It depends.
For limited engagement projects with specific deliverables (for example, you’re hiring me to write a single whitepaper with a specific due date), I prefer to charged fixed-rate prices. For longer-term support projects with less specific deliverables (for example, I’m tasked with improving your email marketing program over a period of 3-6 months and I’m responsible for email copy, email automation, and troubleshooting any fun surprises that pop up), hourly billing is my preference.
I don’t take on projects worth less than $600 and it’s hard for me to price out your project without having more specific details, so it’s really best if you email me!
I invoice clients using Stripe. I’ll create an invoice and send it to you via email, at which point you’re welcoming to fulfill it via ACH or card payment.
For fixed-rate projects, 50% is due at project start, 25% upon delivery of the first draft, and 25% upon delivery of the final draft.
For hourly rate projects, we’ll agree upon a weekly or monthly hourly limit (e.g., we agree I can work up to 10 hours a week without any need for further discussion) and then I’ll send you an invoice for however many hours I’ve worked over the course of that month at the beginning of the following month.
It involves a sacrifice at the full moon in the deepest, darkest part of the forest and a epic quest to fight a great evil threatening all of Middle Earth.
JUST KIDDING. You hire me by sending me an email detailing your project. Your email needs to include these three very important details: 1) What do you need? 2) When do you need it by? 3) What’s your budget?
After I receive your email, we’ll set up a Zoom call or a phone call to ensure we’re a fit. Assuming that goes well, I’ll send over a contract and – after you sign and pay your deposit – I’ll get to work for you!
I prefer this process to sending potential clients on epic quests because it’s infinitely more efficient and less maddening for all involved.
You can add me to your company’s Slack instance! You can email me! You can call me! You can text me! You can Skype me! You could send me a carrier pigeon, but it might get lost on the way.
I’m flexible when it comes to how you want to communicate and am typically hyper-responsive. As long as you message before 7PM CST, we can use any platform your heart desires. If you need to contact me after 7PM CST or on a weekend, please be certain that you’re reaching out about an emergency that is at least an 8 out of 10 on the “marketing disaster” scale.
This question is probably best answered by visiting the Testimonials page.
But since you’re already on this page, I’ll do my best to answer. I’m hyper-responsive. I’m happy to explain my work and reasoning behind my decisions, which means you’re very likely to receive an explainer video at some point. I’m happy to receive constructive criticism and implement client edits without complaint. I’m a problem-solver and tend to turn in deliverables quickly.
If I think you’re taking things in a direction that will ultimately negatively impact your company’s marketing (and by extension, your company’s ability to make money), I’ll tell you immediately – politely, but immediately. This is in part because I want the projects I work on to succeed, as I genuinely care about my clients, and in part because I don’t want my name tied to sub-par work.
I don’t work with companies that I don’t believe have a chance of long-term success or whose products/services I don’t believe to be useful to the general public.
I will probably send you cat pictures at some point.
Rush jobs – or work needed in a shorter timeframe than typically expected, or work commissioned after someone exclaims “Oh, no, we needed this done a week ago but will lose our shirts if it’s not completed by the end of the weekend!” – are within my wheelhouse.
I’m happy to take on rush jobs for your organization for an additional fee.
Occasionally!
Context: during the early days of COVID-19, when COVID emails took over all of our inboxes, I quickly got tired of writing and sending emails demonstrating some corporation or another’s dedication to “being there for you in these unprecedented times”.
So I started sending out emails with pictures of my cat.
That email newsletter grew significantly more popular than I had ever expected. Here’s one email sent to members of my cat’s fan club; here’s another. It’s quite possibly the most delightful email newsletter I’ve ever come across (if I do say so myself.)
If you want pictures of my cat in your mailbox every so often, click here to sign up.
If you think your audience would benefit from my experiences and skills, I’d be delighted to work with you.
Let’s connect soon! – Mariana S
This is an email written as part of a promotional campaign by Ivanti supporting their latest publication (which, in turn, was meant to encourage IT and security professionals to buy their software.)
This email uses industry jargon, but that’s deliberate. By using the words that the people buying this product use (as opposed to simplifying the vocabulary in some foolish effort to avoid jargon), the email demonstrates that Ivanti is IT security software made for and designed by IT security experts.
The email does a great job of emphasizing why this report is important (“destroys both of these assumptions” paired with “brave new world” CTA really works here) and successfully paints the report as urgent, must-read content.
This is an email written as part of a promotional campaign by Ivanti supporting their latest publication (which, in turn, was meant to encourage IT and security professionals to buy their software.)
This email uses industry jargon, but that’s deliberate. By using the words that the people buying this product use (as opposed to simplifying the vocabulary in some foolish effort to avoid jargon), the email demonstrates that Ivanti is IT security software made for and designed by IT security experts.
