Marketing Archives

The art of content marketing – Captivate!

A few months ago I went to collect a friend from hospital. Arriving early, I entered the waiting room and noticed in-house magazines stacked by the door. I picked one up, grabbed a coffee and took a seat.

The magazine read like a very long press release, blabbering on about patient-centric care and employee awards. I was quickly bored, so I read from my phone instead. The magazine failed in its purpose.

Effective content marketing holds people’s attention. It gives you a distinctive brand, loyal fans and increased sales. You don’t need a big budget to succeed, which is why good content marketing is the single best way to beat bigger competitors online.

Content marketing used to be about customer magazines and mailed newsletters. Now it covers blogs, email newsletters, eBooks, white papers, articles, videos and more. In this article, you will learn about content marketing techniques that you can apply to your business.

Captivate

Give your content more personality. Captivate your audience with stories and characters that will draw them in and keep them coming back.

Tell a Story

Telling a story is a great way to connect with readers. According to a number of studies summed up by Rob Gill of Swinburne University of Technology, telling stories can be useful in corporate communication. Storytelling is fundamental to human interaction, and it can make your content more compelling and your brand more engaging.

Citing Annette Simmons’ The Story Factor, Rob says this: “It is believed people receiving the narration often come to the same conclusion as the narrator, but through using their own decision-making processes.” Told through a story, a message becomes more personal and relevant. The reader is also more likely to remember what was said.

Rand Fishkin is the co-founder and CEO of SEOmoz. Instead of sharing only positive accounts of his business, he also writes about difficulties such as his failed attempt to raise capital:

Michelle was the first to note that something was “odd.” In a phone call with Neil, she heard him comment that they “needed to do more digging into the market.” In her opinion, this was very peculiar.… Tuesday morning we got the call; no deal.

An email shared by Rand Fishkin in his post about SEOmoz’s attempt to raise funding.

Brands need stories, and stories need people, suspense, conflicts and crises. By reading SEOmoz’s content, and seeing both the positive and negative, you become immersed in its story.

Ikea is another example of a brand that tells stories that generate opinions about its company. For instance, it plays up its Swedish roots and paints a romantic image of a wholesome and natural society. Its website is full of stories that contribute to this effect.

A survey conducted by the B2B Technology Marketing Community showed that around 82% of LinkedIn users found that telling a story through case studies was the most effective form of content marketing.

Sometimes you’ll want to use anecdotes to make a point, and sometimes you’ll write a post or tweet to build a narrative. When you’re cultivating a story, keep the information simple, and don’t be afraid to repeat points here and there; some readers might have missed what you said before.

Always mix interesting stories with useful information; fail to do this and your audience will feel you’re wasting their time.

Use Real People

Think of your favorite writers. You’ve probably seen their photos and heard them speak. Likewise, people need to see and hear your employees, so use pictures, audio and video. This will bring your audience closer to your brand.

Jakob Nielsen has studied people’s reactions to images online. He used eye-tracking software to discover that people ignore images that seem decorative, random or generic. They even ignore generic images of people. But when they come across a photo of a “real” person, they engage with it for a longer time.

People prefer to get involved with a company with which they feel a personal connection. But introduce your employees gradually; as with any story, introduce too many characters too early and you’ll confuse your audience.

by martin

The art of content marketing – Teach!

Content analysis, Marketing, Usability

A few months ago I went to collect a friend from hospital. Arriving early, I entered the waiting room and noticed in-house magazines stacked by the door. I picked one up, grabbed a coffee and took a seat.

The magazine read like a very long press release, blabbering on about patient-centric care and employee awards. I was quickly bored, so I read from my phone instead. The magazine failed in its purpose.

Effective content marketing holds people’s attention. It gives you a distinctive brand, loyal fans and increased sales. You don’t need a big budget to succeed, which is why good content marketing is the single best way to beat bigger competitors online.

