Why You Should Not Be a Health, Technology, Finance, Food or Travel Content Marketing Writer
I’m exhausted and energized at the same time. I spent the past few days at the ASJA Dream Bold Regional Conference in Atlanta. I got to hang out with writer friends (if you ever get a chance to go on the Wine Walk in Decatur, GA, your answer should be yes), meet longtime blog readers (Hi, Bobby – great to meet you!) and meet a few potential clients. But most importantly, I got excited about being a freelance writer. There is something about getting away from real life and being around the only other people that truly understand the life of a freelance writer to make you feel ready to tackle Monday morning.
Throughout the conference other writers would ask me for tips about breaking into content marketing writing or finding more work. And as always, my first question was “What is your niche?” And the answer was “I’m a finance writer” or “I write about health.” And while this answer is fine for casual conversation in the halls of a writers’ conference, I promise that you will get more work if you reframe this answer both in your own head and for clients. The first step is to stop thinking of yourself as a technology, health, finance, food, travel or whatever other general subject you’ve been identifying yourself as.
You need to dig deeper in your niche and think of it in terms as specific as possible. Within your niche, what specific areas do you consider yourself an expert on? For what topics do you truly understand the audience needs? And for what subjects within the broader niche do you have clips or work experience to prove your expertise? If you are aren’t sure what your niche is, check out this post about how to find niches in your clips and these two about using hobbies and past jobs as niches.
So instead of “I’m a health writer,” you should think of yourself as a dental implant, neurology and gluten-free nutrition writer. Or if you are in finance, then maybe a college planning, credit card and Roth IRA writer. You can have as many niches within your larger niche as you want, but the more specific you are the better. I honestly don’t think you can be too specific. As long as there are companies that market to that particular audience, then it’s a great niche.
The reasons for doing this are twofold:
- Narrowing your niche helps you more easily identify potential clients. As I said this weekend in a panel discussion, the good news and the bad news about content marketing is that the number of potential clients is limitless. Instead of making it easier, I have found it makes it harder. If you think in terms of being a health writer, then you have pretty much the entire medical community to market yourself to, which often makes writers feel paralyzed. But if you are a dental implant writer, then your potential clients are now implant dentists and all the companies that produce products that implant dentists use in their practice.
- You have a much higher chance of getting the job with a narrow focus. There are a TON of technology writers. Technology, just like health, has a wide range – from people who write about mobile phone apps to really geeky stuff that lands on my desk. So when I marketed myself as a technology writer, I didn’t stand out from the crowd very much (and didn’t get much work). But my income skyrocketed as soon as I began specializing (and marketing myself) with an expertise in data analytics and cloud computing. Because, not surprisingly, there are not a million people who call themselves data analytics content marketing writers. And if you are talking to the right client (see above point), then you have a really great chance of getting the gig.
And no, doing this does not limit you and actually will make you more money, not less – Mainly because you can have as many niches as you want. The trick is that you market yourself and your niche based on whatever client you are pitching to. If you are sending a Letter of Introduction (LOI) to a student loan company, then your LOI should make you sound like you are the world’s best student loan content marketing writer. You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) mention your other niches.
However, on general marketing materials – like your website and LinkedIn – it’s fine to mention all of them. I think it’s especially beneficial to list all your niches on LinkedIn – so instead of travel writer, say Caribbean cruises, senior travel and golf vacation packages writer. The reason is that potential clients often search for super-specific words on LinkedIn, and you want to pop up on their screen. I wouldn’t leave out health writer since sometimes people do search more broadly (especially if they are looking for a local writer).
But I promise you that if you dig deeper on your niche, you’ll uncover the subjects that you are uniquely qualified to write about. Then begin marketing yourself to the clients who need someone with very specific subject matter expertise, and your income will soon rise.
What is your experience with narrowing your niche? Tell us about your very specific niches.
