Tips and Insights For Marketing A Graphic Design Business
This article provides tips and insights that can help you bring awareness, market, and improve your customer base for your graphic design business.
Before we get to the tips, lets’ look at two important points:
One: Setting Up Your Business For Marketing so that the way you run your business can market itself because of the excellent service and the results the customer receives.
Two: We will look at marketing campaigns and conventional advertising campaigns.
Let’s start with ideas for setting up your graphic design service to attract customers, market itself and develop a competitive edge.
1. Offering a Robust Guarantee
Offering a guarantee for a service is harder than offering a warranty on a product because you may have to re-do the work.
However, you can offer several free revisions so the customer gets the exact design they want. Rather than offering the finished design at the deadline, you can also reduce revisions by communicating with your clients throughout the process.
When you offer revisions, your new customers know they can get the design they are pleased with.
2. On-Time Service
One of the key factors to succeed in a service business is to meet deadlines. Your customers expect you to complete the work on the agreed-upon time.
If you miss a deadline, you tarnish your reputation. You are better off setting your deadline farther ahead and finishing early, to avoid being in a crunch.
3. Become an Expert
One way to gain repeat customers by referrals is to let your work speak for itself. Then, once you build a portfolio and a good reputation, people will start to come to you for your services.
In addition to talent, you will need to become an expert in the field. For example, you must know how to work with measurements, and designs displayed on various materials and electronic screens. In addition, you need an excellent understanding and experience with graphic design software.
4. Create Your Corporate ID
Your marketing strategy should include a corporate identity. Business cards, brochures, stationary, letterheads, company signage, logos, and promotional items fall into this category. As a graphic designer, you must give your best effort to your corporate ID.
Your business cards and brochures, for instance, will showcase your work. A business card that doesn’t stand out will hurt your business rather than promote it. For example, you will show off your work when you give out your business cards and brochures.
Giving out business cards that are nothing special will hurt your business instead of promoting it.
Conventional Marketing Techniques
5. Exposure Through Free Work and Sponsorships
Providing work for free is another way to bring awareness to your graphic design business. You want to look for opportunities where people can see your work and for those interested to contact you for your services.
Some ideas include local events that take place in the community allowing you to display your work, such as banners for the event and digital advertisements that would be posted on social media. You have to be creative and keep an eye out for events in your community. Approach the event organizers early so that another graphic design firm doesn’t beat you.
6. Participate in Trade Shows
Trade shows are a way to bring awareness to your business. You can rent a booth and show your work. Naturally, the shows you attend must be related to your target audience. You could even use the tip above and create banners and advertisements for the trade shows that you plan to participate in.
7. Newspaper Advertising
Advertising in the local paper is another source of media you can use to bring awareness to your graphic design firm. People still read newspapers, and creating an advertisement in your local newspaper allows you to track local clientele.
For more, see Newspaper Advertising Tips.
8. Magazine Advertising
Advertising in magazines is another excellent way to attract clients because you can take a full-page ad and highlight your graphic design skills. You’ll also want a magazine that your target audience reads. There’s no sense in advertising in a magazine that doesn’t interest potential clients.
9. Billboard Advertising
Advertising on billboards is an excellent way to bring attention to your business for local customers. So, naturally, you want to design that works well on a billboard and showcases your talent.
If you discover that billboard advertising works well for you, you can also look for a more permanent solution like leasing land where you can create your own billboard or, for example, if there’s a busy highway in your area, you may be able to make a deal with the landowner to place a billboard in their land or even on the side of an existing building that’s highly visible from the Highway.
10. Offer Services in Bulk
Offering services at a discounted rate to different companies. For example, many companies that deal with advertising have in-house graphic designers. You can, however, contact these companies and offer them a discounted rate that can help you build a constant stream of repeat customers.
For example, you can get in touch with web programmers that create websites but like to skill of creating effective designs. You could also contact print advertising specialists such as billboard advertising companies, newspapers, sign designers, etc. Even though they may have in-house designers, sometimes they’re overwhelmed with work, and that’s where you can pick up the extra slack.
11. Joint Ventures
Joint ventures are an excellent way to promote your business. Some examples would be offering referrals to other business owners that send customers your way.
For example, you could get in touch with wedding planners that would refer customers to create wedding invitations through you, and you could offer them a percentage of every sale that comes through their referral.
For more details on joint ventures, see, How To Create A Joint Venture.
12. Join Your Local Chamber of Commerce
Joining your local Chamber of Commerce is an excellent way to get to know local business owners and bring awareness to your business. In addition to the other benefits that come with joining, you can also attend many of the networking events they have, allowing you to talk about your business with locals, make sure you have plenty of business cards available during these events.
You could also volunteer your skills to create banners and posters for the event you’re attending. Naturally, you would put something like designed by and then your company name. Members attending will all see the posters and banners you created, bringing awareness to your business. The host could also introduce you as a designer of this event banner during the event.
For more, see, Joining the Chamber of Commerce.
13. Apply for BBB Accreditation
When it comes to bringing in new customers, trust is an important factor. Especially in the service industry, one of the main things that will hold back a new customer is that they don’t know you, and there’s no trust built yet. When you’re a member of the Better Business Bureau, this helps to build trust with new customers.
14. Advertise on Your Company Vehicle
Your company vehicle is another excellent way to bring awareness to your business. A vehicle wrap will cost approximately $1500-$2000. This is a one-time for your pay, and moving forward, anytime you’re driving your vehicle, you’re bringing awareness to your business.
