Welcome to the second installment of this series – Marketing. You can view the other parts here: Long Term Freelancing Success.
Marketing is one of the key elements of any business and as a freelancer it should be a huge part of your strategy towards growth and success. So in this post I’m going to talk about some of the different marketing tools you can use as a freelancer!
Jump to:
The Premise
Business Cards
Networking
E-mail Campaigns and PDF Portfolio
Website
Direct Mail
Cold Calling
Marketing is not something that can be handled in periodic phases it has to be a concerted continual effort to actively seek business and promote your services. This is a notion that is easier to accept and act upon effectively when one stops thinking themselves of a freelancer and leans towards thinking of themselves as the CEO of a small business.
‘Work is out there. You have to find it. Or you’ll stagnate into the heap of people who seem to think that its impossible to find work. It’s just a hard struggle that demands discipline. That sounds a lot colder and ruthless than I mean it!’ – Mel Ndiweni, June 2009
Importance
Business cards are an often overlooked / underestimated tool in your marketing arsenal. You should spend a large amount of time thinking about your business cards before embarking upon creating them. You should also bare in mind as a creative your cards are going to be under more scrutiny than most.
There is no point in having wonderful business cards if you do not use them effectively. You should carry a few everywhere you go; you never know when an opportunity to use them may present itself. There is no greater awkwardness than searching for a piece of paper and a pen to try exchange details.
If you are off to an event, and you think you will need 50 cards, take 100. Always take more than you need and always try and hand a person two or three cards rather than one. Another thing, one should do is try and place a card in everything you send out i.e mail-out’s; invoices; proposals etc.
Your business even if they are a huge piece of art reflective of your own style should still have a professional feel. There is lots of business card inspiration floating around on the web if your stuck on how to present your cards or what direction to take with them. When networking and meeting new clients or your in a situation to hand over your business card, you want the receiver to remember your card and thus remember you. It will be the first impression to anyone who is given your card through a contact so it must convey the right image. Also, there is no rule anywhere that says you necessarily have to have ONE card. If your client base extends from the corporate giant to the company looking for a chief visionary – it makes sense that you may offer them two completely different cards.
Resources
What Does Your Card Say About You?
Business Card Inspiration
Business Card – Best Practices
The Best of Business Card Design
Along with any marketing strategy – it’s imperative to go out there (offline) and get out there (online) meeting people and networking.
Interacting online has been a fruitful way of getting recognition for may. Apart from actively associating yourself with fellow professionals and learning and growing – interacting online is a great way to passively market yourself. As your name is involved in many different spheres online you passively marketing yourself, increasing your brand awareness and also helping to establish yourself within the industry. Furthermore, you will be surprised how others will pass your name and services around as you interact with them. Along with this, your also increasing your web presence with links and traffic – all helping your SEO. There are a whole host of ways to interact with businesses and fellow professionals from forums, to blog communities, to twitter, to facebook groups.
Resources
Estetica Design Forum
60+ Ways To Market Yourself Offline
Web Designer Forum
Smashing Magazine
Design Informer Blog
HOW Design Forum
Behance
Often we get so buried in our efforts to find clients online due to what we see as the vastness of the internet; we forget to get out there in the real world. There are number of great places to network and part of long term success is creating situations to push your services and name. Attending local business meetings, joining start up discussion groups are all great places to plant yourself in to promote your freelance services. There are a multitude of ways to market your business offline. Best summarised here: Offline Marketing.
A PDF Portfolio is something that most of us as designers have already sitting on our hard drives. Our digital CV’s are our party piece – a chance to show off a few of our best case studies. Now that your a freelancer, your PDF portfolio is a valuable resource that you should be mailing to any potential clients before they ask. PDF Portfolio’s work well as they are visually impacting and often convince a client they need something that they don’t. Surely the mantra of all great sales orientated business.
Example PDF Portfolios – click image to download
Many are skeptical about whether e-mail campaigns are worth the time of setting up but can it hurt to send out mass e-mails to potential clients? no. As long as you do not spam, and ensure the body of your e-mails have substance to them and not sales dribble – its surely a win win situation. As worst comes to worst you have simple reminded somebody that you existed.
People you don’t know
E-mailing people you do not know is a skill that requires much thought. So for instance you could be sending a mail shot to local small businesses, graphic design agencies or a business list purchased from a broker. There many thoughts you have to consider such as how are you going to deliver the e-mails? how are you going to track who has opened and acted upon the email? will you be using an online service? html or plain text e-mail? Are you going to write the e-mail yourself or hire a copywriter?
An example short and sweet mail shot could be:
Hello there,
I am a freelance (DISCIPLINE). Based in (local, country), I have over (3million) years experience and have a wealth of experience in (LIST OF SKILLS). I can take a brief from concept to print adhering to client budgets and consistently meeting the strictest of deadlines. Please find attached, a PDF portfolio with a few case studies which I feel show some of the skills I possess and my execution on a broad range of projects. A little more information about myself and a larger portfolio can be seen at my online presence: www.youramazingwebsite.com I am currently available to work on projects from my studio or your offices dependent on location.