Content marketing used to be about customer magazines and mailed newsletters. Now it covers blogs, email newsletters, eBooks, white papers, articles, videos and more. In this article, you will learn about content marketing techniques that you can apply to your business.

Teach

Think about what your audience wants. People want to hear answers and to learn something new, so give them what they want.

Give Answers

Content marketing needs to offer practical advice that people can use. Readers have been trained to expect answers on the Web, and yet so much content fails to deliver.

Consider FeeFighters, a comparison website for credit card processing. One of its blog posts, Do You Know What Makes Up Your Credit Score?, talks about the factors that affect your credit score. Instead of offering abstract advice and concepts, the post provides practical tips for improving your credit score:

Area #2: Your Credit Utilization Ratio

The second largest determining factor in what makes up your score is the amount of credit that you have available to you in relationship to how much of that credit you’ve used. This accounts for 30 percent of your credit score. The optimal rate is 30 percent, which means that if you have $10,000 in credit available to you, you should only be using about $3,000 of it. One trap that some people fall into is believing that if they max out their credit cards every month and then pay them off at the end of the month, they’ll build their credit. But since that gives them a 100 percent credit utilization ratio, and that ratio accounts for 30 percent of their overall credit score, they’re really doing more harm than good.

Say or Do Something New

Most content is boring and unoriginal, which is good for you. It makes it easier to beat your competitors.

You can make your content interesting by doing something new, without necessarily saying something new. For instance, you could write a comprehensive article on a topic that has only piecemeal information scattered across the Web. Or you could use a different format for a topic that gets the same treatment; rather than writing the fiftieth blog post on a topic, shoot the first video.

You can also make your content interesting by saying something new. An infographic by Rate Rush compares the popularity of Digg to Reddit, creatively combining a bar graph and clock to present the data. Although Rate Rush is a personal finance website, with little connection to social news, its staff researched a topic they were interested in and drew attention by putting it to imaginative use.

Our agency also researches things that we find interesting, and this has been a great source of content. In 2010, we polled around 1000 iPad owners to find out how consumers use the device. It led to a slew of media attention.

You can do the same. Come up with an original idea to research, and then undertake a study. Also look into studies that your business has done in the past, because interesting stuff might be lying around. One of our clients looked through her company’s research archive and found amazing material. She didn’t spend any money on research but got a lot of great content, links and media coverage.

by martin

The art of content marketing – Persuade!

Content analysis, Marketing, Usability

A few months ago I went to collect a friend from hospital. Arriving early, I entered the waiting room and noticed in-house magazines stacked by the door. I picked one up, grabbed a coffee and took a seat.

The magazine read like a very long press release, blabbering on about patient-centric care and employee awards. I was quickly bored, so I read from my phone instead. The magazine failed in its purpose.

Effective content marketing holds people’s attention. It gives you a distinctive brand, loyal fans and increased sales. You don’t need a big budget to succeed, which is why good content marketing is the single best way to beat bigger competitors online.

Content marketing used to be about customer magazines and mailed newsletters. Now it covers blogs, email newsletters, eBooks, white papers, articles, videos and more. In this article, you will learn about content marketing techniques that you can apply to your business.

Persuade

Your content should be persuasive. Pay close attention to how you speak and what you say.

Use Simple Language

Take the question below on Yahoo! Answers. To “sound intelligent,” this person would like to know “big words that replace everyday small words.”

Many people make this mistake. They use language that is unnecessarily complicated, usually to show off or to sound corporate and professional.

“Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all,” said Winston Churchill. So, don’t talk about “taking a holistic view of a company’s marketing strategy to deliver strategic insights, precise analysis and out-of-the-box thinking.”

Prefer “make” to “manufacture,” and “use” to “utilize.” While “quantitative easing” offers precision to economists, your personal finance audience would prefer “print money.”

Lauren Keating has studied the effect of scientific language on the persuasiveness of copy. She found that most people respond best to advertisements that contain no scientific language. People found them more readable and persuasive, and they felt more willing to buy the product. Lauren’s conclusion was clear: copy needs to be plain and simple.

