The Difference Between LOIs (Letters of Introduction) and Magazine Pitches
There are some key strategic differences between LOIs (Letters of Introduction) and pitches for both newsstand and trade magazines. I'm spilling all the step-by-step secrets on this week's livestream so you can move on with your marketing mojo with confidence.
________
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. Hi, Vicky. Welcome in. Yeah, we're starting out right now. Sometimes, you know, we have to get all the sausages in place. These sausages over here. Here they are. Oh my gosh. You guys look super cute today. Charlotte, you look like sad donkey as always, but
Still cute.
Sometimes, you know, my time management, I mess things up. So sometimes we start exactly at 12. Sometimes we don't. We try our best. All right. You guys ready? You guys look cute today. Ready buddy.
1, 2, 3 dog.
Good job. All right, Charlie, you gonna show 'em your high five scales, right? Highfive. Good
Girl. Other one. Good job.
All right, so we're gonna talk about the difference between Lois and pitches today. So this is a question. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, sorry, buddy. That was a bad throw. That was my fault.
All right. Ready? Yep. You gotta do both. Ready? Hi five. Good girl. Other one. Good girl. Good job.
All right. So is a question that I get in my inbox all the time, and this is something that I feel like we need to go over as a unit, like as a unit of freelance writers. So the deal is that when we're doing our Lois and when we're doing our pitches, they have different audiences and they go different places. So we're gonna go over this and I'm have my list of things. All right. And we have questions today. I forgot. So we have questions that we're gonna go over at the very end. So, number one, we're gonna talk about the difference between the two, right? So I'm gonna give you guys some step by step secrets, but I'm also going to explain the difference. So pitches straight pitches. You're pitching an idea that you have, you have of a section in the magazine that it goes for pitches, go to magazines.
Um, we are also gonna talk about pitch LOI hybrids. Welcome. Good morning kids. Welcome. So our pitches go to magazines. This is where you have an idea. You put a headline in there. You say like, this is where it goes in the magazine. This is my idea. Um, these are the experts or the study that I'm gonna reference. This is why I think it's useful or what questions I'm gonna answer in my pitch, or, I mean, in my story, um, then you give 'em a little credibility, right? So you say, Hey, I've written for these other magazines or written for these other clients and move on with your life, your Lois, your letters of introduction, go to companies. They go to businesses. These are way different. And these can be templatized. You can kind of templatize your pitches and by templatize, I mean, your pitch can have a certain format like, hi, welcome.
You know, I have a pitch. The next part is your headline. The next part is like your data, like your study or your reference material, your intro sentence, your intro paragraph. Then you go into like the meat of like the pitch. Then you go into the questions. You're gonna answer the experts. You're gonna talk to, then you have a paragraph about your credibility, then you sign off. So that's the templetized version of a pitch. Your LOI can basically be sent to tons of places as long as you have that pitch, or, I mean, that pitch that LOI, uh, already set up for that niche. So your LOI is like, hi, and then compliment them on something, you know, congrats on your funding or compliment them on a recent article. Like maybe they were featured on the ink 5,000 or they were featured in Forbes. Then you go into like, can you use help with your content?
Um, I, I have some ideas I'd love to share with you. Then you roll into your credibility part where you say like, hi, I'm a B2B SAS writer. Here's my past clients. Um, if you wanna know what it's like to work with me, so next paragraph as if you wanna know what it's like to with me, here's my portfolio. And here's some testimonials I'd love to talk to. You love to set up a call. Your LOI format can be duplicated for all your different niches. As long as you change out the clients, change out what you're saying, right? Like I'm a freelance, um, B to C travel writer rather than B2B, um, sass or whatever, change out your clients. And then sometimes you have to change out certain things for different niches. Like, um, maybe you need to add an extra credibility paragraph in there, or there's a really big top client that you wanna elaborate on a little bit that you've worked for, um, in that niche that you think will help attract, um, other clients in your niche.
But your LOI is something that as long as you get a good template for that niche, as long as you can change out, um, a couple different elements to personalize it, right? You personalize the compliment at the beginning or new thing that's happened and congratulate them on that. Um, or you end up changing out the company name, obviously, and maybe some little story that you have in there, a big company and that niche that you've worked for. So as long as you can personalize that LOI a little bit, every single time you send it, it can stay as a template. Your pitch, basically, every time you send a pitch, you're following a format, but it's not a template. It's not something where you can basically copy paste, change a handful of things and send it. Your pitch has that format. Like every single time you send a new idea out, it needs to follow a format, but the pitch is different every single time.
Hey, Annie, welcome in. So glad you guys are able to hang out with us today. That's what I'm gonna start saying that we're hanging out because it's nice to join, but I feel like we're all kind of hanging out and you know, chilling anyways. And if you have questions, you can pop 'em in the chat. I will answer those at the end. We already have two questions in the hopper, from someone who submitted them. If you have a question you can always, um, or a topic that you want me to cover on the livestream, you can always put it in mans.com/question, and I will get to it. So here's the zeal. When you're sending an LOI, it should be something that you can temporize that you can send to a bunch of different business in your niches. You temporize each one for each niche. So for me, I have like, I forget where it is right now, but I have like 10 or 15 different ones because I customize them.
Some of them are just straight, like straight real estate and PropTech. Some of them are PropTech and travel. Some of them are, um, hospitality, tech and travel. Sometimes they're just hospitality tech. So I make different ones for different companies. I'm reaching out to, Hey, Sherra. Welcome in. I like the howdy. Um, yeah, thanks for hanging out. So we have different ones for different niches. I have a bunch of them, but when I'm writing pitches for magazines, it's always starting raw. Like I know the format is like, hi, editor name. I have an idea for this magazine. I think it fits in this section. Um, here's the headline, you know, like then I put the headline, then I just roll into my data or my stats or my interesting stuff. My, my hook sentence, my first paragraph to kind of start percolating, basically like saying like, huh, this is interesting. The next paragraph supports, it gives more data or information. The next paragraph is experts or, um, people like questions. I'm gonna answer within that article. Then I give my qualification high, you know, I've written for these magazines and then I just close out. So I follow that format every time at the pitch, but you're starting over cuz you have to flesh out this idea.
