So, we have already covered not only the basics of promoting, creating a portfolio and communicating with potential clients of you as a freelance designer, but also how writing blogs can help you, and promotion channels such as social networks, email marketing and referrals from clients, relatives and friends. . We propose to go further and explore another 20 and 1 way.
Connections
Building connections is a critical aspect for any business.
1. Attend local events.
You will be able to find new customers in your area if you visit exhibitions, fairs, etc.
2. Conduct a seminar or master class.
You can also host a seminar or workshop that can introduce you to potential clients. The topic of a seminar could be, for example, "Effective Internet Presence for Small and Medium Businesses". Do not use your seminar as an advertisement for your services, but rather demonstrate your level of knowledge of the subject!
3. Offer free webinars.
Hosting Webinars is a great way to build connections outside of your city. As in the previous case, you should not advertise your services. Demonstrate your expert level.
4. Respond promptly to inquiries.
As soon as someone contacts you, whether by phone or email, respond as quickly as possible. Potential clients want to work with people who are easy to “get through” to, and not whose response must be waited several days. When a potential client contacts you, it indicates his interest, and if he cannot get through to you, he will simply move on to another designer.
5. Talk to potential customers on the phone.
Email - good way communications, but many clients in a certain moment want to talk to you on the phone. Even short call makes the client feel connected to you.
6. Meet local customers in person.
Personal meetings with local clients can help you sell your services.
Advertising
Pay-per-click advertisements such as Google AdWords, allow you to easily advertise your services to your target audience. You can customize ads by search queries, keywords and phrases, location, and more. A local PPC campaign can be surprisingly affordable. It's also quite flexible because you can pause or end it when you have enough work to do.
Stock sites
Creating graphics or templates for sale on special sites is not only an alternative income, but also a way to attract customers.
9. Sell site templates and offer customization services.
You can sell WordPress site templates and offer customization services. You can list templates for sale on sites like themeforest.net or sell them yourself. The first option is preferable if you are not ready to take the time to create your own audience, and it also allows you to quickly access a large audience.
Also own templates sites can become Starting point for potential clients working on a small budget. Instead of refusing to work, you can offer them a modified template that you made. It will take you less time than doing a full-fledged project from scratch, and save the customer money.
10. Use free templates and graphic elements to drive traffic.
In addition to selling graphics and templates, you can give them away for free to drive visitors to your site. Quality free resources always attract traffic from design blogs and social networks where links are placed. If you are in this moment if you don't have a lot of followers, contact the authors of the design blogs and ask for a link to your materials.
11. Turn on your best work in portfolio.
If there are few works in your portfolio, place your templates and other materials in it.
you as a brand
Promoting yourself as a brand is a great way to get more customers.
12. Specialize.
Instead of just offering design services, consider your specialization. There are many possibilities. If you are a web designer, you may specialize in a particular project, for example, or you may specialize in a particular type of project. For example, you can specialize in a specific audience, such as photographers, restaurants, and other types of businesses.
Specialization allows you to focus on your "ideal client" and become an expert. This doesn't mean you can't take on other clients, just that specialization will help your marketing and make you stand out from other designers.
13. Become an expert.
If you can become an authority or an expert in some area, people will want to work with you. For example, if you are known as a top WordPress website developer, clients will want to hire you when they are looking for someone to contact with their project.
To become an expert, you can blog about WordPress, write articles for other WordPress sites, write e-book on the same topic, take part in a WordPress conference, etc.
14. MasterCMS.
There are many CMS and platforms that can bring customers to you. For example, the e-commerce platforms Shopify and BigCommerce have a base of developers and designers that can be hired to deliver projects.
If you master some CMS or platform, you can be on the list of experts and get orders. Also, mastering a certain CMS or platform gives you a specialization that you can use in your marketing.
Be active
Some of the methods described above work to ensure that potential customers can find you. There are times when you get top scores if you are active.
15. Make cold calls to clients.
If you're looking for new clients, sometimes it's best to call them directly. You can look for small companies whose websites need work or no websites at all.
16. Write emails to potential clients.
You can also contact potential customers by email. In many cases, find out telephone number easier than an address Email but still worth a try. Many companies receive a lot of spam from their contact forms, so you won't get a response often. But if you get through to the right person, you might get a client.
17. Offer Additional services to their past and present clients.
Your past and present clients are also target audience. Instead of trying to find new clients, you can increase the amount of work you can do for each client. Keeping in touch with your past clients is a good practice. You can start providing new service, contact them and offer it. For example, you specialize in web design. In addition to the development of the site, you can offer the client the development of business cards, letterheads, etc.
18. Offer regular services.
One of the best ways to avoid having to constantly look for work is to provide regular services to your existing clients. This may include site maintenance, management accounts in in social networks, email marketing, hosting, etc.
19. Keep up to date with past clients.
Keep track of what is happening with customers on sites in their industry. Look for what you can offer them.
20. Make special offers.
You can run limited time special offer. For example, offer a discount on a new service.
21. Identify possible obstacles.
When negotiating with potential customers who are slow to make a decision, try to identify what is the obstacle and find ways to resolve them. If the barrier is price, you can show them that the project is beneficial to them, and the orders attracted through it will cover the cost of the work. You can also offer a smaller set of services, on which you will spend less time, and customers - money.
A good web designer is primarily distinguished by artistic taste and creativity - no one argues with this. But in order to turn this occupation into a reliable source of income, the ability to draw beautiful pictures not enough: you have to be not only a creator, but also an entrepreneur, promote your business, study marketing techniques and apply them in practice.