Have Opinions

Interesting people have opinions, and interesting brands are the same. Look at the amazing work of new search engine DuckDuckGo. It has positioned itself as the antithesis of Google, launching websites that criticize how the search giant tracks you and puts you in a bubble. The strategy is paying off: DuckDuckGo is seeing explosive growth.

DuckDuckGo is an alternative search engine that breaks you out of your Filter Bubble.

While this strategy is perfect for defeating a big incumbent, you don’t have to be openly hostile to your competitors. You can say what you think without mentioning their names.

Bear in mind that people are ideologically motivated. Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler’s study, “When Corrections Fail”, describes the “backfire effect” of trying to correct people’s deeply held beliefs. The authors found that contradicting people’s misconceptions actually strengthened those opinions. If people see you as an ideological ally (like a political party), they are more likely to agree with you on other issues — even ideologically inconsistent or non-ideological ones. You can use your opinions to attract people to your company: converting the agnostic or validating the views of allies.

As a small-scale brewer, for example, you might have a strong opinion on ale, believing in craft over mass production. You might think the market is dominated by big businesses that sacrifice quality for quantity. In this situation, you could use content marketing to talk about the best way to make beer. By stressing how seriously you take the development of your product, you communicate your opinion to those who share it without directly criticizing your competitors.

Think politically: consider the popularity of your views and whether they will attract media coverage. Ideally, your opinions should be bold and popular.

Sell the Benefits

In the same way that you sell your products and services, tell your audience the benefits of your content. This technique is essential if your audience doesn’t know what it wants.

PaperlessPipeline is a transaction management and document storage app for real estate brokers. Its founder, Dane Maxwell, had a creative idea to sell his product. The biggest problem for real estate brokers is recruiting. So, Dane invited them to a webinar titled “Recruiting Secrets of the 200-Plus Agent Office in Tennessee.” Brokers didn’t even know they needed to manage transactions, so he didn’t mention it in the invitation.

Paperless Pipeline takes your real estate transactions and related documents online—without changing how you work.

In the webinar, he introduced PaperlessPipeline and explained how it enables brokers to recruit more agents. The webinar attracted 120 guests, and “16 ended up buying at the end,” said Dane in an interview with Mixergy.

Imagine you run a company that develops technology for mobile phones, and you want to promote a new femtocell that boosts mobile reception in public spaces and rural areas. This technology could be valuable to people who want to improve mobile reception, but those people might not have heard of it.

So, instead of promoting the technology directly, offer content that focuses on the benefits. By using benefit-focused copy, you immediately tell the reader what’s in it for them.

by martin

The art of content marketing – Prepare!

Content analysis, Marketing

A few months ago I went to collect a friend from hospital. Arriving early, I entered the waiting room and noticed in-house magazines stacked by the door. I picked one up, grabbed a coffee and took a seat.

The magazine read like a very long press release, blabbering on about patient-centric care and employee awards. I was quickly bored, so I read from my phone instead. The magazine failed in its purpose.

Effective content marketing holds people’s attention. It gives you a distinctive brand, loyal fans and increased sales. You don’t need a big budget to succeed, which is why good content marketing is the single best way to beat bigger competitors online.

Content marketing used to be about customer magazines and mailed newsletters. Now it covers blogs, email newsletters, eBooks, white papers, articles, videos and more. In this article, you will learn about content marketing techniques that you can apply to your business.

Prepare

Before creating content, you need to prepare. Think about your tone and style, where to find the best writers and how to organize your workflow.

Tone and Style

Too many companies start writing content before their brand has a defined voice. This leads to inconsistency. It’s like using one logo in your brochure, another on your website and another on your blog.

When speaking with people, you see their expressions and you adjust your tone accordingly. In a meeting, when you see that someone is confused, you clarify meaning, simplify sentences and speak reassuringly. The Web offers no feedback until your content is published, and then it’s too late.