The ized version of the Lois is like, we need to get as many of those out as possible and you need to get as many pitches out as possible if you're doing magazine stuff. But for me, I found that it's a lot easier to get those Lois out, right? Because those templates are pretty easy to writing. A bunch of pitches takes a while. You have to find all the data to back it up. You have to find the right experts. Um, you have to find enough information. You know, you have to read through the magazine and know the magazine well enough to know if that pitch is a fit for them or at least that it's in the ballpark. Um, pitches also, you know, are much more writing audition than Lois are. Lois are kind of starting the conversation. Lois. I always call them drive through Lois because you're basically like, hi, do you need help?
I can help you. I'm qualified. Here's my portfolio. If you wanna check it out, would love to hop on a call, go back. The difference between that and a pitch is like your pitch. You're laying it out on the table. You're like, here's the idea. Here's where it goes in the magazine. Here's what I'm thinking about. Do you think that's a fit for you? That's way different than, um, than what you're doing with an LOI where you're just kind of like introducing yourself, right? Letters of introduction. You're introducing yourself for the first time with magazines. Your ideas are like the gold nugget. That's like the, to get you in the door, you have to have an idea. You have to have something where, um, you're bringing something to the table for them and showing them the value businesses operate differently. They, you know, you wanna have a conversation with them, find out what their content goals are. I always like mess this up. I always like feel backwards on here. Cause I always do it backwards. Oh gosh. Are you gonna break her blanket? She's gonna be really upset if you rake her blanket. Hi.
Why don't you come back up here. There you go, buddy.
You can rake all you want. Cause now you're not raking her blanket. Go for it. Charlotte, you look like you've been, you've been Harris. You've been Harris. Charlotte. It's okay. Bear. You're doing fine buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job. All right. So here's the deal when you're writing these two different things, the deal is that your otherwise should just, they're a lot less pressure for submitting things to a business. The idea is that you have to have this much longer conversation with a business to find out what's going on with them, right? You don't know what's going on in a business until you actually have a conversation with them with a magazine. You know that they publish every April, it publish the summer travel series or whatever magazines have editorial calendars. They have specific things that they publish. It's a lot easier to find out what they're looking for.
If you keep pitching a magazine, like let's say you send them 10 or 20 pitches and the editor keeps getting back to you and they're like, no, try again. No, try again. You can ask them questions about like, okay, I keep trying. But like what's, you know, what are you looking for? That's a whole different story. That's more of like the puzzle. You have to figure out to pitch them the right idea. And you have to know the magazine and know what's going on there rather than the business where everything's kind of like you have to have a conversation cause everything's kind of behind closed doors. You just don't know. You don't know. Um, they're not publishing things typically as much as a magazine and the magazine, you know, is looking for you to get the right ideas. They're looking for you to go in there and figure out what the right things are to pitch businesses is like different ballgame.
So our Lois are pretty much you're driving through. Hey, congrats on this thing. Um, can you use, I have some ideas I'd love to share with you. I'm qualified. Here's some stuff I'm in your niche. I've worked for these clients. Here's my portfolio. Here's some testimonials that you, you know, link to the testimonials. Um, I'd love to hop on a call and your pitch is, I know I have this idea. It fits in this section because I've read your magazine a ton of times. This is the idea I think is a fit. Here's some stuff on that idea. Hope it works out. Let me know. So what we're doing here is we are writing things for two very different audiences. I think this is why people or freelance writers end up writing me so many emails about like, I don't get it. Like what is an LOI?
And what's a pitch because there's this confusion that when you send an LOI or when you reach out to a business that you have to continually pitch your services, oh my gosh, I have to convince them to hire me. I have to convince them. They need this content. Like, no, I just, for me, that's the big difference. And this is something I talk about with my coaching students and with my freelance writer, wealth lab course, students is like, this is the difference between writers not feeling salesy and doing something that feels true to you. The salesy part is when you roll into an LOI, thinking that you have to convince this business, they need content and convince them they should hire you and convince them through stats. You have to do all this stuff and like try to sell them on the idea of content.
Like, no, no, that's not how it works. What you're doing is saying, do you need help? That's it? Do you need help? And they can say, no, I don't need help or yes, I do need help. And I wanna talk to you, that's it. That's removing all the salesy gross stuff because a lot of writers don't wanna go into this weird salesy, sell myself, convince them of all these things. And that's fine. You don't have to, if you wanna do that, if that's more of your thing, like let's say you are really good at copywriting. And you're really good at writing high pressure sales material where like you want people to buy now, buy now and you like wanna share your stats or you feel like there is something in your material that you wanna sell your services. That's fine. Do that. If that feels true to you do it.
But I know from talking to like all of my students and other writers, a lot of people just don't wanna do that. Plus the other thing that I found is like, you don't know those that company's needs. You're trying to guess at whether or not they either think they need content or don't right. Like you're like you need content. And they're like, yeah, we know, but you don't know that you're making a lot of assumptions about what they do. And don't know you're making a lot of assumptions about what they do and don't need without ever speaking to them. And I think that that's kind of the wrong way to go about it. You kind of wanna start a relationship with a company by saying like, Hey, do you need help? I think I can help you. Let's talk about the things you need help with the things that you who knows your business better than I do.
You know, let's talk about those things. Not rolling up in there being like I saw that your competitors have 75 case studies and you should have 75 case studies. And then they're like, actually case studies don't work for us. We found that white papers are better. And then you're like, oh, let me backtrack. Let's do white papers. Like what? No, I find that it's just better just to go in kind of with that like humble ish attitude of like, do you need help? I'm happy to help you that I think serves better than like rolling up in there and trying to sell them. And over sales a I everything. And like this is coming from experience. Like when I first started writing Lois, they used to be so freaking long and I would do this. I would like try to convince them with stats and I would send them a ton of ideas and I would try to sell them on all this stuff.
