Today’s guest post comes from freelance writing guru Kelly James-Enger, whose new book,

When I started freelancing fulltime fifteen years ago, corporate work wasn’t even on my radar. I was going to write articles for magazines and newspapers, and work on the novel I’d been wanting to write for years. A few months in, though, I realized I was overlooking alucrative market—businesses and not-for-profits that hired writers to pen everything from Website copy to brochures to newsletters and more.

So I added business and corporate work to my writing repertoire. Along the way, I discovered there are at least five significant differences between writing for publications and writing for business/corporate clients:

The Way You’re Paid

When you write for print and online publications, you’re typically paid by the word. When you write for businesses, though, you’re almost always paid either by the hour or by the project. That means that you should have an hourly rate to quote a potential client. In other cases, the client may have a budget already or an hourly rate it pays writers and you only have to say “yes” or “no.”

The Way You Work

If you’re written for print or online magazines before, you probably know the drill. You turn a piece in to your editor, and then wait…and wait…and wait. Businesses tend to have tighter turnarounds than publications (though there are always exceptions to the rule!), so keep this in mind when accepting assignments. Depending on the number of “layers” you’re working with (not only your client, but her boss, and her boss, and possibly her boss), you may encounter multiple rounds of editing.

How You’re Recognized

When you write for publications, you’re usually given a byline. When you do corporate work, however, you’re almost never recognized as the author of a particular piece. That’s okay with me, because in general, business clients pay better than many publications.

When You’re Paid

This is a huge advantage to working with businesses. Small companies pay much faster than publishers. I’ve even had clients write me a check onsite after meeting at the conclusion of a project. In general, the larger the company, the longer it takes to get paid, but I almost always receive my check within a month or less. That’s a plus to doing corporate work.

What Rights You Sell

Write for publication and you’ll signs a contract that describes what rights the market is purchasing to your work. If you write a piece that you can resell, you’ll want to try to retain reprint rights to your work.

When you write for businesses, however, you’re selling all rights to yourwork—the business owns whatever you create. This isn’t usually an issue as the work you create usually isn’t something you could sell reprints to, but it is a difference you should be aware of.

On balance, I’ve found that writers needn’t choose writing for publications or writing for businesses/non-profits. A blend of both can diversify your workload, improve your cash flow, and make you more successful as a freelance writer.

Kelly James-Enger has been a fulltime freelancer, ghostwriter, and author for 15+ years. Her books include the just-released Writer for Hire: 101 Secrets to Freelance Success (Writer’s Digest, 2012) and Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: The Writer’s Guide to Making Money Ghostwriting and Coauthoring Books (CreateSpace, 2010). She blogs about making more money in less time as a freelancer at http://dollarsanddeadlines.blogspot.com, and lives outside Chicago with her husband, son, daughter, and golden retriever. Visit http://www.becomebodywise.com for more information about her.

Follow these tips so you don't become a happy spammer.

1. Keep emails short, sweet, and not-too-frequent. Engage readers with informative content, but don’t overwhelm them with too much information or an encyclopedia-like email or they’ll just hit delete. Along the same lines, don’t bombard customers with a barrage of emails. Respect their time, and they’ll respect you.

2. Personalize your newsletter. Add a short note from an actual person at your company to alert customers to an amazing new product. Tell them about upcoming special events. But see tip #1 above: keep it short and sweet!

3. Promote your newsletter to customers. Train salespeople to ask every customer if they would like to sign up. It’s as simple as getting their email address! Remember, the bigger your email list, the bigger your loyal customer base.

4. Don’t sign people up without their permission. That’s just bad etiquette, and you stand to lose customers from negative word of mouth. Oh, and, don’t demand email addresses in the checkout line. Some retail stores make a practice of this, but it’s intrusive and offensive.

5. Ask customers to forward emails to interested friends. People just don’t think of things unless you ask. All it takes is one sentence at the bottom of the email. “Like our newsletters? Forward to a friend!”

6. Post your email newsletter content online. The more rich content on your website, the better you’ll do in web searches—another way to attract new customers. Include a “Share” button for social media.

7. Put a newsletter subscription form online. Make it easy for web visitors to sign up for your newsletter—but tell them what they’ll get each issue and how often: “Sign up for our biweekly Wine Line, with featured wine varietals, food pairings, and special deals!” No one wants to sign up for mystery emails, so be specific.