To get the right tone, think of the person who best represents your brand. The person could be fictional or real, and they may or may not work for you. Now think of adjectives that describe them. Once you know what you want, provide clear details and practical examples.

Let’s say you run a travel agency that markets to young independent travelers. You want your representative to sound experienced, helpful and friendly. Try using a table like the one below to delineate what your adjectives do and don’t mean:

	Experienced	Helpful	Friendly
Does mean…	Knowledgeable Write with authority, as though the knowledge was gained first hand.	Efficient Explain things clearly and positively. Make sure all relevant information is obvious and accessible.	Personal Use informal language, and write as though you are talking to one person, rather than a broad customer base.
Does not mean…	Condescending You know a lot but don’t talk down to your customers. They probably know a lot too.	Pushy Promote your company, but not at the expense of good service. Always have your reader’s wants in mind.	Unprofessional Make sure there are no grammar or spelling mistakes. Proofread carefully.

You’ll also need a style guide, so that your authors write consistently. Should you use title case in headings? Are contractions appropriate? Check out The Yahoo! Style Guide for ideas.

Picking Content Creators

Don’t pick the wrong people to create your content. It’s hard for a non-technical person to pick the best Web developer, and it’s the same with content marketing. You need to know about content creation in order to judge other people’s abilities. Some people suggest making everyone in your company a content creator, but this is a bad idea. Not everyone can be a good accountant, secretary or rocket scientist, and the same applies here. To succeed, you should pick the best.

Ask everyone who wants to be a content creator to write a sample blog post. Then you can find the best few people. Some might not be able to write but have interesting ideas. In this case, you’ll need someone to edit their copy. Perhaps you want to raise the profile of a particular staff member. If they can’t write, have someone ghostwrite for them.

Workflow

Some companies have a simple workflow: one person does everything. The person researches, writes and publishes without any input from others. This model can work, but you’ll see more success with a workflow that enables other people to take part. Have different people write, edit and proofread. It’s a good way to catch mistakes and to bring more ideas into the process. Think about the best process for each type of content. One person might be enough for a tweet, whereas four to six people might be ideal for an eBook.

Imagine you’ve got a well-staffed company that is putting together a B2B white paper. You could organize your workflow like this:

An example of how to organize your workflow in a well-staffed company.

by martin

How Inbound Marketing Works? The Process

Digital marketing, Marketing

Inbound marketing is no cakewalk. Marketers who are embracing inbound have a variety of different channels and tactics to master, including content creation, SEO, social media, lead generation, lead management, and analytics. It’s no wonder that marketers new to inbound end up feeling overwhelmed and wondering what to tackle first.

Luckily, our friends over at inbound marketing agency IMPACT Branding & Design recently pulled together an infographic that helps inbound marketers understand the entire inbound process from start to finish — from getting found online, to converting visitors into leads and customers, and then measuring the entire funnel. Well done, IMPACT, you captured the inbound process beautifully!

by martin

7 reasons no one shares your blog

Blogging, Ideas, Inspiration, Marketing

Ever write a blog post, hit publish, and feel like all you hear are crickets? If your content isn’t remarkable, it’s not shareable. Search is social. So whether or not your content gets shared makes a huge difference in your blog’s traffic and lead generation.

People share content for a variety of reasons. A recent study from the NY Times’ Consumer Insight Group (CIG) looked into why people share content online. Among the variety of motivations was a desire to define ourselves to others with the content we share as well as a desire to grow and nurture relationships by sharing entertaining or interesting content. Is your content interesting and entertaining enough for people to want to associate their personal brands with it? If not, you better re-think your approach and consider these 7 tips.