In general, when it comes to marketing, web designers have undeniable advantage: they have a good understanding of what a marketing brief is and have probably worked on projects related to branding and promotion on the Internet. True, when it comes to developing your own brand, it often turns out that the experience you have is still not quite what you need.
1. Do good online portfolio
it The best way demonstrate to the customer what you can do and what projects you have worked on. should be beautifully designed, arouse interest and desire to see all your work. Do not spare time and effort on this task, a portfolio for a web designer is a vital thing, because it is by it that a potential client determines whether you are the person he needs.
2. Show work in different styles
Choose the best work for the portfolio, but do not forget that they should be different. By publishing work, for example, exclusively for musicians, you automatically position yourself as a niche designer. This is not bad at all for people with experience, but it is better for beginners not to narrow their profile, but to work on different tasks and in different industries.
Quite an obvious step, but web designers often have no idea what exactly needs to be done, because they are selling some kind of ephemeral service, not art. Difficult task, yes. We understand you well, as we ourselves promote the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating self-made sites and face similar difficulties. You can check out our accounts at Instagram and Pinterest, and see what we do and what we think of ways to promote.
Collect customer reviews and publish them in a special section of the site along with links and screenshots of the project. Honest reviews build trust, and trust is very important.
5. Write fast in popular blog
Thousands of people want to get into web design, and you already know something and can do it. Share your experience! Write a meaningful post and submit it to a good online design resource. Free, but with a link to the author. Publications in specialized publications indicate that you are a professional, and at the same time help to raise the position of your site in search results.
6. Get some work done on the public beginnings
Suggest free services congenial organization, movement and make a website, landing page or other work. This is a plus for karma, a mention in the credits and another worthy project in your portfolio.
Many, not knowing how to promote an interior design studio, have tried all kinds of website advertising options: posting ads, offline advertising, registering in catalogs, Yandex Direct, etc. Standard techniques and methods for promoting services that, in the current conditions of fierce competition, are either gradually losing their effectiveness or completely stop working.
Today, only those who use the following techniques to promote the site of a design studio on the Internet receive a return: placing advertising on specialized portals and sites, creating site content, developing additional sites, promoting a site in search engines etc. But, it should be noted that only professionals can do such work.
Formation of competent website content
Before you start promoting the studio website, you need to prepare the content of the resource with texts and high-quality illustrative material. After all, the site must constantly evolve. Now take a look at your own website – when was the last time you updated your portfolio or wrote news? Does your site answer all the questions of potential customers? Does the design of the site convince the client of your competence?
Placement on specialized portals and websites
Here, absolutely any options are welcome - from registration on specialized portals to placing direct advertising banners. In a word, whatever you want! But this is not about placing ordinary links, but about an active and systematic PR company with the help of visited sites.
Development of additional sites
A possible addition may be the development of additional sites, both separate subdomains of the main resource (for example, for the presentation of projects or services), and the creation of various Internet projects. Such projects can be of great benefit to the main site and serve to attract visitors. We are talking about creating your own grid of satellite sites.
Website promotion in search engines
In the development of any resource, an undoubted advantage is the promotion of the site in search engines. And here, most of the customers will be received by those who fall into the very first ten search engine results.
Just a thought...
For two weeks I have been trying to understand and draw up some objective criteria for the quality of the work of designers.
I looked through a large number of sites of different companies, studios, bureaus, etc. and I formed an outside manager's opinion of the design business. So far, it is based only on the sites, your answers in the conference and those commercial offers that I received. I myself will be interested in how it will change after face-to-face meetings with designers.
Conventionally, sites are divided into 3 types:
Business card site. This is a site that simply says that you are.
Promo site. A website that helps you sell. Each company can several promo sites that perform certain functions when searching the Internet for special requests. I did not find any promo site in design.
Information site. The most suitable option for your business.
So, we take an average design company.
So 95% of design sites are business cards. It only has beautiful pictures. Moreover, as the designers themselves said- pictures may be strangers.
Yes, your sites differ from ordinary professional sites in beauty and individuality. This is, of course, part of your profession. And I myself threw several sites into my piggy bank, in which I collect non-standard and originality.
Only the choice of the client in this case is emotional, according to appearance and therefore subjective.
But for business it is not enough. Therefore, I had a question, who is the director in your business.
And it turned out that the designer and the director are one and the same person. Because they themselves with a mustache, and money is a pity.
The next question that arose for me: how do you look for clients? In response, there is only one clear answer to me - recommendations.
I frantically looking for friends of my friends who recently made repairs. And I need not cosmetic repair in the apartment, and to build a house)). The circle shrinks sharply. But I will definitely I will find it through third parties. And this is the only intelligible channel for promoting a design service, which is very subjective.
At the present time, when the market has narrowed and correspondingly competition has increased, as soon as there are firms that will hire professional commercial directors, they will immediately gain an undeniable competitive advantage.
As I understand it, even one client brought by him per month will pay off his salary. And I do not understand the answer that there is distrust in the manager, because he will not be able to properly negotiate.
Friends, you forget that professional managers - identifying needs, negotiating and removing objections are the basis of the profession, they learned this, in contrast from specialists designers.
For additional promotion and control You can negotiate together. The manager leads the contractual processes, and the designer sits next to answer questions about the project. If the manager has a percentage of the contract amount, he will never infringe on your interests.
This is often done by large training companies. Two people go to negotiate with corporate clients: a manager and a trainer. The effect of receiving an order is doubled.
By the way, I also looked at the builders' websites. There is a slightly different picture. The sites often clearly show the concept of a construction company, clear positioning and a lot of necessary information for right choice client. Again, this is an average construction company.
As I said, this is a rather superficial view of the design business. And it will change as my project develops. I wonder which way?
Friends, where am I wrong here?))