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Of these, the publishing company works better than the rest, probably
because I'm selling something readers can afford to buy, which can be
purchased with a click of the mouse, and which is in a narrow enough niche
("practical poultry books") that the ads get noticed.
My farm is the least effective ad because I am careful to put in the names
of local towns into the keywords, so I don't get everyone in the world
clicking on my ad. I don't get many clicks, but this means the campaign
costs almost nothing.
For my technical writing services, I have yet to get a decent lead from
AdWords, which I've been using for about two months. I'm sticking with it
because it's giving me a hands-on course in advertising copywriting. My
initial ads stank. One thing I found difficult is to lose the detachment
and objectivity typical of technical writing and bark my wares in a way that
gets some attention.
What works best for me is the usual stuff, such as having a grabby headline
and a call to action, plus working in the keywords into the ad copy because
Google puts keyword matches in bold.
More important are narrowly focused keywords. "technical writer" and "data
sheet" aren't specific enough. You won't get a high enough click-through
rate to meet Google's standards, and they'll disable your ad. These keywords
will generate thousands of impressions a day, but probably most of the
clicks will be from job hunters, not clients. It's a waste of time and money
to use generics.
I find that keywords like "ic data sheet" and "semiconductor data sheet"
(with variants like "datasheet" and "spec" thrown in for good measure) work
best for me. These deliver only a few clicks per day, but presumably the
clicks are mostly by people who might conceivably be interested in my
services.
Even if you claim that you don't have a specialty, you should do this. Write
down a list of every "________ technical writer" that is plausible, cross
out the pejorative adjectives, and enter every one of the other ones as a
separate AdWords ad, with keywords that match the headlines. Most tech
writer ads on Google are far too generic. This simple technique can make you
enticingly specific, no matter how much of a generalist you are.
I have used: corvallis technical writer, oregon technical writer, hardware
technical writer, writer engineer, etc. Also: hardware data sheets, ic data
sheets, etc. etc., ad nauseam.
Of course, now that I've posted this, it won't work as well tomorrow as it
did yesterday ;-)
Also, read other people's ads and see if you're tempted to click on any of
them. Don't go around clicking indiscriminately on people's ads; it costs
them money and you're not in the market. We don't want to bankrupt the
profession, and of course you'll become a target yourself when you set up
some ads, so let's all play nice.
Veering somewhat off-topic, what works best for me is direct mail to people
who already know me. Just a one-page non-personalized flyer with a business
card paper-clipped to it. I got a call a couple of weeks ago from a guy who
had hung onto my business card for over five years. He'd changed companies a
couple of times and I had lost track of him completely. Thus, I think the
business card is important. A lot of people are like me: they throw
interesting-sounding business cards into a drawer, and sometimes look
through them. Nothing else you can do works over such a long term. Such
mailings have worked very well for me.
I also do the same mailings to likely prospects. I look for companies in my
line on the Web, through Yellow Pages listings and the like, and grub around
for contact names. Most companies have a "Management Team" page on their Web
site, and I usually aim at the VP of Engineering and the VP of Marketing,
since I am normally brought in for projects that are outside the normal flow
of the Tech Pubs department, if any. (Most of my clients are at companies
that don't actually have a Tech Pubs department.) Results from such mailings
have not been particularly successful so far (I haven't been doing them for
long), but I'll try a new ad and a new list and maybe get some action.
Because there's often a long delay between contact and contract, I figure
you just keep plugging away at it.
By the way, I think that Robert W. Bly's "Secrets of a Freelance Writer" is
a great book, and we could all do a lot worse than mindlessly follow his
advice.
If nothing else, Google AdWords provide an intellectually stimulating way of
blowing an hour a day when you're between contracts. But because future
clients rarely engage you on the spot, it's best to get things rolling well
before your current gig ends, and keep things going no matter how overworked
you are. You can always tell clients that you can fit them in around
January. Sometimes it even works!
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