7 Reasons No One Shares Your Blog Posts

1. Your Headline Sucks

Your headline is the most important part of your post because it’s your first impression. It’s what people see in big, bold text when your blog post shows up in search engine results.
It’s also what they see when your content is tweeted and shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. So without a great headline, few people will get that initial intrigue that makes them want to click through and check out your post. Write great headlines that are descriptive but also spark a sense of urgency. And don’t be afraid to try a funny or snarky one, too. Grab their attention with the headline, and hook them with the great content behind it.

2. Your Timing Is Off

Blog posts published in the morning generate the greatest number of page views, especially when targeting women. Do you know your audience, and do you know when to deliver your content in order to get the best results? Get the insight you need to create more shareable content. Survey your audience and ask when they prefer to read your content, or dig into your audience analytics to get the information you need. And remember: planning ahead is key. Creating and maintaining a blog editorial calendar will prepare you to have content to publish each morning, versus constantly playing catch up and publishing posts in the late afternoon after you wrote them that day.

3. You Don’t Have “Regulars”

You want your blog to be like Cheers — where everyone knows your name. You want your posts to spark a conversation and to ignite an interest that keeps people coming back for more.

A great way to develop a relationship with your audience is by being attentive to blog comments. Spark a conversation on your blog by discussing recent industry events or asking for your readers’ perspectives on new research. It’s all about the writing style and balancing your point of view as the expert opinion and being a participant in the conversation. To get the comments rolling, make the content useful and thought provoking, and “reward” your commenters by responding. If you generate a group of regulars who always come back to read your blog content, chances are good they’re also regularly sharing and evangelizing your content, too.

4. You Write About Yourself

Your company is interesting to you. It’s also interesting to your mom. So she might subscribe to a blog full of company party photos, product feature updates, and long essays written from your point of view. But is your mom your target audience?

When readers are visiting your blog for the first time, they don’t care about you yet. Make them care by addressing the topics they want to learn and talk about. How-to articles and lists of tips and resources are good formats to begin with.

5. Your Posts Are All the Same

Ever listen to a band and every one of their songs sounds the same? Boring! Change up the format of the content with charts, infographics, videos, photos, and other visuals to keep people coming back for more. If you look at Social Media Examiner‘s posts, you’ll see how they break up the text with different visuals, headings, and bold text. Break up your content to make it easier to consume so you get more people to read it and more people to share it.

6. You Ramble

If there isn’t a clear takeaway from your content, people don’t have a key point or reason to share it with their friends and followers. Long paragraphs full of allegory, symbolism, adjectives, and adverbs are best saved for English class. Cut to the chase, and make the lessons from your content loud and clear.

7. You Make it Difficult to Share

It’s surprising to me how many blogs don’t have social sharing buttons. It’s easy to get caught up in selecting the perfect design or theme and then forget about the obvious, functional elements likes social media buttons or “subscribe by email” widgets. Have at least a simple design that looks clean, but first get the basic features on your blog and get a content plan in line. Then go crazy with design.

by martin

11 facts about marketing for freelancers

Marketing

When most designers consider making the move to freelance work they typically consider things like their specific skills and the potential freedom and flexibility that comes with freelancing. While those things are important it’s also critical that freelancers are able to find enough work to stay busy and to earn a living, and that usually requires some effort in marketing.

In this post we’ll take a look at some facts about marketing for freelance designers. If you’re considering moving into freelancing hopefully this information will help in your preparation. If you’re already freelancing and looking to get more out of your marketing efforts the article should be a help to you as well.

1. Time You Spend on Marketing is Time Lost for Designing

Marketing is a necessary part of running a business, but it’s important to keep in mind that your design work is the primary focus of your business. In an ideal situation you will develop some passive marketing methods that can bring new clients to you without the need for you to dedicate a lot of time to finding clients. The goal is to minimize the amount of time that you spend on marketing efforts so that you can dedicate more of your time for designing and for taking care of your clients. Most designers would prefer to not have to spend a lot of time on marketing anyway since doing the design work is the motivation for entering the industry in the first place.

