommendations.

“I used to focus on ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’” she says. “But now, I’ve flipped it on its head to ask, ‘What’s the best thing that can happen?’ Now I’m not expecting the worst; I’m wondering if the best thing that can happen makes it worth it to try!”

Combine fear with persistence

At the end of the day, that rad cat poster from the 1980s was right: You just need to “Hang in there!” But more than a passing motivational tip of the hat, you need to make a personal connection with persistence.

As a generic phrase, “Be persistent” is annoying and trite. But when you look at day-to-day struggles, it’s an effective in-the-moment practice to say to yourself, “This intimidating client phone call is a small blip in my journey. This situation will be over soon, and I’ll be glad I stuck it out.”

What’s at the heart of this fear is the drama of not knowing you’ll make it through, the “Will she or won’t she?” of every movie. What you can do today is decide you will, which eliminates the sense of conflict and allows you to focus on the long term.

“I’m not ‘fearless’ because I’m making money online,” says Horkey. “Often my fears are now bigger than ever. But I’m not about to let them stop me.”

The cure for impostor syndrome will be different for every writer. But it’s vital that we all understand that it’s normal to experience, and there are indeed cures out there for each of us to try.

Do you struggle with impostor syndrome? How do you boost your confidence?

But why is it so hard to get started? Why do you find yourself letting the client set the rate or giving into negotiations and settling for whatever they’ll pay?

There’s just something about setting your freelance rate and eventually raising your freelance rate that leaves you feeling like you’re in over your head. I know, I’ve been there. But the good news is that you don’t have to stay there for long.

Setting your freelance rate for the first time

Pricing is hard, whether you’re negotiating a salary or deciding what to charge new clients. But there are two numbers you need to know that will help you set your freelance rate for the first time. Brace yourself, there’s a little math involved:

Figure out your bottom line

While you never want to price yourself based on how low you can go, you do need to know your bottom line. What is truly the lowest you can go and stay in business? Start with two important numbers: the minimum you need to bring in to keep freelancing each month, and the billable hours you’ll work each day.

Let’s say you’re married, have the luxury of an employed spouse, and the minimum amount you can bring in each month while staying solvent is $2,300 (including taxes, expenses, healthcare, business apps, etc.). After hours invested in marketing, invoicing and other unpaid time investments, you expect to work five hours per day on billable projects, five days per week, giving you a total of 100 billable hours per month.

Divide the second number by the first number (the amount you need divided by the number of billable hours per month you would like to work). This is your ideal hourly rate, the minimum that you should propose as you share your rates with clients.

In this example, the writer would need to make $23 per hour to be able to work that schedule. If that’s not accurate or doable for your experience or your industry, you’ll need to adjust your numbers by planning to work more each day or more days per week.

Figure out what you’re worth

The second piece of this puzzle is the market you’re looking to break into. How much value do you bring to the table? What is the range your clients budget for the work? You might find that certain industries earmark a lot more of their budgets for writing than others, and those are the ones you want to zero in on.

Figure out how much your services are worth by researching your niche among writers who publish their rates. Do your research on popular blogs and freelance writer websites, and map out the territory with their hard-won information. Rate your experience and talents against theirs, compare with your bottom line, and price accordingly.

Other great resources include the Editorial Freelancers Association’s list of rates for various writing-related projects, the Professional Writers Association of Canada’s post What to Pay a Writer and the NJ Creatives Network’s post How Much Should I Charge?.

Increasing your freelance rate

One of the many reasons so many writers flock to freelancing is the idea of giving yourself a raise when you deserve one. But if you were careful as an employee, it’s time to be extra careful as a freelancer. Every move you make and every word you say reflects directly on your business and your brand — including the rate you can command. Choose to act genuinely, generously and professionally with the following two moves:

Give truthful, timely notice to avoid surprise rate hikes

When it’s time to increase your rates, price-gouging and ransom aren’t the way to do business. Whether you’re worth the cost or not, suddenly dropping a larger rate on your next project or (heaven forbid!) surprising a client in an invoice won’t work out for you in the long run.

Take your time and give notice — which not only saves your relationship with the client, but earns you respect. Announce price increases at least two months in advance to allow your clients to budget for them. If you’re in a particularly strict industry, you may even accommodate a longer wait (for clients that get budgets approved quarterly or yearly, for example).

