Transitioning into copywriting - am I doing it right?
Just looking for some advice. I'm a freelance health & fitness journalist and I've written for lots of major publications (a couple of newspapers, lots of magazines, BBC, various others). I'm looking to diversify my income streams and trying to pick up some copywriting gigs (also, it pays so much better and journalism is sadly not in a good way right now). And basically, I'm not 100% sure if I'm going the right way.
I've started cold emailing relevant marketing/content managers of health and fitness brands but haven't got any responses. I've literally started this week so I'm well aware I need to be patient but don't want to waste my time if ppl think this is a terrible way to try and locate work.
I also have a lot of PR contacts who work in various health and fitness agencies, but the content/marketing team tends to be very separate (often in-house marketing with PR agencies)... So could contacting PRs a good route?
Would also love to know standard rates (in the UK). Have done some Googling but when I compared to what Google/ChatGPT thinks is average for journalism (It thinks it's waaaaay higher than what I think), I'm just not sure if a day rate should be like £350 or if that's extortionate (or really cheap??).
For context, I have about 5 years journo experience, lot's of big titles and writing in this field and have done some copywriting in the past including newsletters, blog posts etc.
TL;DR - is cold pitching a waste of time? And what's the going rate these days?