8. Tell staff about the current newsletter’s topic. If a customer comes in looking for a product you featured, employees should know exactly what they’re talking about.

9. Keep a regular schedule. Of course you’re busy, but marketing is not an expense or a time suck. It’s a necessary investment in your business. Failing to market may free up time temporarily, but in the long run you’ll lose more than you gain in customer share.

10. Choose your delivery date wisely. Do customers tend to purchase your product on a particular day? Time emails accordingly, or tie in with other media promotions like newspaper ads or Facebook posts.

As a storyteller who loves a good juicy quote, I couldn’t leave it off the front page of the website, could I? It’s raw, powerful, and real, especially in his line of business, which tends to be conservative, which hides behind messaging in which every company just sounds like another version of each other.

But the company took it out. They’re conservative. They didn’t want to be too “out there” on their website even if he’d said it, and even if it’s true.

I wasn’t surprised. Being different, taking a risk with authenticity, is putting a lot of money on the line. What if the customers think you’re too out there?

But then, which is riskier: being distinctive, or blending in?

Can you spot the grasshopper? He blends in well--good for the grasshopper, not good for business.

Good marketing focuses on showcasing the benefits of your products or service, but you can’t neglect the personal element. When I’m checking out potential providers and one hides behind the “we” wall and doesn’t say who “we” is, I move on. Marketing is not just selling. It’s building relationships. People do business with people, not with The Company.

Don't be headless...errr, faceless, on your website's About page.

Of course writing a bio is hard. Getting your photo taken is painful. Both are time-consuming. But they’re absolutely worth it, because they put you–not a generic company–in a position to start a relationship.

This label makes me feel more bitchy than happy.

A press release for Happy Bitch Rose just landed in my inbox, and while I have nothing against the wine per se, I’ll probably never find out if it’s any good–and I’ll certainly never recommend it in the wine pairings I write for Cooking Light and Wine Enthusiast.

Why?

Because it’s patronizing. Brands that develop a specific, brand-lite concept that’s dumbed down, (shudder) pink, light, and anti-intellectual say to women, “We don’t think you can handle the real thing, so we’ll create a lame version of a brand for you and hope it flies off the shelves since we talk about how you can get together with your girlfriends and use it while shoe-shopping, waiting in line for the bathroom, and taking your kids to soccer practice.”

In this specific example, marketing research does bear out the fact that a large number of women like sweet, light wines. I suppose the company thought “Happy Bitch” was edgy, but the name gets an F in my gradebook both for its vulgarity and the way it paints women. Sorry, but “bitchy” wine won’t make me plunk down my money or recommend it to my readers. It’s still widely known as an insult, even if the label stands out in the crowded marketplace of wines.

Now, some of this “pink” marketing works, or companies wouldn’t use it. Certain women respond well to labels featuring cupcakes and chocolate, bitchy wines, and the assumption that yogurt is the exclusive domain of females.

But not me.

And not the smart women I know.

Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That is why good ideas are always initially resisted. … Which is why most team members in any industry are far more concerned with the power relationships inside their immediate professional circle than with what may actually be interesting and useful for the customer.

I see this phenomenon all the time as an independent contractor working with companies and magazines. Professionals write their bios to impress their colleagues and competitors instead of to sell their clients and customers. Ad agencies create expensive commercials for their clients that have nothing to do with the product, but win advertising awards. Magazine editors one-up each other with the number and niggling nature of comments and questions on a perfectly-good article, just to prove that their input matters.

When I take on a project for a client or when I write a magazine or web article, I always have the end user in mind. Who is supposed to be reading this copy and taking action because of it? Whether that person is an executive at a Fortune 500 company looking for a vendor or a suburban mom who wants to know how to revamp her bathrooms, that’s the person who matters. And that’s who I write for.

Trendwatching.com’s March brief is on Flawsome. The word is simultaneously Awesome and Flawed (literally…it makes you shudder but is oh-so-descriptive).

The basis of Flawsome:

“Human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes.”

In other words, it’s better to have character and screw up than pose as a stiff, unyielding, nameless, faceless corporate brand and pretend to be perfect behind a wall of impenetrability.

