Have you taken the leap, moving from working for someone else to having your own graphic design business? You’ve likely thought about your business name already, but have you given careful thought to how you will promote your new freelance business?

 

Do you know how to find clients when you’re just starting out? And, if you’re already underway, are you happily booking out months in advance?

 

We’re going to show you the tried-and-true ways to stay sane, launch a successful freelance graphic design business, and find those clients who are waiting for your services. That’s the key, right there — it’s all about your future customers and where you will find them.

 

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here. First, let’s talk about the critical importance of knowing who you’re targeting before we start shooting promotional arrows randomly into the digital and marketing cyberspaces!

 

You need a plan. (And we’ll show you how to create one.) But first, you need to determine who your ideal customer is. Who will be calling your agency? Who will be looking for your services online? Who will be paying your invoices? These are significant questions that you can’t afford to gloss over.

 

 

Most of this article will help you understand how to target your ideal client, but take a minute to ask yourself…do you know who your ideal client is?

 

To start, you need to define your freelance graphic design business niche (this is a critical first step, if no one has told you before!). By doing this first, you can easily think through who your ideal client is.

 

Aventive Academy has online courses which help you walk through defining your niche and your ideal client, so don’t despair.

 

We’re going to move on to our blog tips for how to promote your graphic design business effectively, but you can also look at our Freelancer Starter Kit if you feel like we’re going too fast and you can’t pin down your niche or ideal client easily.

 

Ok, now let’s assume that you know who your ideal client is. How do you reach them? How do you find them? Should you pay for advertising? Should you post on social media? Which platforms?

 

Let’s unpack the details and our recommendations, based on our many years of industry experience!

Here are the promotional, marketing, and advertising decisions we’re going to help you understand, step-by-step. Our goal is that you’ll be knowledgeable enough to focus on the effective areas for your business development (aka promotion) work.

 

Our goal is to have appropriate, effective, and sustainable action points. (And, yes, we know these tips will lead to new clients and revenue success for your business!)

• Using SEO to your advantage – a little effort goes a long way
• Pay-per-click advertising – should you or not?
• Social media marketing – yes! (but where?)
• Content marketing – every freelancer needs to be writing
• Leveraging your email list – your bread & butter

How to Use SEO to Promote Your Freelance Graphic Design Business

For those of you who might not have heard of SEO, it’s time to learn! Search Engine Optimization is how your next client will find you on the internet.

 

You already know there are lots of graphic design businesses out there, so how do you break through the internet noise and let your ideal clients know what you can do for them? SEO.

 

By knowing how to optimize how Google and other search engines crawl over your website and your blog articles, you’ll be able to increase the likelihood that your web presence will be featured high on the query results listing.

 

The rules are simple, but ignoring them would be a catastrophic mistake and makes your web design and blog articles fairly useless!

Rule 1

Pay attention to your keywords (and, first, figure out what they are for your business!)

 

Rule 2

Structure your website (and blogs) with your keywords in mind

 

Rule 3:

Pay attention to your website/blog titles and headings

 

If you follow those three simple rules, you’ll increase the ranking of your website when someone googles for the type of services you offer. This is free advertising that you leverage to your advantage by gaining a bit of SEO knowledge (the Rules!) and putting them to work.

 

We don’t want to assume that you know…but, having a website is essential for any legitimate graphic design business that wants to attract customers and grow. What you should feature on your website is also important, as well as what you might include in blog posts.

 

We’ll have to leave those topics for another article, but we do have a free workshop that will help you improve your portfolio and attract more clients.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing Strategies for Freelancers Explained

Were you surprised to hear that Google will put you ahead of your competitors if you are wise in your use of SEO…for free!?

 

Of course, Google (and Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) are all very happy to have your business as an advertiser, as well. Should you pay-per-click on these platforms, or not?

 

Remember that we’re assuming that you have defined your ideal client. Based on this definition, you can then determine where they hang out. This could be on Facebook, or LinkedIn…or both!

 

But where are you certain to find them? Sometimes Google is best. But, for B2B, maybe LinkedIn is the way to go. You need to think about where your ideal clients are getting their social media.

 

Next, determine your advertising budget before you sign up with the platform you’ve decided will be most effective. You might want to try two platforms, but keep it simple and focused at the beginning. We recommend that you start with one platform you’re sure your ideal client is on.

You’re unlikely to ever tackle advertising on all the platforms. Choose the best one and plan your approach. In advertising, having an organized approach means you will focus your ads on one priority: creating awareness, consideration, or conversion.

 

Pay attention to your SEO keywords as you craft your ads. What is your ideal client googling? Have you experimented with googling yourself, to see what associated searches come up? Have you thought about geographic area(s)?

 

These research details will help you determine how you’ll use your ad budget on your target social media platform (or on Google itself).

 

On the execution end of things, keep in mind that it’s important to organize what you’re doing and to pay attention to the little details. Even the speed of your website’s loading can affect how your website traffic will benefit from ads, and we all know how awful it is to be spammed by low-quality ads on Instagram.

 

Think it through and make your ad dollars worthwhile. Attract your ideal client to your graphic design business!

Marketing through Your Social Media

Another way to advertise effectively while being gentle to your budget is social media activity. You can use your business’ social media accounts to self-promote and generate interest.

