How to Narrow Down Your Client Search When You Can’t Find Your Niche
By: Joscelyn Kate
Tags: Freelance Writing, Writing Tips, Content Marketing

Photo by Annie Theby on Unsplash

How to Narrow Down Your Client Search When You Can’t Find Your Niche

You don’t have to be a specialist in any one category to make good money.

One of the most common misconceptions about freelance writing is that you need to be a specialist in one subject or industry to make any money. So many writers wait to start pitching and looking for clients because they believe they need to have in-depth knowledge on one subject, like SEO, digital marketing, healthcare, tech, or cryptocurrency.

If you do have in-depth knowledge on a subject, it is a good idea to write in that subject first because you’ll be able to develop your writing skills without getting bogged down researching the subject you’re writing about.

There’s No Reason to Pick a Niche Right Away, or Ever

If you don’t have in-depth knowledge in any one subject, there’s no reason to give up on your dream of becoming a freelance writer or digital marketer. You can look for work and learn new subjects at the same time. One of the best ways to gain lots of writing experience, in many different subjects, is by finding work through content or digital marketing agencies.

Working for content agencies, you can typically be classified as a specialist in certain fields like finance or tech, or you can be classified as a generalist and will typically take on various subjects that don’t require knowledge or specific details about the industry. Working as a generalist, your writing will likely be centered around overviews and broad subjects within an industry.

The pros of working as a generalist:

Expand into various areas of writing

Learn about certain industries and find out which you prefer writing in

Offer more services to your clients

The cons of working as a generalist:

Prices and payments will reflect generalist knowledge (versus specialist)

Clients may prefer specialized knowledge in certain fields

Narrowing down client criteria helps narrow down work searches

If you write as a specialist, you’ll be able to flesh out detailed material, know the best resources, and likely have first-hand knowledge or experience in the industry which will help you create pieces of content that come with a premium price tag. The writing will take longer, the client’s expectations will be higher, and you will need confidence in your perspective and resources. But you’ll write less while spending more time on each piece.

With generalist writing, you’ll write more content but each assignment will take less time to complete. You’ll also be exposed to a range of topics you can learn about which can help you lead to niching down.

It’s Hard to Find Clients When You Can’t Find Your Niche

If you’re brand new to freelance writing, finding work can be one of the most overwhelming hurdles to clear. Aside from learning how to write a pitch, and create samples, you need to know where to find viable clients.

Viable clients are clients that will actually respond to your pitch and hire you for writing services. Not every company you approach will be structured toward working with freelancers. Some will be so big they have their own content writing department, and some will be so small they don’t typically pay for content, and when they do it’s through a content mill like Upwork or Fiverr. In order to become a successful freelance writer, with a sustainable income, you need to find clients who are willing to work with freelancers who pitch (you) and have the budget to pay for good content.

It can be difficult to know where to find these perfect clients when you can’t find your niche. Too many options can paralyze you. If you don’t know what to look for, or where, you’ll end up doing nothing at all. To move forward with pitching you need to have a focus, you need to be able to qualify businesses in some way.

You can narrow your focus and qualify businesses in a few different ways. You don’t necessarily have to choose an industry to work in, you can use other criteria.

Instead of picking a niche:

Narrow down by revenue

Narrow down by agency (SEO, Marketing, Design, or Branding)

Specialize in a content offering

How to Find Clients with Different Search Criteria

When you start looking for work, you want to have some kind of criteria so you’re not pitching companies like Amazon or Starbucks. While many successful copywriters sell you the dream of working with big names, it’s not likely you’ll land these accounts, especially in your first three years of writing.

Narrow Down by Revenue:

When you narrow down by revenue, you can find companies that operate within a certain revenue range. To find out a company’s revenue, you can search for their information on Owler. You do not have to pay for this service, but you will need to sign up for an account. When you select “see all plans” you will see a free/basic option that allows you to research companies, find out their revenue, location, and top competitors.

Narrowing your clients by revenue allows you to set the price points you’re comfortable with, to ensure you’re hitting your income goals, as well as to pre-qualify clients before beginning a working relationship.

When narrowing down by revenue:

Determine the revenue range you want to work in (higher revenue typically means a higher marketing budget)

Establish content offerings and competitive pricing

Find a company’s revenue through a service like Owler

Narrow Down by Agency Type:

Digital marketing agencies are great for gaining experience because you typically get to interact with all the various departments—graphic design, account managers, other writers, editors, and so on. Marketing agencies usually have retainer/renewal clients and are responsible for performing all of the marketing functions for that client—branding, design, and content creation.

There are other agencies with more specific focuses, for example, branding agencies that help develop a company’s brand and branding strategies, and content agencies, that focus on creating (mostly long-form) content for their clients. Choosing to work with specific agencies means you can also focus on one type of content offering—white papers, blog posts, email campaigns, or whatever it is you enjoy doing. You can also choose a variety of content offerings by working with a few different kinds of agencies.

When narrowing down by agency type:

Determine the type of agency you want to work with

Establish content offering and competitive pricing

Find agencies that already utilize that content type

Narrow Down by Content Offering

While this can go hand-in-hand with narrowing down by agency, you may not want to work with agencies, some people believe there’s no money there. But you can still hone in on one type of content offering. Whether it be writing blog posts or offering keyword research and content planning, or maybe you only want to offer content for certain social media platforms, narrowing down by content means you become a specialist in one type of content or on one kind of platform.

If you understand how to make a Facebook post go viral or get clicks on a LinkedIn ad, you can offer highly-specialized services to businesses who are 1) not seeing results with their current marketing agency (who may not have platform-specific specialist), or 2) wanting to focus their marketing funds specifically on one social platform based on marketing data recommendations for their industry.

When narrowing down by content offering, you must:

Determine the content offering you can specialize in

Establish competitive pricing

Find companies that already utilize that content type

If You Can’t Find Your Niche, Stop Looking

It’s ok if you can’t find your niche. It takes some people years to find it, some people never do, and some lucky ones have a niche that finds them. You don’t need to have in-depth knowledge in one industry to be a successful writer, you just need to know where and how to find the right clients.