There are plenty of methods for marketing your services and finding new clients, but some of them require much more time and effort than others. While these types of marketing methods may be needed at times, you aren’t going to want to spend the majority of your time just trying to land work.

Participating in design contests or spec work may lead to a new client, but more than likely you will just dedicate a lot of time without any payoff. Bidding sites work well for some freelancers, but for most they wind up just being a waste of time. If you’re able to get to the point where clients come to you because they have seen your work somewhere else or because of your name recognition, you will be able to spend most of your time on income-generating work, and on work that you enjoy.

2. Marketing is Needed, Especially for New Freelancers

Although the amount of time dedicated to marketing should ideally be kept as small as possible, marketing will always be necessary to some extent, and for new freelancers it will require more time and effort. If you’re considering making a move to the world of freelance designing be sure that you are prepared to spend considerable amounts of time on other aspects of running the business aside from just doing the design work.

There is too much competition in the industry for someone to build a successful freelance business without doing any kind of marketing work. However, if you work on building up a client base and taking care of them, eventually you should get to the point where marketing only takes a small amount of your time.

3. Your Network is Extremely Valuable

A strong professional network is an extremely valuable asset for any freelancer. If you’re well-connected to others in the industry and in related industries your marketing efforts can become a lot easier. A network is great for getting referral business, collaborations, launching new products and services, and really just about anything else.

If you’re starting out as a freelancer and you already have an established network, you’re at a great advantage. If you find yourself struggling to stay busy with client work, put some emphasis on strengthening your network by making new connections and improving existing ones. In the long run you’ll be much better off by dedicating time to building a network as compared to using that time to respond to project listings on bidding sites.

4. Word-of-Mouth is More Effective Than Just About Any Other Kind of Advertising

When one of your clients or someone from your network recommends you it will be much more effective at landing new business than just about any other type of advertising that you could do. People trust their friends and colleagues, so a personal recommendation carries a lot of weight and goes a long way towards convincing the potential client that you are the right person for the job.

Referrals and word-of-mouth advertising will typically occur naturally if you are building up your client base and taking care of those clients. Each happy client that you have out there is a potential salesperson for your business. And the best thing about referrals, it takes no time or effort on your part to find the lead. All you need to do is communicate with the potential client about your services and their project, and close the deal.

Some designers even encourage word-of-mouth advertising by giving a referral bonus or by doing something special for a client when they send more business. Another effective way to encourage referrals is simply to ask for them. While some of your satisfied clients will take the initiative to tell others about you, many times they won’t really think about who they know that could benefit from your services, but if you ask for referrals they’ll probably be willing to help out.

5. You Need to Stand Out

With so much competition out there it is critical for you to stand out in some way. Most potential clients will be browsing through several portfolios and looking at the work or many designers before deciding who to contact. It’s important that you stand out so they will feel that you may be a great fit for their project.

There are any number of ways that you can stand out. Some popular methods include: an amazing portfolio website, work done for a high-profile client, specialization, extensive work in a particular industry, and name recognition. You don’t need to do anything crazy so that you stand out to everyone who visits your website. What’s important is that you stand out to your target audience. So take time to think about what types of clients you want to work with. Think about what they will be looking for in a designer and find some way to make that happen so that you stand out as a great candidate for their project.

6. Your Portfolio Site is Critical

Your portfolio website can be an outstanding marketing tool. It can serve as a 24 hour salesperson for your services. If you’re offering web design services, visitors to your portfolio site will be judging your work not only by the quality of client projects shown in your portfolio, but also by the quality of your portfolio site itself.

A great portfolio site can help to establish yourself as a leader in the industry. With the popularity of web design gallery sites and design blogs that showcase sites for inspiration, a high-quality portfolio design can attract a lot of links and attention from the industry rather quickly.

7. Social Media Opens Up Possibilities for Passive Marketing

Social media and networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus present plenty of opportunities for promoting your work and building connections to others, but be careful of how much time you spend as it can easily absorb more time than you intend.