And I thought that that was the best way to do it. I thought that if you had these long basically sales letters that you sent to people that that would like magically convince them to hire you. And it was so bad, like nobody, I, the response rate was so low when I switched to a templatized LOI. Um, and I said like, do you need help? Unqualified? Let me know if you need help, I'm happy to help. That got a way higher response rate. Not only was it quicker and easier to get done, not only did I get like a lot more out the door and figure out, um, I had more time to spend on figuring out which clients were actually a fit for me. Um, like it just got a better response rate nowadays. Especially in the pandemic times, people don't want to read long emails from people.
They don't know. They wanna read short, punchy, like to the point emails to say like, oh, okay, cool. Yes or no. Do I wanna get on a call with you? Okay, cool. Let's get on a call. They just want you to get to the point. They don't want you to like go into this long diet tribe about stats and this stuff. You can go through that on a call. The deal is when you get to a call, right? And they're like, uh, we don't know if case studies are for us. Does it actually work? Does it give you marketing ROI? And you're like, yes, here's a stat from HubSpot or here's a stat from my last project that proves that that actually works. That's when you can slide in with some extra data and info. I think if you try to overwhelm them from the beginning, with all the stuff, if you try to overwhelm them from the beginning, with all these different things and try to like shove it down their throat with your LOI, I think that's just like too salesy.
It's too. Like, you don't actually know them. You don't know their needs. You don't know what's going on. You're making a ton of assumptions. And then you're starting this relationship off with this like, idea that you're like shoving a ton of stuff at them. And I feel like that's just way too much. So the deal is make your Lois super punchy, you know, make them personalized to you, but also personalize to the client. Um, make them more about helping people rather than being too salesy. Don't make assumptions, ask them like, do they need help with their content? And every business, like I used to do this a lot where I was like, huh, they're not publishing on their blog. Maybe they need more blog, post ideas. I should pitch those. And I would get on these calls and they're like, no, no, no, we don't wanna do the blog.
We abandon it because of X, Y, Z. Now we're moving onto eBooks and downloads like, and I was like, oh, okay. So I wasted all this time, figuring out all these ideas for all of these Lois when they were like, no, we don't need this. We need this. Cuz I made a bunch of assumptions. So don't do that. Um, with magazines and setting pitches is a lot easier to just kind of like assume or read the material, right? You're not even really assuming cuz you're reading the magazine. You're reading tons of different, um, additions of the magazine, tons of different issues, tons of different online articles. So you have a lot of research to look at. Cause that magazine is continually published in content. Always read the magazine before you pitch. This is really important. Um, they're giving you data, right? They're giving you data that you can reference moving forward into your pitches. So take band of that. Also. I wanted to say that um, all of this stuff. Yes. Hello. I'm getting, I don't know if you guys can hear her, but she's making all of these little pork noises and she's looking very judgey. Charlotte. Why do you look so judgey? All right. I'll give you a treat on. Ready?
Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job buddy. All right, Charlotte. You ready?
Yeah. High five. Nope. We gotta get it on the hand. Good girl. Other one other one. Nope. Other one. Good job.
Good job. All right. So also I wanted to say that all of these things, all of the marketing templates that I use are here. So I made this thing cuz I kept getting asked about it. So if you go to Mandy ellis.com/bundle, that's where all of my LOI templates are. My LOI hybrid templates are my pitch. Examples, my contracts, all of the, those things. You can find them there. Let's see if I can get it on camera. This is how like off I am on this thing. Ready? Let's see if I can get it. Oh, I almost did. That's close enough. So if you go to mans.com/bundle, that's where all of this stuff I use for marketing is available. You can get it. Um, so if you find that helpful, use it. Last thing we're gonna talk about on point number one is the LOI pitch hybrid.
These go to trade magazines. Why is it an LOI pitch hybrid? You are combining the first part of your LOI. Hi, do you need help from a freelance writer? I'm qualified. But the pitch part is that you include headlines in there. So with the trade magazine, they do have an editorial calendar, but you can't always find it. And sometimes with trade magazines, it's just easier to pitch some headlines. And if they like one of those headlines, then you can send them a full pitch with a magazine pitch, like a consumer magazine or a bigger magazine than a trade magazine. Uh, you gotta send a full idea like headlines. Aren't gonna cut it. Yeah. GE definit is Vicky. She's like, who are you talking to? She's so sassy. I know you guys. I know some of you have been on here for a while, but she's just like a full sass factory most of the time.
So when you're sending your LOI pitch hybrid, the first part is your, and this is in the bundle. If you go to Mandy ellis.com/bundle, I have this in there. The first part is your LOI high Cong rats on this thing. Or talk about an article that was in that trade publication and say, I loved how you, I loved this article and explain why you loved it and make it an actual article. You like don't make up. I think that's just a poor choice. Cuz if someone, if the editor comes back and asks you more questions about it and you didn't actually like the article or you didn't read it, you're in trouble. So pick something you actually like that they published and tell them why go into your like, hi, I'm do you need help? Like, do you need help from freelance writer? Um, and then go into your qualifications then at the bottom of your Y pitch hybrid include three to four headlines that match the style and tone of that trade magazines, headlines and things that you think would be helpful will like which section it would go in.
So you have a headline telling the section and then you say like, Hey, if you're interested in any of these headlines, I'm happy to write out a full pitch and then you can kind of move forward because sometimes you can't find all the info for trade magazines. Definitely always read the trade magazine. But I have found that it's sometimes it's easier just to send the headline and then they're like, yes, we like these two, please write out full pitches. Um, and then you can send more out to trade magazines to get work, um, without having to send tons and tons of pitches. Plus sometimes like I said, it's hard to find info info like on the editorial calendar of the trade magazine. So, um, sometimes they have upcoming sections that are new or sometimes they, they stick to a very specific schedule, but it's harder to tell that in a trade magazine because they're niche down so far, SOI pitch hybrid works really well for trade magazines.