The email does a great job of emphasizing why this report is important (“revolutionary new approach” paired with a simple “READ NOW” CTA really works here) and successfully paints the report as urgent, must-read content.
This is an email written as part of a promotional campaign by Ivanti supporting their latest publication (which, in turn, was meant to encourage IT and security professionals to buy their software.)
This email uses industry jargon, but that’s deliberate. By using the words that the people buying this product use (as opposed to simplifying the vocabulary in some foolish effort to avoid jargon), the email demonstrates that Ivanti is IT security software made for and designed by IT security experts.
The email does a great job of making the vague feel personal (given that the majority of the recipients are IT directors, asking what President Biden has in common with 98% of IT directors creates much more curiosity than asking what President Biden has in common with 98% of all humans on Earth) and successfully paints the report as urgent, must-read content.
This is an email written as part of a promotional campaign by Ivanti supporting their latest publication (which, in turn, was meant to encourage IT and security professionals to buy their software.)
This email uses industry jargon, but that’s deliberate. By using the words that the people buying this product use (as opposed to simplifying the vocabulary in some foolish effort to avoid jargon), the email demonstrates that Ivanti is IT security software made for and designed by IT security experts.
The email does a great job of emphasizing why this report is important (“no IT director can be everywhere at once” makes the situation personal; it’s not that no human can be everywhere at once, it’s that no IT director – and the people reading this email are IT directors – can be everywhere at once, which is a far more specific issue!) and successfully paints the report as urgent, must-read content.
This email copy, which I wrote as part of a nurture sequence for a travel agency, does a great job of turning something that might seem like a nice-to-have (a travel planner) into something absolutely necessary if you’re going to enjoy your vacation.
The tone is relaxed and confident, which is the exact attitude you want in a travel planner, and the email includes a clear call-to-action: take a trip and contact the agency today.
This is an email written as part of a promotional campaign by Ivanti supporting their latest publication (which, in turn, was meant to encourage IT and security professionals to buy their software.)
This email uses industry jargon, but that’s deliberate. By using the words that the people buying this product use (as opposed to simplifying the vocabulary in some foolish effort to avoid jargon), the email demonstrates that Ivanti is IT security software made for and designed by IT security experts.
The email does a great job of emphasizing why this report is important (“jarring findings” is a great turn of phrase in this context) and successfully paints the report as urgent, must-read content.
I worked carefully to develop the tone I used throughout Sleepgram’s assets. There’s a sort of sleepy sensuality to it and a nod to the joy of treating yourself to life’s little luxuries…like laying your tired body down silky, softer-than-cotton sheets!
This reengagement / churn prevention email is lighthearted without seeming desperate, introducing the 10% off coupon in a way that doesn’t devalue the brand’s products but emphasizes the reader’s importance as a customer to the brand.
The merge field’s fallback, “dreamer”, is something I particularly like in this context. Whenever a brand personalizes an email with a customer’s first name, it’s important that they have a fallback entry in case their database is missing the first name. For example, if you’ve ever received an email that looks like it should say “Hey, Bob!” but just reads “Hey, !”, that’s because that brand’s email marketer forgot to include a fallback.
Using “dreamer” as the fallback means that anyone receiving this email whose first name isn’t on file for whatever reason would have read “You’ve been hard to pin down, dreamer.” In some ways, that’s actually better than using the customer’s first name: there’s about that verbiage that’s intimate and playful without being creepy. Moreover, it’s sleep-related, which works well here.
This website copy sample demonstrates my ability to find the perfect brand voice for organizations in any industry. Brides on the hunt for a wedding photographer want to hire someone (or a studio) that will consider her wedding day as important as she does.
This “story of us” section makes the reader feel that anyone hiring Precious Pics Productions is in good hands, while laying out the exact process the studio uses so brides know exactly what to expect when they hire this studio. It’s romantic while being informative – exactly what this studio needed.
This article (written for Databox and published to their blog as part of their content marketing / SEO strategy) benefits from a fun, snappy writing style that makes this blog post a fun, interesting read despite the dry topic.
I incorporate quotes from subject-matter experts without resorting to clunky, awkward transitions, which provides a level of credibility and humanity to this blog post it wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Finally, the actionable insights included mean that the reader can actually act on and benefit from the things they learn by reading this article, making the blog post relevant to its readers beyond “here’s the theory of increasing conversions on your website!”
If you’d like to read this article in its entirety, you can find it on Databox’s website or by checking out this PDF.
$74.95 for a pillowcase may sound exorbitant, but this product description / checkout page for Sleepgram’s silk pillowcase justifies the price.