With social media it will take some time to establish your presence, build a following and connect with other users, but once you are established it can be a great way to passively market yourself. It’s a good practice to set aside a small amount of time each day, or at least a few times per week specifically for social media, but stick to it and don’t get carried away with the amount of time.

Marketing on social networking sites is usually most effective when it is not a blatant advertisement for your services. Sites like Facebook and Twitter were created for networking, but most users don’t want to feel like they are subjected to advertisements for your services. Some designers get great results by doing things like sharing their work in process, or linking to projects that they just finished, while asking for feedback. This gives you a chance to showcase your work while still being involved in productive conversations with your fellow users.

If you have a decent following you may be surprised that you can quickly find new potential clients just by posting about your completed projects or works in process. One of the great things about using social networking for finding work is that if you have established a connection with your followers over a period of time, once they have a need for your services it will be easier to land the work since you have built some rapport already.

8. Blogging Can Be Effective, or it Can be a Big Waste of Time

In this past we’ve published posts on the topic of blogging for freelancers (see 9 Reasons for Freelance Designers to Blog), but the reality is that many freelancers wind up wasting a lot of time by blogging with no results. Some designers just like to blog for a hobby with no intent to use it as a marketing method, and if that’s the case there is no problem with not getting results from your efforts.

If you want blogging to send new clients your way you will need a plan rather than randomly just posting something related to web design. With no plan it’s easy to spend time without seeing results, but with a plan you should (in time) get some new work out of your blogging efforts. When you are developing the plan for you blog think about your target audience and how they will relate to the services that you offer. Most design blogs target other designers with their content. Sometimes that content will lead to new clients, and it can certainly help for achieving more search engine traffic. But on the other hand you may also want to consider blogging about topics that your potential clients will be looking for.

Also, you should think about how you will convert blog traffic into client projects. Will you publish posts about your availability for client work? Will you publish posts to showcase client projects that you have just completed? Will you place links to your portfolio in prominent places on your blog? Will you encourage visitors to take action by contacting you about their projects?

There are any number of different approaches that you can take with your blog. The important thing is that you have a plan for getting results from your efforts and you’re not aimlessly spending time on the blog. For a more detailed look at the topic we have a brief e-book How to Use a Blog to Market Your Design Business, which is available at Vandelay Premier for $6.

9. Offline Marketing Can be Effective but is Often Ignored

Because web designers spend so much of their time online and because there are so many possibilities for online marketing, offline methods often get overlooked. If your online methods aren’t working as well as you would like, try changing things up by spending some time with face-to-face, in-person networking.

Popular offline methods of marketing for freelancers include attending networking events, conferences, seminars, handing out business cards, and meeting with people from your professional network.

10. It’s Necessary to be Proactive

For those freelancers who are just getting started and building a client base it is necessary to be proactive when it comes to networking and marketing. Don’t sit back and wait for clients to come to you. Make an effort to build relationships with others in the industry, reach out to people that you have never met, ask for referrals, contact people that you think could benefit from your services, and just be willing in general to put yourself out there.

Another way that you can help yourself by being proactive is to respond as soon as possible to anyone who contacts you about a project. Most potential clients that contact you will also be reaching out to a few other designers at the same time. The truth is, many designers are slow to respond to those inquiries, so if you show some initiative and get back to the client before other designers you’ll have a better chance of landing the work.

11. Current and Past Clients are a Great Resource

If you have been working with clients for a while you have a very valuable asset at your disposal in your client list. It pays to stay in contact with past clients by following up a few times per year to see if there is any way that you can help them. This doesn’t take a lot of time if your contacts are well organized, but it can lead to new projects pretty easily.

In addition to past clients, the clients that you are currently working with can be a great resource as well. If they’ve hired you for one service you may want to offer them some other services that may also be able to help them. Rather than needing to find more clients you can sell more services to some of your clients.

If there was some change in the products or services that you offer this client list can be a great source for getting a few projects quickly.

by martin