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Great advice, as always Jennifer. I’ve found that saying that I specialize in profiles and features for an alumni audience has helped me drill down to a wonderful target clientele. But I also love writing about the arts, and your post has prompted me to ponder the ways I can talk about that more specifically, e.g., specializing in ‘painting, photography and sculpture’ rather than just saying ‘fine arts’ or ‘visual arts.’ 🙂
Both of those are PERFECT examples of exactly what I’m talking about. I hear a lot of writers say they specialize in profiles, but don’t know who to pitch. But the way you phrase it helps both you and your clients zero in.
Yes, the painting, photography and sculpture writer is exactly what I’m talking about as well. So once you narrow down to that niche, think about what target audiences you understand and who sells products to that audiences. So what products do painters need and photographers? What other audiences are there in those fields – galleries, painting schools, photography training classes. How about travel tours that specialize in photography? I know that’s a huge thing and they could most likely use photography content.
Thanks, as always, for a great post Jennifer. I always worry that by narrowing down and specialising that I’m cutting out prospects (at the moment I write broadly about food, travel and parenting). I also like writing about all three of these areas and find it hard to choose which to focus on because I don’t like to ‘miss out’ on good stories! Any tips?
Hi Melinda, Great question. It is totally fine to write about and market yourself as writing about all three for journalism. But when approaching content clients, i would narrow it. You probably already have sub-specialites within those niche that you have written about many times, such as attachment parenting or solo travel. You can have as many niches as you want – I have like 10, including a very odd niche of stadium technology.
You aren’t limiting your work, you are making it more likely that you will get the clients you approach because you have the unique skills for their brand so you stand out. Plus, I promise that by narrowing you will be able to more easily identify clients to approach. I really think in these niches it is especially important to have narrow niches because there are SO MANY food, travel and parenting writers.
Think of it this way. Let’s say you decide that one of your niches is gluten free food. This gives you a ton of client ideas because everyone who is selling to gluten free consumers is a potential client. SO restaurants, specialty grocery stores, cooking schools and of course the companies that make gluten free food products. If you thought of yourself as a broad food writer you might not think of all of these potential clients.
So let’s say you approach a company that makes gluten free baking mixes and your market yourself as a gluten free writer – your LOI lists publications you have written for on this topic, you include that your family has been gluten free for 3 years and that you have taken several cooking courses on gluten free and you include a bunch of gluten free clips. The company has heard from a bunch of writers, but most of them are food writers – they are going to be MUCH more likely to hire you because you have shown them that you understand their product and your audience. So you are dramatically increasing your odds of converting prospects into clients.
Does that help? I know it seems counter intuitive. You can try it with just one specialty as a start and see how it goes. Let me know if you have any more questions, happy to help any way that I can.
Thank you so much for your reply Jennifer. I love how you explained that and as you said, it’s probably fine for journalism to have broad specialities but with content writing, it’s better to be more specific. Most of my writing work so far has been for newspapers and magazines, but am looking to get more into content writing, so will take your advice onboard. Thanks again.
Great advice! Thanks Jennifer for sharing. I currently write in the health tech niche and I described myself as a freelance health tech writer on my website and LinkedIn profile. So in my case, would you suggest that I change it to something more specific like Freelance electronic health records writer for example or only use that specific title when I’m reaching out to potential clients? What particular niches within the health tech industry do you think would be a good area to explore?
Leo, I’m glad you found it helpful. I write in health tech as well and I personally think that’s a narrow enough niche. The main reason being that there aren’t a ton of health IT writers. I also think that most of the health tech issues revolve around EHRs, data analytics, internet of things (mHealth/wearables) and security and I’m betting that you are pretty knowledgeable on all of those things. And even if you were marketing yourself to an EHR company, it’s all so interwoven that you would need to know about the others.
So I would leave it healthtech when marketing yourself (make sure this is on your LinkedIn and website). But if you are marketing yourself to an EHR company, I would play up your EHR experience in the LOI, but probably still leave it as a healthtech. Does that help and make sense? BTW, it’s a VERY lucrative field with a lot of work right now. I would heavily market up this niche if I were looking for work.