And of course you can always offer to send a pitch, right? We can include our headlines at the bottom and then always offer to send a pitch. Cuz if they like one of those headlines, you can send something there. Um, the other thing is that if they like your headlines, sometimes they're like, oh great. I've been looking for a writer to assign this piece to I'm so glad you showed up in my inbox. Here's this piece go off and write it. I based on your headlines, it looks like you understand material. Feel free to go write this and then you have a paid assignment. So that's always good. Cool. If you have any questions, pop 'em in the chat, uh, we're gonna go over a couple more things, then we're gonna do questions. So we're gonna go over number two now. So here's the deal. Let's do a quick puff date before we go to two, cuz we've got a grumble muffin over there.
Hey buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job.
All right, Charlotte, are you ready?
Yep. Seems like you're ready. High five other one. Ow. Other one. Good job.
All right, Charlotte, can you catch,
Can you show everybody your catching skills? I like your funny ear.
1, 2, 3, back up, back up. You gotta back up. There you go. Ready?
Good job. Super bean. Super bean. All right. Let's talk about number two. So let's talk about moving our marketing mojo forward and let's talk about, um, sending specific things. Let's talk about sending our stuff. I have notes. I always have notes now. So when we are sending these out, you're gonna send a lot of Lois. We're gonna send like 50 to 75. Some people can send a hundred Lois a month. That was never me. I could, I couldn't do it. I could 50 to 75 was like my butter zone. I don't send 50 to 75 now. Um, because of how my work has shifted, but that's the cool thing. The more Lois you send, right? Then you get more work. And this is part of filling the marketing pipeline. So as you send these Lois, you send 50 to 75 and then as you get more work and you're kind of getting busier and busier with paid assignments, you don't have to send as many Lois out.
You still have to send some regular. So let's say you start getting work. And you're like, okay, cool. Instead of sending 75, otherwise I'll just send 50. And then you're really busy and you're like, okay, I'll only send five a month. And then your calendar is booking months ahead. You're booking like 1, 2, 3 months ahead. And you're like, okay, I'm just gonna send, you know, 20 to 50 Lois per quarter. You know, I'll send them in January. Uh, hold on. This always messes me up January, April, July, and October. So I send them in January, April, July, and October. And I send 20 to 50 to fill the pipeline. But the deal is with Lois. You have to be sending them. I still send them. I still send them. Even though I've hit six figures, even though I'm booking months ahead in my work, um, it's still about sending them to keep the pipeline.
This is the mistake. This is the feast in famine. Mistake. Lois are the easiest way for you to keep that marketing going. It's a template. It's easy to customize. It doesn't take much time and you can get a bunch out pitches, take a lot more time. Even if you have 10 ideas and you pitch them out to 50 magazines, like let's say that you have these 10 ideas and like you can pitch, um, multiple different ideas out to multiple different magazines. It still takes a lot more effort to make a pitch lo wise, these are a lot easier. Plus a lot of times with businesses, you have more long term content with magazines. You could write one or two pieces for them a year, or you could end up writing one piece per per month or sometimes with online magazines, you write two to four pieces per month.
Um, but it's really like a lot more work than what you get through a business. So we have to keep filling the pipeline. Lois are a great way to do that. Pitches take a lot more effort. Good quality pitches. You gotta do a lot of digging. You gotta have a bunch of research. You gotta have stuff in heck pocket, right? Experts, people to talk to. Um, and for me it has to continue. So if that means that you send 50 Lois and four magazine pitches, that's the way it goes. The deal is that when you're kind of going through these things, you have to keep the pipeline filled. So that means we have to make our list. So that's why when we go over this, like when I talk about this in my course, like in my freelance writer, wealth lab course with my students is a process.
So with magazines, there are so many magazines where they all have different rules with Lois. You can make a list of clients in your niche, cut that down by revenue, right? So our revenue is at least five to 50 million. If they're over 50 million, that's totally fine. I just found that five to 50 is a good benchmark depending on the industry. Um, sometimes companies need more in the 50 million to have like a robust marketing department. And sometimes they only need five because they put a ton of money into marketing. Just depends or at least 3 million for startups or like they're series B. So like sometimes for me I find that the best content strategy clients are series B kind of funding area. So the deal is that we can now refine our list. We made a big list. Let's say of hospitality, tech clients. We've refined them down by having that five to 50 million in revenue.
Or if it's a startup at least 3 million, now we can send Lois. We go on LinkedIn. We find the person that we need to talk to. The content marketing manager, the marketing director, the marketing manager. Sometimes if there's no content or marketing person, it's the CEO. And then we can send them all out. Boo. They're done way different with the magazine. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out their email, to figure out which editor is the right one. Cuz there's so many of them. Um, sometimes you have to find, you know, different things for your pitches. Sometimes you have to do a pre-interview, it's a way different story, but you still have to keep moving the marketing forward. And I think a good story about this is that um, yes. Hello. We have, would you like to submit a complaint? You just keep moving around. I always have to move the camera cuz you guys like love to just be wiggle bugs and move around Charlotte. You can't submit a complaint. You need thumbs to do that. Anybody when two, three dogs.
That was a bad throw. That was my fault. Sorry buddy.
Charlotte, are you just trying to claw me?
Just trying to good girl, high five other one other one other one. Good job.
All right buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job. All right. So we have to keep the pipeline going with all of our stuff, right? So that means we need to keep marketing and sending our Lois and pitches. Oh, story. That's where I was. So a good story about this. Um, I hope everybody likes stories. So good story about this is that I've sent Lois that have gotten a response immediately. Like I send it through an InMail on, on LinkedIn and it gets a response immediately or I've had it be three years. So when you send an LOI, it can be immediately or three years. The other one is that I have had friends pitch magazines, like big ones, like New York times, Washington. Um, where are you going? Um, Washington post, um, the globe like all the big, you know, traveling, leisure, KA NAS travel. I've had people pitch them for like two years and then finally get a story.
