What’s up writers! Today I’ve something really special for you that I think you’re really gonna dig because we’re gonna talk about how to become a B2B writer which is one of the most underutilized strategies for building a freelance business. It also happens to be one of the easiest to get into and it’s one of the most profitable. It has the most potential to absolutely blow up your freelance business and I mean that in the blow it up as it makes it bigger not make it disappear. But if you’ve seen the title, you could probably already guess what it is and that is B2B writing.
I’m gonna talk about what B2B means. What B2B writing is, how to get into it, and how to find clients. I’m gonna give you the full lowdown. I’m gonna give you a quick introduction on how to get started and essentially set the scene for everything that blog post is going to teach you. So let’s dive right in first thing.
Post Contents
What is B2B Writing?
What is B2B writing? B to B stands for business to business, whereas B2C stands for business to consumer. So those are two different types of freelance writing. As an example, let’s say that you wrote a blog post for me here at blogging regime. You would be going directly to my readers or directly to the consumers so it’s B2C right. So, here are a couple examples of B2B articles and B2B writing.
For instance, Forbes has a blog on their website they’re targeting other businesses, people that have businesses they’re not targeting the random guy looking to buy some gadgets. Another example is Zillow a lot of their social media content that they hire writers for is targeting other real estate agents or people that have businesses.
Why B2B Writing?
Business-to-business writing is essentially exactly what it sounds like. It’s writing that one Business is doing for another business. This could come in the form of blog posts, white papers, product descriptions, social media, onboarding documents, or anything like that. Anything, where one business is trying to generate content for another business, is considered B2B. And here’s why it’s such a good opportunity for freelance writers is because most people don’t consider it. Most freelance writers aren’t necessarily going to these big Businesses looking for opportunities.
So why is B2B writing such a good opportunity for freelancers right now? Well, frankly it all comes down to money because businesses and especially big businesses like that can pay a lot of it. So, whereas you might get $60, $70 maybe $100 for a B2C article, for an article that’s got the same word count as those you might make upwards of three or four hundred dollars.
So, you tend to work with companies and brands that have Big budgets. A lot of work to be done and they don’t want to nitpick over all the details and a few bucks here and there for a price. They’re willing to pay for quality. If you’re a good writer, it’s a great opportunity to get some long-term freelance work. But that’s not the only reason that going. B2B has so many potential upsides for freelance writers.
Other benefits include being able to leverage their bigger names on your portfolio. So, if you’ve written for Nike, Intel, and IBM that’s gonna look really good as opposed to just writing for the random little blog down the road. You’re also able to dig into a niche in the industry and develop your expertise around that which is not only going to make you continually more valuable to the company you’re working for, but over time you could potentially go to their competitors and start working with them as well in making more money.
So, as you’re able to dig in, hone your expertise really build those skills and understand an industry you’re just gonna be that much more valuable. Often b2b writing not only do people not really think about it but it gets overlooked because, to be honest, a lot of it is not catchy.
Writing for Health care companies and IT companies and clothing companies and finance companies it’s a kind of a boring topic and most people aren’t super passionate about those industries. But because of that, there is a huge opportunity because it’s harder to find people to work in that sole.
So, this is a great opportunity if you’re in a current job right now or you have in your past life maybe you left a job you didn’t like but you’ve got knowledge of a specific industry. There could be a great opportunity to get into B2B writing in that industry because you’ve got that background.
3 Things You’ll Need To Do
Okay so if I sold you on B2B writing that maybe it’s something worth pursuing. Well, there are 3 things that you need to do to start getting going with this, like in this week, you can start jumping into this really quickly which is one of the things that’s so appealing about it.
First Thing
The first thing you want to do is to sit back and take stock of your skills, your experience, and your expertise. Start writing down all of the different backgrounds you have all of the different niches and industries that you have some knowledge of and start thinking about some of those industries that might not be catchy, that often get overlooked. But that you might be able to provide some value.
Second Thing
The second thing is you have to take stock of that whole list and then choose a niche. Sure, you can be someone who writes for all sorts of different niches but when it comes to b2b stuff, the narrower you go, the easier it is to get work. Imagine someone at a healthcare company they’re looking to hire a freelance writer and they’ve got dozens of people to choose from.