 

This is not as simple as it sounds, of course. You need to be active, relevant, persistent, organized, effective, and resourceful. Let us help you with some insider tips!

 

Your work defining where your ideal client is hanging out will come in handy again now. That particular platform is where you need to focus your social media activity.

 

You will be spotted through the quality and interest-level in your posts. But you need to choose the platform your ideal client likes and uses…your favorite platform might not be the best place to be posting to frequently, after all! (And remember that for B2B the prime platform is often LinkedIn.)

Here are our social media posting tips for success:

 

Perfect Your Social Media Profile

You can do this for all your platforms, but remember we’re going to focus on the platform where your clients are hanging out. Don’t stretch yourself too thin — don’t think about more than 1 or 2 platforms, to start.

 

Decide on Your Business Goal

Not just your goal for your social media account stats, but your business target. Are you looking for additional revenue, a certain number of new clients, or maybe your first-ever client? This is what you need to keep in mind when creating posts.

 

Direct Traffic

It’s highly likely, in a graphic design business, you will target website traffic as part of your business goal. Your website is ready, your portfolio looks great…now how do you direct traffic to your website through your social media posts? Plan with this goal in mind.

 

Schedule

Schedule your posts ahead of time. Line them up. Relax and know that you’ve worked ahead and that the website interest and traffic will increase with each planned post going live.

 

Think Long-Term

Create post content that your ideal client will be attracted to, but focus on sustainability — pick a posting style that you enjoy creating, so you’ll be able to continue the content creation process consistently.

 

If you’re already thinking, “how will I think of all this post content?” — we’ve got you covered. It’s a bit of a long story, but content generation can be simple and stress-free if you follow the well-tested methods we have used.

 

Unfortunately, we don’t have room to talk about all the details here, but you can check out our course the Freelance Level Up Kit. It’s available for online self-paced study. You’ll learn how to have an endless stream of content and creativity…and so much more. Check it out!

Content Marketing (and Why It’s Important for Your Freelancer Business)

Let’s talk about content marketing. We’re sure you’ve heard of it, but what is it?!

 

Content marketing is significant for graphic design businesses and freelancers. To have a promotional strategy that includes content marketing means that you are creating, publishing, and distributing quality content to your targeted online audience.

 

You’ll be publishing stuff that your ideal client wants to know and is interested to read. It will be fresh, new, exciting, and will add value.

 

The goal for content marketing is to get leads. As a graphic design freelancer, you are looking for new clients in your targeted niche (industry and ideal client) constantly.

 

You can think about creating a marketing plan that includes some of the following content marketing platforms (don’t try them all – you’ll burn yourself out!)

Think about where your ideal client is and what they need…and bring it to them with one or two options on this list:

• Blogs (like this one!)
• SEO (know your keywords and work them)
• Outgoing emails
• Freebie offers
• Newsletters
• Social media (posting content, being interactive)
• Infographics
• Videos
• Webinars
• Podcasts

 

Where is your ideal client? What content do you have to show them? What will drive them towards your website and your portfolio? These are your content marketing questions.

 

One last recommendation: content marketing educates your audience. It isn’t strictly promotional. You are the featured expert, not the marketer. Add to your ideal client’s knowledge base and impress them with your expertise and openness.

 

Your efforts, well directed and crafted, will come back in increased revenue and a growing client base! Plus, you’ll be building a trove of information for future, potential clients and will become an industry go-to as your reputation (and your business) grows!

Increasing Your Graphic Design Business Revenue through Email Marketing

The last area for freelance graphic design business promotion we want to talk about is your email list. Do you have one? If not, start today! Gather email addresses. Ask for them. Be clever and give value…and collect email addresses.

 

Your outbound emails should be friendly (pretend you are writing to an audience of only one person). Aim to keep them part way between ‘business informal’ and ‘chatty.’ Provide value to your reader (remember the content marketing emphasis on value).

 

Incidentally, increasing the value of the information contained within your emails increases the likelihood that the recipients will open future emails from you. This is called your open rate and a strong rate is your goal, of course!

 

As with your social media posts, plan your emails ahead.

 

Plot out your email sequences (maybe with a particular theme, or a particular freebie or promotional direction you are featuring). Have the sequence of emails mapped out (content, timing), draft your content early, proof them well, and pre-schedule your send-dates.

As a rule of thumb, give your outbound emails an 80/20 proportion:

• 80% educational content
• 20% promotional features

 

If your content is high quality, your emails will be valued and read (a good open rate!), and you will be able to direct traffic to your website and the services/offers that your business is providing.

 

A last piece of critical advice: don’t try all of these promotional activities at once! Pick a couple that are essential and start there (SEO and one social media platform, plus starting to collect an email listing, for example).

Focus on a strong beginning with solid carry-through, then expand your efforts as you determine what is working, what is sustainable, and how your growing freelance graphic design business can support additional marketing efforts. At the beginning, if it’s just you, pace yourself for a long game!

 

We’d love to hear from you if you try our proven marketing methods and have a great result (and you can send us your questions, too!). Drop us a line and tell us about your experiences, so we can expand on the crucial question, “how do I get more clients?” in future blogs.

 

From one freelance designer to another, we’re here for you and we know you can succeed, because we did!