Positioning the practice and the materials that carry it
A freelance practice’s position defines what it offers and whom it serves. Its brand, bio, directory entry and writing samples communicate that position to prospective clients.
Market position and brand
A market position is how clients perceive a service and the place it is intended to hold in their minds. Defining a niche, or more than one niche, can help a practice focus its resources on the potential clients in that segment. A writer should identify their background, skills, deliverables and ability to take a project from conception to completion before defining the niche and developing its message. Relevant strengths can include therapeutic knowledge, pharmaceutical or device experience, regulatory affairs, interviewing and reporting, website design, statistical analysis, computer systems or videography.
A niche can combine complementary capabilities. For example, a partnership between a medical writer and editor trained in science journalism and a medical illustrator and animator offered communications from printed pieces to full-length three-dimensional animated video, with a broad niche in the digital expression of medical information. A new writer with specific knowledge can build a niche on existing strengths, however extensive those strengths are. One writer with a hospital-marketing background recognised healthcare marketing communications as a possible niche despite having a nonclinical background.
A freelance coach recommends a niche because it helps colleagues remember a writer when a suitable project arises and makes referrals easier. In that coach’s view, advertising ten services can suggest shallow expertise, while having no niche makes it harder to explain the practice, stand out and develop a distinct brand. Her recommendation is to start with one niche, or at most three, defined by audience, deliverable or therapeutic area, and make it visible throughout the branding. The bio, website, samples and descriptions of the practice should be consistent, because samples outside the advertised niche can confuse a client seeking expertise in that area.
A brand should make the practice memorable and fit who the writer is and what they do. Questions about the writer’s passions, motivation and existing associations can help identify it. Finding a brand takes time, and identifying the business in detail provides words and ideas for its identity. For example, a neuroscientist’s DendWrite Communications identity remained memorable to a workshop participant who had forgotten his name; the writer accepted the risk of wordplay because his marketing was confined to medical clients. An online writing and education business used both a business name and its owner’s personal name as brands, with a tagline presenting writing as a way of life.
Business branding concerns the way clients, prospects and colleagues perceive the business through its visual images and key messages. Personal branding overlaps with it but concerns behaviour and tone of voice online and in person, especially in networking. A business brand can give the practice a personality that evokes trust and helps clients think of it first in a crowded market.
The elements of a business brand are a logo, tagline, company name, tone of voice and colours. A logo can be a designed company name, and a company name can be the writer’s name and what they do. A tagline is a memorable phrase used with the logo to help the audience understand the service. Tone expresses the company’s values, personality and way of thinking, while the colour palette normally has a dominant colour and a secondary colour, sometimes with an accent. “Clarifying Complex Ideas” is an example of a tagline that describes making difficult material understandable.
A brand statement should concisely describe the services, target audiences or client types, and the practice’s distinguishing qualities before a designer is contacted. The positioning should reflect client needs, such as correct work and timely delivery, and the writer’s values and traits, such as dependability, efficiency and responsiveness. A quality need not be unique to be used as a distinction: one writer positioned her practice around targeted content delivered on time, while recognising that many other writers also did both. A brand-statement template joins the target audience, key services and distinguishing values or traits in a promise that the audience can count on.
Preparation for a designer should include examples of preferred logos, colours and images, and the intended tone of voice. A professional designer can help develop colours suitable for the web and print and a logo suitable for the website, email signature and business cards. Practitioner advice includes using a recommended professional designer, stating likes and dislikes honestly, being specific about what is wanted, trusting the designer and personal judgement, seeking feedback and avoiding prolonged indecision. A designer can recreate a preferred colour.
The company name, logo, message, tagline and contact details should appear on business correspondence and materials, including cards, email, invoices, receipts, handouts, cover letters and flyers. An email signature can carry a short, unobtrusive promotional pitch, and the same pitch can appear in a directory bio with a link to freely available website information.
An elevator pitch of about thirty seconds, or fifty words, should identify the writer and service, explain the benefit to the client and say what the prospective client should do next. Identifying the problem that keeps the client awake and how the service resolves it can help state the benefit. Describing the work succinctly and engagingly takes preparation and practice. An authentic, relaxed approach can help establish a connection, while a hard sell can suggest desperation.
Bios and directory entries
A freelance coach recommends that a bio make four things clear: writing ability, understanding of the subject, being enjoyable to work with and reliability. Personality can remain, but personal history and motivation should not crowd out those elements. Talking with experienced writers, mentors or coaches about hiring and referrals can help a new writer understand what clients look for.
Directory entries should describe experience in medical communication and freelancing, relevant document types and genuine therapeutic expertise, without overloading the description with areas the writer understands only superficially. They should explain what distinguishes the writer, make claims such as flexibility specific and demonstrate professionalism through testimonials or references who can attest to working well with others. A directory summary should be short and focused on clients. Inexperience need not be concealed: some clients prefer newer freelances and some will pay them close to experienced writers’ or editors’ rates.