Like I have a friend who got in the New York times and she pitched them for 18 months before she got in. That's the big difference. So with Lois, yes, it can be a bigger span, like five seconds to three years. But most of the time with your Lois, it's a lot quicker. Like you're, let's say you send a hundred Lois. Your typical response rate would probably be like 10%, 20% is on the high rate. So one outta every five gets an answer that's really high. Um, so 10%, like one outta every 10 Lois you send gets an answer that's about right. Um, but your pitches man, they can vary. Um, you have to pitch a lot of times to magazines to get something in or to get the editor's attention. There's also rules like rules you don't know about. So there have been editors where I read an interview.
Oh my gosh, you guys go back to your HAA holes. I read interviews with big time magazine editors. And someone said, I forget which magazine they worked for, but it was a big magazine. And he said, yeah, they have to pitch me 10 times before I even look at their work, like before I even consider them. So there's all these weird little quirks with magazines where sometimes they're like, yeah, you need to pitch me like a thousand times before I even consider your ideas. Like, I don't even open your emails until I've seen your name 10 times. Right? So they know that you're trying and they know that you're, you know, reading the, the magazine, reading the newspaper, whatever, and coming up with ideas. So that's way different than a business where they're like, do I have a or not? Do I wanna talk to this person?
Or not way different ballgame, but the deal is you have to figure out which ballgame you wanna play. So for me, all of the writers that I know who make six figures straight from magazines, aren't in freelance writing anymore. All the writers I know who make good money split between working for businesses, right? They're setting those Lois. They work for companies, they work for corporations or they work for startups and they work for magazines on a smaller scale. Like they work for a select few magazines. Um, and plus with all this stuff, you know, that's happened through the pandemic mag magazine, staffs have gotten smaller, they release fewer issues. Um, they've also done more digital stuff. Like I know there's been publications where they've kind of combined digital a lot more than print. So magazines are kind of, you know, in flux a little bit sometimes.
So the deal is we're mixing both, but we have to keep doing our marketing. We have to keep sending things out. Um, it can be frustrating, but like I said, like if you're getting like a 10% response rate or even like a 20% response rate on your Lois and pitches, you're doing really well, remember it's kind of a numbers game. You have to send more out and not, everyone's gonna get back to you in five seconds. Some of them will get back to you in three years. Some of them, you have to send a pitch 10 times or it's 10 different pitches to get an an answer. It just depends. But the deal is the, we remove feast and famine, remove the difficult parts of making money as a freelance writer by keeping our marketing pipeline going by continuing to send those Lois in pitches. Okay. We need to set everybody back up. All right, everybody go back to your little ha
Holes. Go back to your ha hole. Go back to your ha hole. No you have. Okay. Bear. Ready? Bear. Go get that. It's way over there.
Okay. You're gonna have to figure it out,
Buddy. I can see it on camera. Well, go over there. It's over there buddy.
Hold on. He needs some assistance.
All right buddy. It's over here, buddy. Right there. Right there.
You stepped on it. There it is. Good job. You did it ready? I five
Good girl. Other one other one other one. Woo. Oh, gross. You just ruled all
Over my hand.
Uh,
Vicky says they're losing a local magazine store here. Yeah. There's a lot of things where we end up, you know, losing the good stuff or a lot of magazines end up giving rid of their print version. Like, I don't know. Um, I don't know if you share kind of the same sentiment as me, but one of the reasons I fell in love with magazines was like just holding them, like seeing them in person and being able to go to Barnes and noble or go to the grocery store and pick up a physical copy of the magazine and see my name in it or see my story or, um, just read through it. That for me was like a big thing. Like I just fell in love with magazines, just like books, like you, physical thing, you get to pick up and look at the gorgeous pictures and like leaf through things.
And of course having your name in there is awesome. Um, or having a cover story is really awesome, but it's like, I don't know for me, like that was one of the things that drew me to magazines. Like I think magazines will always be my first writer love, even though I don't write for that many magazine right now. Um, I just, I fell in love with that. Like the, the images and the feel of the pages and like being able to go pick it up and be like, I did this, like this thing that you can pick up at any store, you know, I did this. Um, yeah. So I'm sad to hear that the magazine store is closing, but also a lot of things are going digital pandemic has been tough. You know, it's kind of how things are rolling. All right. Sherra says, we're gonna get to Sherra's question.
Then we're gonna get to the other questions that people submitted before. So you have other questions on this topic or other freelance writing things hop 'em in the chat share says, is it better to send Lois via LinkedIn message email or both? Thanks. Great question. Sherra. I get this question all the time. I send them through InMails, but you only have so many InMails. So some people have five InMails. Some people have 15, I have 15, some people have like 20, um, but LinkedIn premium is expensive. Like mine is $65 a month and I get 15 InMails a month. So I save those InMails for the companies that I think are the best fit for me. Like they're my high profile ones where I'm like, yes, we're a perfect fit. I would love to work with them. I love their vibe. I love what they're doing.
I like their mission, all that stuff. So I save 'em for that. Or if it turns out I can't find someone email for some reason, I can't find it on hunter dot. I owe I can't figure it out from the website. I can't figure it out from a press release. I can't figure it out from any of my resources. Then I will send that through InMail because I can't find their email, but LinkedIn emails, I have gotten a better response rate than email. I think it's just because like when I sent it's something both as an InMail and an email, people always answered the InMail. I don't know why cuz the InMail was or the email.
That was directly to their inbox, the InMail, they have to go to LinkedIn. So they always answer the InMail. But the deal is you don't get very many, but they do roll over. So if you end up, let's say you get really busy. And you're like, oh man, I didn't use my 15 InMails. Doesn't matter. They roll over. So now you have 30, the next month you can send in emails. Um, I think the cap is 45. The cap used to be 60. At one point I didn't send mine for like four months and then I had 60. Um, but I think the cap now is 45. So if three months go by and you have 45, boom, do all your marketing, send all your InMails. Now you're done. But if you can't afford premium LinkedIn premium or yeah, yeah. Premium. Um, if you can't afford that, I couldn't afford it for a really long time.
