Freelance writing for corporations is much like any other job except that the pay is bigger. You have to send out marketing materials, you have to negotiate for pricing, you have to accept the project, and you have to complete it on a deadline. When you are ready to tap the corporate market, make sure you have a portfolio of samples of various types of your writing. The corporation may or may not ask to see them, but if you already have it assembled, the process moves quicker. It could mean the difference between getting the job or not. It is a good idea to have copies of your work that you can leave with the client. They will then refer to them in the future as various kinds of assignments come up.

If you do not currently have enough samples to be able to show a client, just keep writing, documenting that writing, and building your clientele. Don’t let it slow you down or discourage you from applying for freelance writing jobs. Some corporations don’t even ask for samples. Depending on their project, they may just look at your background. Eventually, you will have experience which, in turn, builds your reputation. Take assignments wherever you can find them. Don’t worry about the pay at this point. You are building your reputation for later. You can’t very well demand the high fees without something to show them. Just take what you can find. As you build your clientele, the fees will raise. In the beginning, don’t turn down a job just because the pay is low.

While you are building your portfolio, you can also be working on your promotional letter. This will be your initial impression to your client so it is important that you present reasons why they should choose you for their writing. You can find hundreds of possible clients on-line at ThomasNet.

You create an account with them and have access to their database. It will help you find the clients that fit the criteria for your letter.

You will be sending out hundreds of these letters to your target corporation list. It is much easier if the letter is general in nature so that you don’t waste time making changes to each one. Even though it is general, you can still promote your service and describe what you do. Remember, they don’t know you. You have to tell them – Marketing 101. You are marketing yourself. Pretend you are a product and the client wants to know why he should buy you.

Your opening statement should explain why the client would benefit from your freelance writing services. You do that by stating a claim, asking a question, or simply quoting something about you. It doesn’t matter how you open your letter. You want the client to keep reading and not toss it in the wastebasket. Make it intriguing and interesting. But use only one or two sentences.

The next paragraph should identify what you perceive as the client’s problem. It could be brochures, policies, manuals, or whatever you think might be needed. Again, this is a general statement that you can mail to hundreds of potential clients. Don’t dwell on it for more than a couple sentences.
Now, in the next paragraph, you explain how you can help that client based on your background, education, or experience with that problem or several problems. Your qualifications for helping the client are going to grab his attention. You want him to realize that you can make his job easier. This is where you can list the different freelance projects you have worked on in addition to your education.

Next you ask him to contact you by whatever means you have available. Some people have special postcards made up so that the client simply drops it in the mail to you. Email and phone work equally well. It is important that the client be able to get in touch with you to set up a meeting to discuss the project. If there is a great distance between the two of you, a phone meeting works well. As you build a reputation with clients relatively close to you, you can decide at that time how much in the way of travel costs you want to spend.

If you truly enjoy freelance writing and have a variety of background experiences, you should not have much difficulty in eventually building up a nice little client base. The only way to do that is to let people know what you have done, what you can do, and what you will do. As you become more involved in the process, it will become easier to find jobs. It will become a regular part of your day to seek projects as you finish others. The secret is to have a steady stream of incoming jobs to balance out the ones you finish and submit.