And when you do it, don’t use weak language. Clients see right through whimsical statements like I’m sorry, but… and If it’s all right, I’ll… Simply state the facts: you’re more experienced, you’re working harder and faster, and you’re getting more attention from prospective clients. If none of these statements are true, you shouldn’t be raising your rates. (Click to tweet this idea.)

Be generous to clients you enjoy working with

Show your clients you enjoy working with them (because that’s why you’re still working with them, right?) by being generous when you raise your rates. No, that doesn’t mean you charge less. It means you give them a special coupon or a one-time deal to show them you appreciate their time (think Book before the end of the quarter and receive 20% off the entire project-type offers).

Because here’s the real secret to setting your rates and raising them as your business grows: when someone aims to hire a freelancer, they’ll know what they want when they see it — the right experience for the niche, the right working relationship for the company, and the attention to detail and deadlines that will keep them in business. If you mesh with a client over these three details, they’ll be more than willing to pay you.

If you raise your rate and they no longer want to work with you, you’re still in good shape; having a client drop you is not the worst thing the world.

The worst thing would be bending your needs (and rates) to the will of a client who doesn’t appreciate what you do or want to pay you for it. Avoid those kinds of clients by setting your freelance rate right the first time, and raising it confidently ever after.

How did you set your initial freelance rate? What strategies have you used to raise it?

And then I blanked.

Until now, every moment of my interviewing life had been as a subordinate. Please, dear HR director, see something special in me and offer me the position, or, Please, CEO, just take a look at these prospective deliverables and consider what a great asset I’d be to your company.

But now?

Now I wasn’t here to ask for a job. Now it was up to me to negotiate the terms of my business. And while I probably confused the kind woman who met with me for my first business meeting as CEO of Greesonbach Creative, I was taking notes in my head the entire time.

When you make the transition from employee to entrepreneur, you’re gearing up for a whole new conversation. And if you go into that conversation unprepared, it’s going to cost you. Here are three game-changing ideas that will help you make the transition more smoothly:

No more memorizing mission statements

This is not to say that you shouldn’t research your prospective client or business partner; you always want to know who you’re heading into business with, so do your due diligence (this may or may not involve LinkedIn stalking).

But whereas in a previous life you might have spent the morning memorizing some mysterious Board’s mission statement to show what a hireable go-getter you are, it’s more important to show up prepared with your own mission statement.

Who are you? What do you want? Why do you do what you do? These are the things that matter, and these are the things that will help you make real connections and get the business. Block out time to brainstorm your own mission statement so there’s never any doubt about what you want or where you’re headed.

Stop hiding

There are two secret shames of the side-hustler who wants to go full-time freelance. The first, and the first one that has to go, is the nagging sense that you’re not good enough to go full time. The second, more dangerous shame is the sense that you’re doing something wrong that’s going to get you in trouble.

When you work for someone else, you start to see your time as “purchased.” You start to feel owned, like your time is not yours to spend on what you like. If you’re developing your freelance services or starting a business on the side, it’s probably with a mixed feeling of guilt. In some cases, it can feel like you’re cheating on your employer or hiding something by being successful and hardworking in your off-time.

When you take your first leap into self-employment, it can be hard to escape the sense of guilt and shame that you shouldn’t be freelancing full time. Fight it! And most importantly, own it! You’re the breadwinner for the business of you. You’re putting time into a profitable and meaningful venture. And that’s nothing to hide from. (Click to tweet this idea.)

Your self-respect upgrade is imminent

When you meet with a business contact as a self-employed small business owner, the new conversation is no longer about what a hard worker you are, or how punctual you’ll be for all the 9-5 shifts you’ll be working. That stuff simply doesn’t matter anymore, because it’s a given when you run your own business.

Once you have let yourself come out of the self-employment closet, get ready for an onslaught of self-respect. The conversation now is What will I do with the talents I have and How will I make the most out of every day I have? What partnerships will benefit me, and Do I want to put my name on this work or product?

And do you know what that makes you? A badass.

Because showing up on time and meeting deadlines are the lowest minimums you know. As an entrepreneur, it’s over-deliver or die. It’s exceed expectations or sign up for unemployment. And while the stress might lead to a few sleepless nights, the real result of day-in and day-out awesomeness is a life of meaning and self-respect for all you’ve accomplished.

Have you made the leap from employee to self-employed? What was the most surprising thing you learned in the process?