Thank you in advance for your consideration,
Kind regards
(signature)
After some time you are likely to have built up a fairly decent size list of people who are at least a little interested in your services or what it is you get up to. It is essential to keep these people informed about how your progressing, recent projects, pricing deals etc. An effective means of doing this is a periodic (e.g monthly, quarterly) newsletter. The shear aim of this is to remind them and to show them that you care about them and their business and that they are not simply another faceless client. This relates to the brilliant customer service that one needs to have as a freelancer – one of your sharpest weapons when competing against the agency.
Campaign Monitor – Email Marketing software
Vivid Copy – Copywriting from a professional copywriter
Mail Chimp – Email Marketing and Email List Manager
Sending Mass Email Advice
Aweber – Email Marketing Campaigns
Top 10 E-Mail Marketing Mistakes
Email Marketing Advice
A website – if you do not have one…. why? you are crazy. Although, for many of us it is the unthinkable, many of our fellow kin do not have a website. Their is almost nil downfalls to having a website promoting your services. Furthermore, in our profession many clients expect to be able to see your previous work before deciding to work with you. A website / online portfolio is a conventional means of doing this. Having a website allows you to promote your services to everybody in the world: 356 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – tirelessly.
One of the downsides to freelancing is that people often think of you as someone working at home, twiddling your thumbs, sitting in front of your computer in your PJ’s. Your website, especially when working from home gives your business a professional ’shop-front’ and distinguishes you as a legitimate business. It can help to give clients who are nervy extra, re-assurance.
Creating a website, gives you at least a passive promotional tool, in that clients find you! However, whether your website is merely an e- business card with some blurb, a demonstration of your every capability or a professional studio presence – it is useless unless clients can find you. You do not want to fade into the millions upon millions of websites that exist. As such, websites are a unique promotional tool, in that they themselves need promotion.
50+ Sites to Promote your Portfolio
Marketing Checklist: 37 Ways to Promote Your Site
Using Social Networking to Promote Your Website
21 Ways to Promote Your Site Online and Off
10 Ways Not to Promote Your Web Site
10 Great Free SEO Tools and Resources
Direct Mail is something one should approach applying many of the same principes that we discussed for E-mail Marketing. Direct mail is a form of advertising which, when done correctly, is a highly cost effective way of gaining new business or paying much needed attention to the clients that you already have. Much the same as an e-mail it can be used as a selling tool, to find new clients, to distribute portfolio samples, a periodic newslettersand to encourage repeat business from existing clients.
Effective Direct Mail
At its best, direct mail is a highly targeted mailing piece, posted only to the correct address of people who you feel will b receptive to contacting you about / being introduced to your service. With any direct mail campaign to prospective clients there should be a clear call to action in a manner you can easily monitor; as well as some incentive that tells the recipient why they should contact you to work on their projects.
Resources
99 Tips for Direct Mail Marketing
Small Business Guide To Direct Marketing
Direct Mail – Basic Advice
Cold calling is a marketing technique may of us hate and have no inclination to use – however, that does not change the fact that it works! No matter how convinced you are that every person who gets a cold call responds with the usual ‘never call me again’ speech that you so often shout down the phone.
A large reason many are scared of adding cold calling to heir repertoire is a fear of rejection and often unrealistic expectations from the process. It is naive to expect whoever you talk to turn around and say: ‘I am soooo glad you called – thank you. Your the freelancer we need. Here is a million pound deposit. Go nuts’ . Ok, thats obviously an exaggeration but you get the idea.
What is realistic to expect is the slightest hint of interest in your services and to end your call with an e-mail address or contact name. The potential of a cold call is tat it gives you a way in; and from this point you have somebody to speak to and e-mail in relation to a design project. It is at this junction you can send over a design proposal ; schedule an appointment or win an advertised project you were after.
Resources
Tips for successful cold calling
Making A Cold Call
Cold Calling Advice For Small Business
Some tips for best practice
- Be prepared and be confident
- Do not try and push for a commitment from your client to a huge project over the phone
- Do not ring at typically busy times of the day
- If you got to voicemail – leave a short and sweet message – let them know you will call again
- Get hold of real names for the people you actually need to speak to.
All content © 2010 by Acuity Designs
WOW! This is an excellent post. Great read!
The points that you mentioned are definitely important for any freelancer who want to have long-term success.
Actually, I freelanced for over two years, but I decided to go back to working a full-time job. I only freelance part-time now. Keep up the great work on the series. I will definitely refer to it once I do decide to get back to full-time freelancing.
By the way, I absolutely love the blog post layout. Very easy to read. Nice work Mel. Looking forward to reading more awesome posts like this.
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Acuity DesignsReply:
Glad it was helpful Jad!
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These are some great tips, and some that I didn’t even know existed and have a potential of working! Thank!
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Acuity DesignsReply:
Thanks for having a read Yung, hopefully they help with your marketing efforts!
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[...] Long Term Freelancing Success – Part 2 – Marketing [...]
Great tips! That quote was very inspirational and has a lot of meaning to it.
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