In 2010 the AMWA Freelance Directory description field allowed more than a million characters, with room for services, formal and continuing education and professional-association participation. Its directory committee recommended treating the entry as an engaging sales piece rather than simply buying a listing. In 2009 its description editor allowed formatted text and HTML editing, and many members used the flexibility to make entries resemble résumés and personalise their presentation.
For remote approaches, a writer should have an up-to-date CV, a brief experience summary and a list of written or published articles ready to distribute.
Choice of marketing materials
Practitioners differ about the minimum materials a freelance needs. One regards a business card and a brochure as potentially helpful, a website as possibly more useful, and a résumé as sufficient otherwise. Another would prioritise a website over cards or a brochure and advises paying enough for cards to look professional. A third recommends always carrying cards because prospective clients or referrers may be encountered unexpectedly, considers a brochure unnecessary for a sole proprietor, and would put the money into association participation. Another proposed minimum is a card, samples and a website containing the résumé, with advertising, brochures and flyers as optional additions and all materials available electronically.
Marketing materials should target one audience, so writers with several service lines may need separate résumés or brochures, such as pieces for continuing medical education, manuscripts, magazine writing and meeting coverage. The method should also fit the writer’s style. One practitioner regards a well-designed card as essential because it signals commitment, leaves something after a meeting and is easy to carry, but regards a brochure as optional. He displayed association membership on his card and letterhead to add credibility when starting out. Brochures should be succinct, readable and professionally designed and printed; a writer without promotional-writing skills can hire a specialist to help.
Writing samples
Writing samples show prospective clients what the writer can produce. They also let writers practise producing the quality clients expect and can build confidence in describing and sustaining the practice. A freelance coach reports that some new writers seeking business support first need substantial work on their writing before their samples reach a standard clients would accept.
That coach recommends two strong samples aligned with the niche and reviewed by an honest, unbiased industry expert, because a large collection can make relevant work difficult to find. Feedback should develop the writer’s own ability: a sample improved beyond what the writer can reproduce for a client promises more than they can deliver. Samples can be hosted on the website and sent directly on request. An extract can work, although the coach usually suggests a complete document of about one thousand words, with fifteen hundred as a maximum. An article can demonstrate writing for the intended audience on a relevant topic, appropriate referencing, grammar, flow, structure and a call to action. Infographics or other formats can be used when they represent the intended work, but need not complicate a sample whose purpose is to show writing ability and topic understanding.
Sample development can start with the audience, what would be valuable to it and one specific point to convey, before searching for evidence. Depending on the piece, material can come from an interesting review paper, literature searches, open-access papers or interviews with patients or healthcare providers. A large blog archive can obscure the niche and the work a prospect should see, so a website can provide a clearer home for selected samples.
When the requested subject is unfamiliar, a sample on a comparable topic can demonstrate writing skill and familiarity with the field’s language, such as another cancer type when ovarian-cancer experience is requested. Sending a draft rather than, or alongside, the published version can show what the writer delivers before client editing.
A well-written professional profile and website can themselves serve as writing samples. Unpaid articles for association journals, chapter newsletters, blogs or other groups, and some workshop assignments, can provide samples relevant to target clients. Articles or advertisements for local, neighbourhood or special-interest publications can also help build a portfolio, and publication directories or chamber-of-commerce listings can identify outlets. Journal articles written as a bench scientist or graduate student may already provide usable samples. Portfolios can also include conference posters, newspaper articles and newsletter articles.
A spec sample demonstrates a type of work the writer has not yet been hired to do. The writer can review good examples, create a similar document for a pretend client, cover only part of a large project and label the result clearly as a spec sample. Examples include a review manuscript based on a literature search, a promotional brochure, product monograph, slide presentation, video script, website text or consumer piece. Professional medical editing can help make such a sample suitable for prospects by identifying details the writer misses.
Confidential samples cannot be supplied without appropriate permission. A writer can ask trusted clients for permission to use older work; one practitioner found that work several years old was often approved and published work was especially easy to supply. Where relevant samples cannot ethically be shown, the writer can explain that the same confidentiality commitment would protect the prospect’s work and offer contact with a client who has agreed to give a recommendation. A writer unsure how to demonstrate confidential regulatory experience can ask experienced regulatory freelances what has worked for them, since hiring differs from medical marketing.
Existing clients’ trust can help a writer obtain unfamiliar kinds of projects, particularly in a familiar therapeutic area; the writer can ask for such opportunities rather than waiting for them. Another practitioner suggestion is a one-time reduced rate to gain experience and a sample in a new kind of writing, while generally discouraging free work.