How to Promote Yourself as a Graphic Designer
Hello! We hope you are receiving valuable lessons and getting ideas on how to improve your design firm. So far you should have greater clarity in what you do, why you do it, and who you do it for. In this lesson, we’re going to help you get the word out!
(If you’ve missed Lesson 1 and 2, please catch up with those first!)
Lesson 3: Promoting Yourself
Most designers hate self-promotion. They love the creative part but are shy when it comes to promoting themselves. On one hand, they would LOVE to be famous, in-demand, highly regarded, and booked solid. But they often think they should simply just do great work and the world will beat a path to their door.
It doesn’t really work that way. You have to spend time promoting because even if you do great work, not every customer is going to magically refer more work to you. So to save you some time, here are some tips on promoting yourself.
Proven Self-Promotion Strategies
Blogging. Almost everyone has a blog these days but they aren’t using it to its full potential. Use it as a transparent way to connect with your audience and be insanely useful in addressing the needs and desires of your clients. When we wrote tutorials, they were liked and shared across the web and generated lots of traffic and leads!
Side Projects. Hands down our best marketing ideas started out as side projects. The Arsenal started out as a side project to help us promote our illustration abilities while making some passive income while we slept. It worked, and eventually grew into a business of its own. The same thing happened with side projects such as ShirtMockup, MockupEverything, and even WMC Fest. All of those were useful and interesting ideas by themselves, but they helped promote other parts of our business. What passions do you have that can turn into side projects that can generate more awareness for our company.
Host Events. We have two events every year, one is On the Map and the other is WMC Fest. They both are interesting and engaging on their own, but provide a lot of awareness for our company. In-person events build stronger relationships which can turn into clients. What types of events can you host that are in-line with your vision and services? Try hosting a monthly seminar/workshop where you discuss topics on branding, web trends, or design.
These are three of our most effective promotional tools but an entire book can be written on the topic. We go into more detail in Drawn to Business and in the bonus materials and videos. But you might want to check out this post we did where we asked our readers how THEY do it.
Optimize Your Website. Your portfolio needs to be updated and targeted to inspire your audience. You should also clearly communicate your most effective solution on the homepage. Remember, your website should be about converting visitors into leads which you can then follow up on. Most designers and studios tend to think of their website as just a portfolio and if someone likes it, they will figure out the rest and contact them with a job.
But you can be doing so much more! You have identified your passions and purpose and who you want to work for. You have identified the types of problems and desires your clients have. So now you need to tweak your website to reflect all of that.
Offer something free right up front, it could be an ebook or whitepaper on one of your solutions. Give them this in exchange for their email so you can follow up. The key is to get your visitors to do something other than bounce.
Do something BOLD. Step out of your comfort zone and do something crazy to get people talking. But make sure it’s in line with your passion/vision and coming from a source of inner purpose. It’s not necessarily a publicity stunt, but it can be. Only you will know what that big and bold thing is for you.
That is all for today. In the next lesson we’ll talk about money!
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