This was very helpful! I’m utilizing my 11-year experience working for a major hospital in my city. Plus I think I’d enjoy writing about technology and so I combine the two 🙂 it says on my website and LinkedIn profile freelance health tech writer. Glad that I’m on the right path and that this area is lucrative. Thanks again:)
Hi Jennifer,
That’s great advice. I found that clients want writers that are so specific and specialize in writing about their product like trading application software for a company that sells trading application software.
It’s been a challenge for me because I’m trying to change niches. I used to write for large cruise companies on staff who hire large agencies to do their freelance writing or have their writing done by their staff. The cruise travel agencies or private yacht charter companies, another industry I’ve written for, seem to pay low rates.
Because of this, I’m trying to go the b2b route and get back into the software tech market and write about automation software and internet security. The problem is my content in hi-tech is from ten years ago in that niche. Clients for the good companies with a decent revenue stream who are respected in their industry have asked me for samples written within the last two years. This conversation happened today when I spoke to a prospect.
Wondering how you would go about getting clips if you were changing niches. Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Stacey, Interesting that you are finding the same thing as well. For a client wanting something as specific as trading application software, it’s unlikely they will find someone that specific so in that case I would play up my financial writing and software writing experience. And sometimes that works, but not always.
I totally agree with you on B2B being the route to go. I usually recommend my double niche technique for changing niches (https://www.jennifergregorywriter.com/2016/02/29/break-the-catch-22-how-to-gain-clips-in-a-new-niche) I’ve done it successfully in my career and know others who have.
However, I’m thinking that cruises and B2B software are probably two far apart. Unless you want to try marketing yourself to companies that sell technology for cruises as a stepping stone. But it might not be worth the time. Another idea would be to pitch some basic tech clips to more general outlets like business pubs and maybe Costco Connection as a start.
I don’t usually recommend this, but with a niche like tech (especially since you have experience and know you like it – not just doing it for the $$$) I would probably recommend taking some lower paying technology clients to get the clips that you need. There is so much work in technology that it would be worth it. I was in a similar situation with technology. I did some double niche stories to get me some basic tech clips (using tech in business) but needed more and more technical. So I used the clips I had to get some lower paying jobs and then quickly transitioned to better gigs. The trick is to not stay in the lower gigs too long.
Jennifer,
Yes. Like you’ve said, businesses want writers to get super specific. I doubt the financial trader app software will find the writer they’re looking for.
A very interesting point you mentioned: don’t do it just for the money. I’ve received tremendous value from your reply and also your article on double niches.
There are many tech products sold to the cruise industry, that are more interesting to write about than software. After some research, I discovered cruise lines are starting to include in cabin Wi-Fi on cruises, which opens up the business to newer markets. There are many other tech products for ships, including digital signage, wayfinding and satellite systems, just to name a few.
Targeting the manufacturers and distributors like Costco is a smart idea. Thanks for the lead!
I appreciate your valuable tips. There is so much claimed ‘expert advice’ online, but as you know, one has to sift through the rocks to get the diamonds.
Best,
Stacy
Thank you for the kind words. I really try to give practical advice and I’m glad it helps. I wouldn’t be where it was today without other writers who wrote books and blogs on becoming a freelance writer.
THAT’s AWESOME about all the technology needed on a cruise ship. I would target the companies making these technologies to see if they need content.
I think I will write a blog post about not doing a niche just for the money, but because you like it. I tried that with finance and it didn’t really work. I think that especially with content, you really need to enjoy the topics.
Sounds like a great idea.
Great article! I’ve always thought of this particular subject with a musician’s mind. It’s like an audition for a ‘Retro Beatle-esque rock n roll band’, and two guitar players show up to the audition. One girl shows up and says she is a “Rock N Roll Guitar Player”, and another girl shows up and says she’s a “60’s Inspired Rock N Roll Guitar Player”.
Which guitar player do you think the band will favor more?
[…] on how to find your niche. If you missed this series, I highly recommend checking out my posts on narrowing your niche, why money shouldn’t be your highest priority, and my responses to common questions about […]