Like I, it was just like out of my budget. Um, and I think that's kind of how it is when you're a shoestring, when you're starting out as a freelance writer, if you can't afford it, just send them through email. The deal is it's always more important to send marketing out, then worry about the channel at which it goes through. And there isn't like a perfect way to do it. I switched from email to emails because I then had the budget to pay for premium and also my rolling status. Right? Like I was not marketing as much so I could send more emails in a clump. Um, like I could send 45 in a month because I had them rolling over. Um, but the deal is you gotta send them. So if you've send 15 emails or five emails and you're outta emails, you go to email and you start doing that.
So yes, I have gotten a better response rate with InMails, with LinkedIn messages. Then I have with email, but also like you have to send them marketing. Um, email is the priority. If you don't have emails, it's always like, you just have to send it out. You have to hit at least 50 to 75, otherwise a month. Um, and 15, you know, save those 15 or five or 20, however many emails you get for your like priority people who you're really good fit for who you like, what they're doing. You like mission, like how their content's getting created, all that good stuff. All right. So I hope that was helpful. Vicky says niche magazines are much more beautifully designed products than big glossies. And most people don't see them to find out. Yeah. Like I wrote for pizza today and I, I always feel like it looks so good.
Oh my gosh, SAS factory, um, pizza today is like, not on all the news stands. Right. It goes out to subscribers, but it always looked so good. Like, um, like of course it's pizza, but like they, the images and the way they designed the magazine, just, it always looked really good. So we're gonna get to questions. So we had anonymous questions come through the hopper. So we're gonna talk about those now. All right. So from anonymous and I just like, I know, um, a lot of people have this question, so don't be worried anonymous about being anonymous. Like this is a question that a lot of people have. Is there any way to prevent plagiarism? I've had numerous blog posts and content copied most without changing a single word except for the byline. And of course, no compensation. My content buyers don't seem to care.
Should I? So, I mean, the short answer is no. Like you can't control other people. People are gonna do what they're doing. It is weird that your clients or your content buyers, whatever that is, um, your clients don't care, cuz that's a big deal with SEO. And it's a big deal with like your work getting copied. So there, from my perspective, there isn't really that many ways to prevent it, except for working for better clients who are gonna protect your work or working for places where you isn't getting stolen. Like I wonder if, um, sometimes I see this question when people are publishing on medium and then people rip their content from medium and publish it on their own blog or whatever. So there's that and medium is not a place I recommend for writers or fiber or Upwork or all of the platforms. Like if you're on a platform and people are taking your stuff, that's a problem.
So there really isn't a way to prevent it other than working for better quality clients who are gonna pay attention to that and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, no, you can't copy our stuff. And you know, file claims and prob you know, like, um, whatever that is, the seasoned assist situation. Um, but your clients Def should care. So that's a problem. The problem is more that your clients don't care. Your content buyers don't care. They definitely should. Duplicate content is not good for SEO, especially if it's like multiple different things that are getting published everywhere. Um, this is one of the reasons why reselling magazine articles is like not as big of a thing as it used to be. Right. Be because the internet is like, so populated that. Yes.
Hello? Yes. I hear you quiet.
You're a little loud ears. So, um,
Hi.
Um, I'm gonna pick you up and squeeze you. So yeah, the deal is like preventing plagiarism. We have the internet, people don't understand like copying things. They don't understand rights. They like people do that all the time with images. They do that all the time with photography and content and all and memes and all these things. So don't worry about trying to control other people's actions, worry about the fact that your clients don't care. Like that's a big pro. So my guess is that you probably need to have better clients who are paying attention to that and who are, um, I don't know, actually caring that their content is getting duplicated, which is not good. All right, next question. This kind of goes with the same one, so we're gonna delete it as we go along. So here's the deal. What do you see as the future of pricing for freelance online content? I'm concerned that it's going lower and lower, even though I've managed to obtain and sustain clients who pay more than the average. Okay. So I'm gonna bump this a little bit.
Hold on. That's okay. So here's the deal. What do I think is the future of pricing for freelance writing on freelance online content? I think it's gonna go up the deal. Is that where, so these questions came from the same anonymous per so my guess is this is the same problem. You're on a platform you're writing on medium. You're doing something for pennies. You're working for the wrong clients. The deal is that there's always like a vision. You're wanting to work with clients who have a vision for the future and have a specific goal and a specific set of things for where their content is going. That means you have Aqua quality client. Who's paying attention to good content, good content. Like that's why things go viral. That's why things are, um, people keep engaging with them. That's why, when you Google something and you find an article from 2011 or from 2012, like from 10 years ago, and it's still on the first page of Google it's because it's quality stuff that people still read still like it, they still engage with it.
Right? So for me, I think the pricing is going up. My pricing has gone up over the years. Um, I have actually, I have a student who just secured their highest rate. So I have a student that I was working with and, um, he was worried about charging. More like he was really worried, upping his rates. He's like, well, you know, like things seem to be going down. My clients aren't really paying that. Like other places don't seem to be that high. He quoted, I fi we were like talking and he finally quoted 50 cents a word and it was like, boom, he got it. And he got the deposit up front. So not only did he get his, one of his highest rates at 50 cents a word, but the client paid the deposit and he's talking to a bigger client now who will pay more.
So there's that the other thing was that he was fearful, right? Like if he had charged his own pricing, he said he would've charged 20 to 30% less than that. So think about that because we worked together, right. We were talking about his pricing. We were talking about his clients and we were like, are right. Let's just try it. Let's just like, you know, go for 50 cents a word as your minimum, see how that works out. And boom, it worked out. It's more about the perspective and aligning with the right clients who want quality content. The problem is when you're on a platform or when you're in a situation where things are being driven down by like getting hundreds of things. So like, if you're on Upwork, if you're on fiber, if you're on, um, if you're answering job board ads, like hundreds of people are answering those.
