How Do Nurse Writers Find Clients?
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Because freelance writing is such an obscure career, many nurses misunderstand the process of finding clients. First of all, they don't understand who a prospective client is. And then they fear that this process is going to require lots of sleazy outreach and strongarm tactics to accomplish getting a client.
But actually finding clients and reaching out is super easy. Clients are all around you. The problem is your brain is not registering them because the brain is very lazy and wants to overlook the obvious.
Today, we’re sharing a simple two step process you can use to start identifying who might be a prospective client - and where to find them - so that you can reach out and offer your writing services.
Who is a prospective client for a nurse-writer?
Let's start with the “who.” Who are the clients that hire freelance writers, and specifically, who are the clients that hire freelance nurse writers?
In a nutshell, any company that publishes any kind of marketing material at all, is a prospective client. Let that sink in for a moment. Any company that publishes marketing material is a prospective client for you. If that hasn't already blown your mind, let's dive a little deeper. For some specific examples, let me start by asking you a lot of questions.
Do you work for a health system or a corporation with a website? Did it ever occur to you that some human being wrote all the words on every page you see on that site? How many pages does your company's website have? 500? 1000?
I can assure you that some human being actually wrote that content. And I know this because I, myself, have written dozens of websites, some of them for very high profile companies. And I got paid good money to do that.
For example, in the summer of 2020, I wrote a 50-page website for a major home care corporation, and was paid $35,000 for that one project alone. Not too shabby! So, add “healthcare companies with websites” to your list of prospective clients.
Let me ask you another question. Does your health insurer send you printed or emailed newsletters with information like “how to maximize your insurance benefits” or “tips for heart health”? Well (spoiler alert!) once again, a real person wrote that newsletter content for your edification. Personally, I have written scores, if not hundreds, of newsletter articles and even entire newsletters for various organizations. So add “healthcare companies that send email newsletters” to your list of prospective clients.
And let’s not forget the health and wellness publications
Now, another question: if you or a family member come down with a weird illness, do you do what 99.9% of other people do and type a query into Google? And after you do that, do you see that Google says there are 14 million web pages with articles you can look at to learn more? Maybe one of those search results links to an article on WebMD, Medscape, or Men’s Health and you pop over there to learn more about the weird illness you’re dealing with.
Well, here’s another mind-blowing truth: Every one of the publications that published every one of those articles is a prospective client. Because, again, some professional writer got paid to create that content. So add “healthcare magazines and online publications that publish health articles” to your list of prospective clients.
What about business-to-business information?
Have you ever watched a how-to video published by the manufacturer so you can learn how to operate a piece of medical equipment? Well, that video very likely was scripted, and they probably had a freelance writer do it, which means healthcare companies that publish scripted videos are prospective clients for you.
For you nurses in administration and management: Have you ever been looking online for information about an obscure issue in healthcare administration and found a great-looking white paper on that topic? So you typed in your email address in order to download a copy? Well...ding-ding-ding! The company that published that white paper is a prospective client. They almost certainly had a freelance writer produced that white paper you're now enjoying.
Clients are all around you
What we’ve described here is just the tip of the iceberg. Seriously, clients are all around you; you just have never thought of them as clients before. Perhaps this little exercise has opened your eyes (and your brain) to becoming aware and conscious of all the written words surrounding you every day. Because as we said at the beginning, any company that publishes marketing materials is a prospective client for you and your writing business.
Where are these clients, though?
Now that we've talked about who prospective clients are, let's talk about where you can find them.
Remember that although we talk about entities, companies, health systems, or insurers as prospective clients, in reality we're talking about a single person at that company. Usually, your prospective client is the content director, or the marketing manager or someone with a job title like that. Your next task as a writer, then, is to figure out where these people live online so you can reach out to them.
One place every client lives online is at their own website. Most freelance writers begin their research by trying to find someone with a likely job title at the company's own site. You also can find prospective clients on websites like LinkedIn, Indeed, Journalism Jobs, and many others.
LinkedIn in particular has become a hotbed for connecting with prospective writing clients. RN2writer students report great success doing that every single day. You also can look for part time or contract writing gigs on LinkedIn and Indeed, set job alerts, and allow those services to do the legwork for you.
Avoid the “freelance marketplace platforms”
One thing we want you to avoid, however, is signing up for those freelance platforms that promise to give you the opportunity to search for and bid on thousands of jobs.
The problem with these sites is multi-fold. First of all, they apply downward pressure on freelance rates by encouraging all service providers to compete on price. They position all freelance writers as being the same, with no regard to the individual writer’s background, experience, specialized knowledge, or what-have-you.
Let us say this very clearly: As a nurse-writer, you should never compete on price because the knowledge and insight you bring to health writing, as compared with a non-clinician writer, holds incredible value to clients. Secondly, remember Yog’s Law: Money always flows toward the writer.
You should never pay for the chance to compete for a gig, just as you wouldn't dream of paying for an interview to compete for a nursing job.
We hope this post helps you see exactly who might be a prospective client for your writing business and also where you can find these clients. By the way, these are exactly the things we teach nurses in our Get Paid (Well!) to Write program, so we hope you’ll check that out!