I worked carefully to develop the tone I used throughout Sleepgram’s assets. There’s a sort of sleepy sensuality to it and a nod to the joy of treating yourself to life’s little luxuries…like laying your tired head down on a silky-soft pillowcase!
The “Choose Silk for Healthier Hair and Skin” section offers an additional reason to make the investment without providing so much detail that the consumer is overwhelmed with data.
I wrote the “You’ll Love Sleeping On Silk” section to evoke a very specific feeling in the consumer. I wanted them to imagine falling asleep on silk and enjoying the best sleep of their lives (by the time you’re an achy adult in your 30s, that makes for a pretty dreamy fantasy!)
Does $139.99 sounds like a lot for a set of sheets? The answer largely depends on your circumstances and priorities, of course – but as the copywriter responsible for this page lucky enough to receive a set of these sheets from my client as a bonus “thank you!” gift for my work on the page, I promise you these sheets are worth every penny.
I worked carefully to develop the tone I used throughout Sleepgram’s assets. There’s a sort of sleepy sensuality to it and a nod to the joy of treating yourself to life’s little luxuries…like laying your tired body down silky, softer-than-cotton sheets!
The “A Dream Come True for Sensitive Skin” section does a great job of making an additional, health-related argument for investing in this sheets without providing more data points than the customer actually wants or needs.
“Sustainably Made and Eco-Friendly” keeps that fantasy of a beautiful night of sleep going while adding in an environmentally-friendly pat on the back to the brand’s customers.
This website homepage sample, for which I provided both copy and design, works well for a number of reasons. There’s a clear call to action in the hero section. The agency’s offerings are immediately made clear.
The “Here’s What You Need To Know” section provides all of the information a prospective client would need to know in order to take the step of booking a call with the agency, while maintaining a tone that’s inviting, easily understood by a customer who’s not terribly technology-savvy, and evokes a sense of “wow, these people are competent!”
There’s clearly-delineated pricing, which helps prospective clients know exactly what they’re agreeing to pay and what they’ll achieve in return.
The point of a homepage is to ensure prospective clients that the service provider in question is competent enough to get the job done and that they can afford the service provider’s offerings. I did exactly that in this homepage.
This sample demonstrates my ability to pinpoint the perfect brand voice for any brand while discussing the aspects of a product that make it worth buying.
Pairing “ideal for sensitive skin” (in and of itself a fairly clinical phrase) with the phrase “these sheets are a dream come true” takes the boring part of bedsheet shopping, where you ask yourself if these sheets will leave you covered in rashes, and turns it into something more exciting – you’re not shopping for bedding anymore.
You’re making your dreams come true.
words
This is from an email newsletter sign-up form for a sleep and bedding products brand’s website. I don’t think I’ve yet to write a better pun over the course of my copywriting career.
I’ll forever be patting myself on the back for this one.
This website copy, which I wrote for a consultancy focusing on software implementation, succeeds because it frames the problem in a way that prospects understand (the majority of this sort of project goes overtime and over budget!) and offers a clear value proposition: get your software stack to the point where you’re achieving the promised ROI sooner rather than later.
It explains exactly how its services will benefit your business (you’ll be able to offer a better customer experience, which will lead to referrals) without resorting to dumbed-down, simplified language.
I worked carefully to develop the tone I used throughout Sleepgram’s assets. There’s a sort of sleepy sensuality to it and a nod to the joy of treating yourself to life’s little luxuries…like laying your tired body down silky, softer-than-cotton sheets!
This reengagement / churn prevention email is lighthearted without seeming desperate, introducing the 20% off coupon in a way that doesn’t devalue the brand’s products but emphasizes the reader’s importance as a customer to the brand.
The merge field’s fallback, “dreamer”, is something I particularly like in this context. Whenever a brand personalizes an email with a customer’s first name, it’s important that they have a fallback entry in case their database is missing the first name. For example, if you’ve ever received an email that looks like it should say “Hey, Bob!” but just reads “Hey, !”, that’s because that brand’s email marketer forgot to include a fallback.
Using “dreamer” as the fallback means that anyone receiving this email whose first name isn’t on file for whatever reason would have read “You’ve been hard to pin down, dreamer.” In some ways, that’s actually better than using the customer’s first name: there’s about that verbiage that’s intimate and playful without being creepy. Moreover, it’s sleep-related, which works well here.
This email, confirming one’s addition to the waitlist for a social networking platform’s launch, does a great job of keeping the reader interested now that they’re got to wait for the doors to open. They know exactly what to expect during the wait, they’re motivated to spread the word (and are assigned a referral code, enabling the platform to identify their top evangelists), and they’re reminded of exactly what they have to gain by contributing to this platform’s success.