Right. And they really are oftentimes looking for the lowest priced option. They're not looking for quality. They're not saying, oh, I found this person, you know, I found Vicky or I found Sherra or I found, hello, Grum, Orton. Or I found, um, I found Annie or I found vena or I found Marie, like, they're not like I found so. And so, and I want that writer, you know, like I wanna work with Vicky, excuse me. Because I saw that she writes in my niche, she has quality content. I love her stuff. I want Vicki. They're just like, here's a hundred writers. Let's just choose the cheapest one. Or here's a bunch of people that applied to a job board. Let's like sift through the resumes and like treat them like a full-time employee. Like, no, no, no, no, no. For me, content is becoming more and more important.
Yes, there is. And more content on the internet, right? Like as the days go on, like TikTok is a good example, right? More and more people are posting on TikTok. More and more people are posting on Instagram. Social media is always a good example because there's always more content being created. But it doesn't mean that there's like a limit, right. To the amount of content P people consume. Right? Like people consume all different types of content. Right? Sometimes they read magazine articles. Sometimes they go on TikTok. Sometimes they go on Instagram. Sometimes they read, um, they're trying to find a product to solve a problem. So they read the blog of a company. I think all of that stuff like it will continue to change, but people will still will consume content and they will consume different types of content and people who wanna create quality content.
That makes a difference for their audience. That actually does something that will always be high priced quality work. Like that's what really matters is in alignment of values, on why you're creating the content, the goals of the content, the quality level of the content, who the content is reaching the audience, what type of content they consume. Um, and basically like the longevity of the content. All right. So I've answered that part. Now I'm gonna edit this so we can cut it down a little bit. Hold on. All right. So now I should be able to make it a little bigger so we can go through this. All right. So here's the next one? Um, is this just the way of the internet? Everything should be free or cheap mindset. What can you say to a client who thinks content's job is to fill the white space between promotional ads or copy versus branding, marketing, and other goals. Um, that writers try hard to achieve for their clients. I really enjoy being a content provider and creating story ideas to pursue on a regular basis. Is it time to that up and think bigger, wider the slash other? Oh my gosh. You're sassy. Go back to your hub hole.
All right. Good job, Barry. You're being a great little
Bear. Anybody want you three dogs?
Oh buddy. You're so close. You got it right in the teeth.
It's right there, bud.
Hold on. It's geriatric. Help time.
Hold on, buddy. You're so close. Here we go. Ready? Let's try one more time. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job. All right. Charlie bug ready? High five other one O other one other, one other one. Good job.
Sometimes she likes to claw. She likes to really hang on with those high fives. All right. So let's get back to the question. Good job everybody. So no, the internet is not free and cheap. I think this is a big misconception that a lot of writers make is they, it's kind of like when you swim in the, in the turd soup, you think the only thing in the soup is turds. You're in the wrong soup. You're like, you're, you're your network. And the people you're associating with are the wrong they're in the wrong pool. So the deal is like, the internet should not be free and cheap. And your, if your clients are creating content just to fill white space that that's like straight up wrong, your content should be providing value to your audience. Your content should be serving a specific and direct goal oriented need.
It should not be like you're swimming in the wrong pool. You're swimming in the wrong pool. If you're talking to clients where they're like, yeah, we just need to have a blog post. Cuz someone told us or yeah, we just need to fill the white space on our website. Like no, no, no, no, no wrong, no content that actually converts engages actually does something of value that always I'm gonna make this small again. Cause I can see it just like so large. All right. Content should always be serving a purpose. It shouldn't just be filling up space. This is just like classic red flag client. It's like they don't have goals. They don't understand why they're creating content or how to create good content or why it gets clicks. They're like we should just have it. No, I think there are lots of opportunities out there for content marketing, for writing for magazines.
I think there's always like written content. This is something that, um, this is something that I talk about often. And I talk about this with my course students and my coaching students is like one of the oldest professions in the planet is like writing stories. Why do we keep reading stories that are thousands of years old? Why do we keep reading? Like we all read the I in the odysey and we all read Romeo and Juliet, which are not thousands of years old, but we still read them. Um, there are lots of things that we read that are really old because writing stories, storytelling, writing, there's some of the oldest professions out there it's not gonna go away. People always love a good story. And this is why people get so excited when um, like Donald Miller talks about story brand, right? Is like, people love a story.
This is why people still watch movies and they get sucked into Netflix stuff, right? It's a story. And they get really, really into trans by it. This is the same thing with content. It's just that the content is a story about how to build your business better or how this product or service solves your problem. The story is like, are you struggling with this thing? Maybe you should use this product or service. Um, are you struggling with figuring out whether you wanna go to the Maldives or, uh, Australia or like Russia read this article, whatever it's kind of like solving their specific need. They're going to read how to solve their problems. People will continue to do that. They will watch videos too. Video is big. They'll still surf social media. My gosh, you're so grumpy. But um, they will always be reading stuff. Like I just don't think that's gonna be a thing.
That's I'm gonna pick you up and squeeze you, come here. I'm gonna squeeze you. I know you don't like it. So I'm gonna squeeze you. If you wanna be a SAS, you can be a SAS over there. So I, the, this is my own personal soapbox. I just don't think stories are ever gonna go anywhere. And the types of stories that we tell are always different case study stories are different than blog. Post stories are different than infographic. Stories are different than ebook. Stories are different than, um, like reported article stories. But people will continue need to read stories about things that they're interested in. I just don't think stories are going anywhere. It's just a matter of finding the people who understand the type of story they wanna tell why they're telling it, who the audience is, how to solve their problems, their pain points.
Right. Um, and actually connecting with them. That's the connection point is a story. People don't always connect with like wet content. Sometimes they do. But a lot of times, like there's a stat. I read the other day that, um, 80% of consumers, like 80% of people reading content, read a blog and check out the company's social media, which includes like video stuff before they ever contact the company. So it's not just the web content and the blog blog posts and the videos. It's all those things together, 80%. So eight out of 10 people that find a company, go look at their social media, go look at their videos and read their blog posts. They read the content that they're creating. I just don't think that's going away. And with everybody, you know, people look for the perfect product. I know that's something that I am like, oh, have always been addicted to is like finding the perfect product.