Even if you’re out shopping and your vehicle is parked in a good area and a busy shopping mall, you’re advertising working while doing other things. This is an excellent opportunity to bring constant awareness to your business, and since you’re a graphic designer, you’ll be able to showcase your work on your company vehicle.
15. Contests
Creating a contest is an excellent way to bring exposure to your company. For example, if you’re looking for local customers, you can create a newspaper or radio campaign detailing the contest. You may even get a radio host to talk about it on their talk show.
For example, radio show listeners are the only ones eligible for the contest. Additionally, the radio show offers its listeners something special and gives you more exposure in addition to the advertising revenue from your campaign. You must have excellent skills for a deal like this to work since the radio show’s reputation is on the line if they promote your work.
Online Advertising Methods
Now let’s look at some marketing ideas to promote your business online.
16. Developing Your Website
Your website is one of the
Most important parts of your marketing component. Your website is where you’ll highlight your work, build a portfolio, and offer contact information and frequently asked questions to help build your customer base.
You want to register your domain name and use a hosting service so that you have full control of your website. Do not opt for putting most of your business information using social platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn pages. These can be an addition to your website, but your website has to be your main online property.
17. Create a Google Ads Campaign
A Google ads campaign is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get new customers. If you are experienced in creating a Google ad campaign, your campaign could be up and running in a few hours. You can create a daily budget with Google ads, and the campaign pauses when your funds have reached the limit. You can also pause your campaign anytime.
Once you have an optimized campaign, think of it as pushing a button anytime you want new customers.
Another option is hiring a specialist to create and optimize your campaign.
18. Sign Up for Freelancing Accounts
When you sign up for accounts such as Upwork and Fiverr, do you have the opportunity to bid on graphic design projects and build your customer base? Once you build up your reputation with excellent service and get good feedback, you’ll be able to build trust on those platforms, and when you become really popular, people start coming to you rather than you needing to bed on each product project.
19. LinkedIn Advertising
Advertising on LinkedIn is one of the social media platforms you may want to focus on because this social platform focuses on professionals and entrepreneurs.
With LinkedIn advertising, you can also set your daily budget and pause and reumes your campaign as needed. There are also a variety of ad formats you can use.
You can also post content on LinkedIn that can help you promote yourself as an expert in the field while driving traffic to your Linkedin Company Page. For more on advertising on LinkedIn, see the link below for the details.
20. Pinterest Advertising
Pinterest is another option to promote your business.
First of all, Pinterest is a site focused on graphics. You can create a graphic similar to a vertical banner called pins.
You can organize pins into boards with similar pins or ones on the same topic. You will want to post pins highlighting your graphic design skills. Consistency is key. If you post one new pin daily, traffic to your board will increase.
You can also use Pinterest’s advertising option to promote your pins and drive more traffic to your pins and your website. See the link below for an overview of advertising on Pinterest.
21. Facebook Page
If you are active on Facebook, creating a Facebook page can help to develop a Facebook following.
If you have many friends on Facebook, reaching out to them to help you spread the word about your business is something you can do to build a following for your page.
For more, see, How To Create a Facebook Page for Business.
22. Facebook Advertising
Facebook offers an advertising platform that allows you to target users by location and demographics.
You can also set a daily budget, and your campaign will run until the budget is depleted and start the next day. Of course, you can also pause your campaign at any time.
One thing to keep in mind is it can be more cost-effective to drive traffic to your Facebook page because Facebook rewards you for paying for traffic that drives visitors to their site as opposed to an external source such as your website.
For more, see, How to Advertise on Facebook.
23. Videos
Videos are another marketing tool you can use to promote your business. For example, you could make some videos on how to choose a color scheme.
Another idea is choosing a graphic designer and what to watch out for. Then, you can post these videos on YouTube and embed them on your website.
24. Set up a Google Business Profile
Setting up a Google Business Profile is something you need to focus on and set up as soon as possible. Then, when locals search for your business and you have an account set up, your business will appear at the top of the page.
There will be a map, an image from Google street view, a blurb about your business, your hours of operation, a link to your website, and more. These are all things that help a user contact you. So it’s an effective marketing tool you want to take advantage of.
25. Create a Marketing Plan
We have gone through many ideas, and it’s not something you want to keep to memory. So instead of organizing the ideas that appeal to you, you can develop a marketing plan so that you are organized and have identified the areas you want to focus on.
The link below offers tips, insights, and a list of resources to help you develop a marketing plan that will help you promote your graphic design service.
For more, see, How to Write a Marketing Plan.
That’s it for the 25 tips to market your graphic design business. The next section contains a variety of resources that can help you learn more about graphic design, build your skills, and gain more knowledge.
Resources
Marketing Agencies
We have gone through many tips for promoting your graphic design business. At this point, you are overwhelmed or raring to go. Or you simply may not want to market your business and would rather outsource the marketing, which is another option.
The link below offers the latest search results for marketing your graphic design business.
If you see an agency that looks like a good match for you, research the company and its founders to see what other people have experienced and what results they have received from using the agency.
Search Results for Graphic Design Marketing Agencies.
Marketing Courses
There are many courses you can take to market your graphic design business. Some specialize in graphic design promotions, while others focus on marketing in general.
The link below offers the latest search results related to courses for marketing a graphic design business.
Search Results – Graphic Design Business Marketing Courses.
Videos
YouTube is another source of information you can use for tips related to marketing your graphic design business. In addition, many content providers share their experiences, which you could benefit from.
If you have a few minutes, explore what YouTube has to offer related to promoting your graphic design business.
If you want, take a few minutes to see videos related to marketing a graphic design business.