Because people aren’t stupid. Give them a little credit. Be genuine, responsive, own your mistakes and shortcomings, and fix them.

It’s that hard, and it’s that easy.

Read Flawsome on Trendwatching.com for examples of companies who get Flawsome…and those who don’t.

1. Acting like a master instead of a servant. Communications departments exist to get the word out about what *everyone else* at the company is doing, not to control when and how they can tell the world about what they’re doing. Your purpose is to proactively find out what they’re doing and get the word out, reactively respond to requests for publicity when they ask for it, and strategically create an overarching message, brand, and plan that you execute in partnership with other departments. A bad sign: if other departments can’t get what they need from you and they begin sneaking around you to communicate with their customers and shareholders? You’re not doing your job.
2. Thinking you hold the keys to the kingdom. It’s laughable that in some organizations, even the president or vice president has a marketing department-imposed disclaimer on her communications that explains it’s only her opinion and nothing she says represents the organization, blah blah….zzzzz. If someone that high up on the totem pole can’t speak for the organization, you have the wrong people that high up on the totem pole, or else you have a power grab at work in your marketing department.
3. Making social media go through an approval process. Social media is about connecting–genuinely–with friends and fans. You don’t do that by running a potential status update past several layers of management. If you’re worried about making a faux pas online, join the club: so is every other organization in the world. The answer isn’t to delay social media communication, but to appoint select, trustworthy people who “get it” to be your social media spokespeople.
4. Putting your youngest, tech-savviest employee on social media. He may be a whiz at code or the latest and greatest hangouts for teens, but you need someone with a bit of accumulated wisdom and experience to represent your organization online. You don’t need layers of approval, but you don’t want inexperience, either. A happy solution is, again, to appoint select, trustworthy people who “get it” as your social media spokespeople.
5. Maintaining a stiff company line. Everyone knows when a company is spouting bull$*%&. When you’re backed into a corner, make the best of it, take the high road, but don’t pretend it’s not happening. Don’t hide behind passive sentence construction (“Mistakes were made, and insincere apologies proffered…”). And for the love of all that is compassionate, don’t let Legal cowtow you into creating a scapegoat and washing your company hands of it. People see right through those blame games. Own it, be real, and make it better. It’s the right thing to do and you know it.
6. Complicating everything. It’s not complicated. Don’t let it be. Develop a strategic, holistic communications plan for the organization as a whole that is visionary, anticipating where the company and its customers will go in the future. Then drill that plan down into individual brands, concepts, and products and tailor it. Finally, execute. Evaluate. Tweak. Overhaul if necessary. Find the magic connection between your company and its stakeholders and roll with it.

It doesn't have to be this complicated. Really.

Now, consider the opposite of these six “don’ts.” Marketing communications departments should serve the other departments and the company’s stakeholders promptly, humbly, proactively, and sincerely. No layers of bureaucracy, no power grabs, just fabulous service. Success stems from a good company culture. Aren’t you ready for that?

Nothing like throwing your marketing dollars right into the garbage disposal, eh?

Done well, content marketing engages your audience, whether that’s potential clients, customers, shareholders, or vendors. Done well, content marketing gives your audience confidence in your company, your product, your service.

The blog author notes that startups tend to excel at communication, because they have to engage or die. Ironic, since they’re often bootstrapping their marketing efforts. So what do startups have that established companies don’t?

Empty pockets, but a brain humming with ideas.

Passion, for one. They’ve started a company because they see a hole in the marketplace that needs to be filled, and they want to fill it. They communicate authentically with their customers because they feel it, and they really care. And they probably don’t have legal and finance breathing down their necks.

Energy…both creative and physical, to kick around ideas and take risks.

Most importantly, startups lack bureaucracy, that toxic black mold in a company that builds and feeds upon the weaknesses and egos in the company until almost nothing can be accomplished due to rules, regulations, red tape, and bitter workers.

The lesson: Want good content? Act like a startup.

What do these things have in common? A solid foundation of untold and unseen hours of blood, sweat, tears, engineering feats, and experience that underlies the “easy” end product. An elegant design that makes people appreciate the experience without having to articulate it. A lifeblood of energy and sophistication, nuance and charm.

Good writing isn’t easy. It only looks easy.