Like I do that all the time. Like I, I know I do it with tools. Like I tell you guys about tools at how about DeSoto and boomerang and um, you know, like all of the things that I use in my business. Um, but I also do that with like soap. Like I'm always finding the perfect product. Right. But that also comes with reading about the product, reading stories, reading customer results, which are stories. Um, and I just think like there will always be a need for that. And there was this thing that someone was talking about the other day that I came across where, you know, a lot of people like to talk about like content or the arts or, um, like, you know, videos or like TikTok as like a jokey thing. Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're doing that. But it's like when the pandemic hit, what are people doing?
They're looking to all the art stuff to take away all the stress of everything else. They're looking to read funny stories and books and watch Netflix and read some things about like, oh, I have to be on zoom 700 times a day now, like how do I actually set that up? Like, where's the tech article, where's the tech story telling me how to actually put all these things together. Like people reach out to all these different art forms and all these different creative things and all these different writing things for various different reasons. So I just don't, I, I think there will always be a need for that. And we just tell different types of stories. We tell B2B stories, we tell B2C stories. Um, and I just, yeah, I think the mindset of your clients, since these questions came from the same person, I think the mindset of your clients is you're in the wrong pool.
You're in the turd soup. You gotta get outta the turd soup because anyone who basically says your job is to fill white space. You're in the wrong. You are not on the same level. You are on the wrong. They're like, they're not, you're not playing the same sport. They're like not even playing a sport. They're like the people who in the stands being like, why didn't you catch that ball? Like, you know, when it was obviously thrown over their head, right. That kind of stuff. So I will always stand on my story soapbox and I will always believe that stories continue to have purpose and continue to be a thing, whether it's B2B stories or B2C story worries. I think those will continue on. Like that will always be a thing. That's like a like humans love stories. I, I just, I don't know for me, I always go back to the same thing.
It's like, we've been reading the same stories for thousands, if not hundreds of years. And we still read them because they still like, they transcend all of these things. Yes. Maybe your B2B content about a new feature won't live on forever, but it'll live on long enough to help people make a choice or help people, uh, get something set up or help people figure out if that brand is for them. Like there's all these different things that, that really go into making good quality content and quality content that always wins. Like I said, there are stories if you Google things, right? If you go into Google and you Google something, there are things that are from 20 11, 20 12, sometimes there's things from like 1999 that people uploaded it's on the first page of Google. And it's really, really effing old it's cuz stories live on, right?
I'm gonna get off my soapbox now. Um, Tracy says, hi, Tracy, thanks for hanging out. Tracy says, I think you should say, you should say to such clients is I think what you should say to such clients is buy, I wouldn't try to educate or convince them, um, convince people who don't value content. Yeah, exactly. It's a red light client. It's a hard, no, you're on this wrong plane. You're not even on, you're not playing the same sport. You're not even in the same field. Like it's not happening. The deal is that you find good clients. This is what Greenlight clients are. They understand the value of content. They have goals. They understand why they're telling those stories and why their audience needs to hear those stories or what types of stories or information their audience needs to move forward or make a decision or work with them.
I think it's just like when you're on the wrong plane, like you're just, that's just not even worth it. Like you can't convince them otherwise. They're just, that's just not a thing. All right, cool. So we went over our questions. If you have a question, you can pop it into medial.com/question, and you can do it anonymously. We had anonymous ones today. Um, but if you have a topic you want me to cover or a question you want me to answer on the livestream, pop it in there. Uh, other reminder is that all of the things we talked about, but Lois pitches, LOI hybrids. Um, I also have contracts in there, but if you're looking for examples, if you go to man ellis.com/bundle, that's where all my marketing stuff is that I use. Um, and you can grab 'em there. So if you go there, you can get all of my LOI templates, my contract templates, my marketing templates, um, all the good stuff.
It's cool. It's so if you feel like this was helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a high earning freelance writing business subscribe, and I'm interested to hear if you do your marketing differently, if you don't use a ton of Lois and pitches or you don't do 50 to 75 Lois and pitches and you get a ton of clients, let me know. Like, I'm always interested to hear about that. Um, are different than kind of the way I do business. Like I know I have a student who just like really personalized a lot of her Lois and she just got a really great client. Um, so shout out to Andrea. So she did a lot of personalization on her Lois and she grabbed a client who was like really attracted to the type of like uniqueness that was excuse me in her Lois.
So if you excuse me. So if you have something in your Lois that, or your pitches that you feel like helps them stand out, share 'em below in the comments. I'm always interested to hear that. And then we can talk more about it. Right? We can talk more about, um, like how to personalize things or how to make your stuff stand out. Cool. All right. Everybody says it was helpful. Good. I'm glad that it was helpful. That's why we talk about these things. It's really important. The puppets say, they're glad that you guys joined that you were here to hang out. Barry
Barry. Barry, are you, you wanna trio Barry here, buddy?
All right.
He was kind to have half asleep.
All right. You gotta back up, back up, back up. You can't just wave at the air. All right. Ready? Hi, five. Good job.
All right. Yay. I'm glad that everybody had a good time. Thanks so much for hanging out. We do this every Friday, every Friday, I hop on here or at noon and do a live stream about a bunch of different freelance writing topics. So feel free to join. Feel free to hang out, ask questions and, um, yeah, I'll see everybody next Friday. Hope you have a good weekend.
________
Trying to figure out how to price your work for what it’s worth? Check out my FREE Pricing Guide!
Need some fantastic contract and marketing templates to make your freelance writing biz run as effectively and efficiently as possible? See my Templates!
Want to stay in touch for weekly detailed advice plus updates on new freebies and courses? Join my email list!
Want to follow me for inspiration, tips, and to stay connected?
So psyched you’re joining me on this livestream adventure!
