Here’s How to Pitch and Write a Guest Post for Copyhackers

Ideally you’ll have been working and experimenting with the subject of your post for years, like here and here. But if you’re new to a subject, that’s cool – as long as you write from a beginner’s POV, like here and here.

Whatever the case, be sure you’re writing about something you can speak well to – because we want to be able to clearly answer the question, “Why is this person the right person to tell this story?” 

Use the fantastic Skyscraper Method by Brian Dean to dig deep on what’s been or being said about the topic of your choosing.

Or, to avoid wasting time guessing what we wanna publish, choose one of these topics, which we’re interested in sharing on our blog:

• How you launched, grew or shut down your business
• Writing blog posts that get freelancers hired
• Advanced techniques for freelance copywriters: negotiation, closing clients, networking
• Virality and how you write blog posts that get shared wildly <– obvz your post will flunk if it doesn’t get shared wildly, so
• Persuasion, psychology and decision-making <– either have split-tests, lab experiments or a grad degree in psych to support the idea that YOU should tell this story
• Freelancing for lifestyle
• Freelancing for money
• Conversion copywriting
• A/B testing
• UX
• UX vs UI vs copy
• Product design
• Identifying flaws in X
• The startup lifestyle, starting your own business, startups vs small bizzes vs big bizzes
• Google Analytics and other online biz tools that are mysteries to most people
• Exhaustive insights into CTAs
• Exhaustive insights into headlines
• Exhaustive insights into form design
• The business need for things that don’t seem to have a clear business need (e.g., content strategy, online chat)
• Product marketing and growth hacking (i.e., actual growth hacks, not just social networking or something)
• Things word geeks love: grammar, handwriting, hacks, lessons from authors, lessons from fiction writing
• Direct response in today’s marketing landscape
• Social media for data geeks and startup marketers (i.e., where everything needs to be measurable)
• Email open rates
• Email testing
• Email subject lines
• Personalization
• Adwords vs Facebook ads vs retargeting
• Landing page copywriting
• Reducing churn
• Onboarding
• Converting free / trial users to paid users

IF YOUR POST IS NOT WELL-RESEARCHED, we won’t publish it.

IF YOUR POST IS FEWER THAN 2000 WORDS, we won’t publish it unless it’s extremely wonderfully amazingly readable reading.

IF YOUR POST IS BORING AS SHIT, we won’t publish it. No listicles and no roundup posts. No voiceless wonders. No long-winded bores.

IF YOUR POST DOES NOT FEATURE YOUR FIRST-PERSON STORY OR ACCOUNT, we won’t publish it. Quick tip: write your headline in the first person.

IF YOUR POST IS >50% YOUR OPINION, we won’t publish it.

IF YOUR HEADLINE SUCKS – WHICH 99% DO – we won’t publish it.

We reserve the right to add to the above list.

Try it in the first person. That goes a long way toward shaping a great post.

Suggest a story worth reading.

Familiarize yourself with swipe files for the oldies but goodies: Gene / Eugene Schwartz, John Caples and Claude Hopkins.

Just write at least 50 headlines before you choose one. Come on. This is a copywriting blog. You can do this. BTW, if you do not do this, we’ll know – only an uncreative person would write 50 variations of a headline and finish with a dud.

NOTE: In your draft – when we get to that stage – be sure to use “power words” in your headline and crossheads.

Okay, so the idea here is that the kind of articles we love reading – and publishing – have conflict. You don’t have a story without conflict. So you can choose to pick a fight with a concept or popular wisdom on a subject – like in this guest post and this guest post. You can say something everyone else is too scared to say. Or you can juxtapose 2 things people care about, like in the post “How Your Daily Caffeine Fix Is a Silent Killer of Success.”

Note that, if you wouldn’t rush to read your post, it’s unlikely we’ll rush to read it. So write your pitch well and make it interesting, m’kay?

For your pitch email subject line, do the following:

• Start with this: Guest Post Pitch:
• Finish with the proposed headline of your post (e.g., Guest Post Pitch: What if Aaron Sorkin wrote your SaaS onboarding emails?)

Here’s how to format the body of your email:

ABOUT ME:

MY WEBSITE IS:

MY PROPOSED KEYWORD PHRASE IS:

MY ARTICLE WILL BE MOST USEFUL TO THIS AUDIENCE:

THE BEST PRACTICE OR IDEA I’M PICKING A FIGHT WITH IS:

THE POWER WORDS I PLAN TO USE IN MY HEADLINES (H1) AND CROSSHEADS (H2, H3), FROM THIS LIST, ARE:

MY PROPOSED POST OUTLINE GOES LIKE SO:

DATE TO FINISH:

When you’re really happy with how you’ve filled in the blanks, hit send.

If we’d like you to write the post for us, we’ll email you back within 5 days of receiving your inquiry. From there, you can write! 🙂 Note that you’ll need to support your points with data – even if you’re telling your story, you’ll need screenshots and proof to make the post engaging. Sites like DeepDyve give content marketers full access to crazy amounts of academic studies, so consider investing in services like that if you want to support your thoughts with [recent / not 1960s] data.

DO NOT SEND US AN UNSOLICITED DRAFT.

YOU WILL HAVE PLENTY OF TIME TO WRITE YOUR POST AFTER WE ACCEPT YOUR PITCH. PLEASE DO NOT FEEL RUSHED AT ANY POINT. WE’LL LOVE YOUR WORK IF IT’S THOUGHTFULLY DONE – NOT RUSHED.