hi, I want to showcase my skills by creating a blog made up of fictitious projects in an attempt to attract clients. What do you think?
IMO, The idea of creating a blog to showcase your talent is EXCELLENT, but it should not be fictitious projects. If it is, then do label them as samples. Otherwise, if the clients check out the actual business on which you based your project on, you would get a bad reputation of making up things. I am talking about my experience also, as I was looking for a logo designer, and he had some fictitious projects and I did not select him. Clients always prefer honest workers. So go ahead and make the blog, that's an excellent idea, but remember my advice that do make many great projects but don't credit yourself that you delivered these projects to clients. Be Honest!
Showing samples of your work is definitely the right way way to go about. Your blog can be like a folio of your work. Limit the text and focus on the samples. That way you prospective clients will see how talented you are.
Here's an easy way to create a basic copywriting portfolio: 1. Pick 2-3 good Clickbank products with bad salesletters. There's plenty to choose from, regardless of niche. 2. Rewrite the salesletter or create your own affiliate style salesletter to sell the product and set them up on your hosting account. 3. Have the order button send them directly to the Clickbank order page for the merchant. Michel Fortin has a solid article on his blog that gives you more details here: http://www.michelfortin.com/no-product-start-with-bypass-surgery/ 4. Send some free traffic to your sales letter. 5. Track the conversion rates. While you're picking up some affiliate commissions, you will have some portfolio samples with conversion rates to show prospective copywriting clients. Hope that helps, Mike
I would also recommend writing for others and giving their urls in your portfolio [You should get prior permission!]. If you had written a sales copy for a great marketer or a great product, great buyers will accept you
I agree but the OP asked about using a fictional portfolio to attract new clients. If he has actual paid client work that he's done, then that's obviously the best portfolio samples to use.
If you do not have any experience working for actual businesses, then creating samples is an excellent idea. Create them across the range of niches you believe you would like to work in and send appropriate samples according to the people you are applying to.
Clients who care about your portfolio will take an in-depth look on the projects and may even contact the owners. I don't really like to be in such situation. Also consider, the expenses you are going for. A better idea is to give your work for free for real customers since you are going to work at least someone benefit.
Lying to potential clients is too big of a tradeoff for something that plenty of your competitors achieve the honest way: a portfolio should be an accurate representation of what you do. Many people want to dive right into a freelance lifestyle without samples to show. If you're good at what you do, you must have gotten there somehow, right? Well, that's what you should showcase. There's no need to label it as work projects if they're only samples - quality is quality no matter which way you look at it. Best Regards, vip-ip ...