Are they gonna go with the generalist that’s also writing about sports and finance and does interviews for a newspaper on the side? Or are they gonna choose someone who focuses explicitly on healthcare-related articles and healthcare-related writing. They’re gonna go with the specialist for sure.
So even more than other forms of freelance writing like Copywriting or SEO writing or general content writing. The more you can niche down with b2b, the better the likelihood that you’re not only gonna get big clients but retain them and continue to find new ones.
Third Thing
And finally, the last thing you need to do is to build a portfolio website. This is a way when you meet someone at an event or someone you know looking at your LinkedIn page or something you have a website. You can send it to them where they can get an idea of who you are and what you’re all about and make sure that you’re the real deal.
The cool thing about these websites is they’re really easy to create. You need a home page, an about page, and services page where you tell people specifically about what you do, a rates page so people know how much you cost, and a contact page. You can add other things along to it but if you’ve got those then you’ve got the basics and you can get going and obviously, there’s a lot that goes into finding the clients, proving to them that you’re worthy.
But really the cool thing about this is all it takes to get going is you to take stock of your expertise. You have to choose a niche and then you have to set up a website to promote your services and from there it’s off to the races and you can do the fun part of actually starting to look for work.
So how do you actually set up this website luckily, I’ve put together a super easy in-depth post all about how to set up your first website with a blog and make it look good in as little time as possible.
Finding Clients
Now you know what b2b writing is, and you know why it’s worth getting into. You’ve got an idea of how to set up your site and choose your niche. It’s time to start finding clients. So how do you do that; well first off, you’ve got to remember that because we’re going b2b we got to go to places that businesses are looking at as opposed to people that are strictly consumer-focused.
LinkedIn is going to be one of your best friends so there are a ton of opportunities to find potential work and connect with People at Businesses that are hiring via LinkedIn. This is also one of the first places most businesses will go to check you out and make sure that who you say you are.
So, you’re gonna want to make sure that you’ve updated your LinkedIn profile that you’re active on it and everything looks good. I also recommend you sign up for LinkedIn pro finder which is going to totally amplify your ability to find work on the site.
Other sites that businesses often use and you should set up profiles on are skyward and contently. These are the places where you can go and set up a profile and have people find your work and both of these companies work with bigger brands. So often they’ll come through different writers’ profiles to try and find a perfect match for those brands.
So, you have someone kind of looking out for you and potentially giving you some of this b2b work. I’ll definitely recommend checking out those sites and we talk more about exactly what they do and how to get into the blog post.
So finally, the last thing I want to talk about finding clients, is that agencies can be a goldmine often some of these midsize businesses don’t want to hire a full marketing team or a full content team. So, it’ll hire an agency that handles all of that for them.
If you get in with one agency often, they might have a dozen or more clients in your industry that you can potentially do work for. So often it just takes one or two good agency relationships to give you more work than what to do with. So, it’s important to start finding those.
Okay so right now I don’t want to overwhelm you because right now your eyes are probably already glossing over, you’re like this whole b2b stuff like I’ve never even thought about this but you must do.
If you’re someone who’s looking to build a lifestyle business if you’re looking to build a freelance business if you’re trying to make money on the side. If you’re trying to build a bridge business you can get out of your job, then b2b writing is one of the best ways to go about it. So hopefully you now understand what b2b writing is you understand why it’s an opportunity, and you generally understand how to get involved and how you can start honing in your niche. You also understand how to start going out and finding clients.
You understand the essentials of that but in this post, I did just kind of a cursory overview. I don’t want to overwhelm you I just want to introduce the idea of it so that you start thinking about it. If you spend some time investing in b2b writing It’s definitely going to pay off and it’s gonna open up tons of doors in the future because you’re gonna have confidence. You’re having the income you’re going to start developing an expertise in this niche and it’s gonna do a lot of good things for your business.
Hope you grabbed the basic idea and know-how of B2B writing and it will make your way easier than before. If you got some knowledge and liked the post, just leave some comments and your thoughts.
Cheers!