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There are thousands—millions of talented artists who have ventured into a career of freelance graphic design work.

Some make it big. Most others make an ordinary income. What sets apart the successful from the ordinary?

Here's the secret...

Effective self marketing is the key to your success in the freelance marketplace.

Simple fact: the more active you are in your marketing, the more consistent your enquiry rate.

A consistent enquiry rate means you can:
• Choose the clients you work with.
• Increase your freelance design rates.
• Hire staff and expand your business.
• Go from one-shop designer to full design agency.

So, if you want to say goodbye to those stressful peaks and troughs in workload...

... And replace with steady, manageable work—with a significantly higher monthly turnover...

Take a crash course in creative marketing.

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The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing handbook reveals 5 key marketing activites to help you kick-start your creative business and see your profits increase year on year.

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The Freelance Designer's Self Marketing Handbook is ideal for:
• Experienced freelancers looking for fresh creative marketing ideas
• New freelancers looking for actionable start up essentials
• In-house and trainee designers looking to cross over into a freelance career

Written by client-insider Shaun Crowley, author of the hugely successful 100 Copywriting Tips for Designers.

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What skills do you need to be good at self-marketing?

First and foremost, you need imagination and creativity. Two things you already have in abundance.

Next, you need a competent level of writing. Writing is essential for drafting winning proposals, improving your website, and producing promotional materials to advertise your service.

Not really a writer?

Don't worry. You don't have to be a born Shakespeare to produce persuasive self-marketing copy. Just follow a few basic tricks specific to your chosen medium. You can learn them in a day.

In The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing Handbook, I reveal copywriting tricks for writing websites, emails, press releases, and advertisements.

Websites

I'll show you how to structure your online copy to boost your search engine ranking and get maximum enquiries.

Direct E-Mails

I'll show you how to write succinct easy-to-read marketing copy that lures browsers onto your online portfolio.

Press Releases

I'll show you how to write great news stories about your business to grab the interest of newspaper editors.

Advertisements

I'll show you how to invent persuasive headline/visual concepts to sell your services, with copy that elicits maximum response.

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What else do you need to know about marketing?

Marketing isn't just an exercise in self-promotion. It's an entire business ethic.

It's a strategy of finding what your clients want from freelance designers, and honing your service to stay valuable to them.

As a marketing consultant, I have helped several small design businesses turn into thriving agencies.

How? By getting them to implement a more client-focused marketing strategy.

In my book, I break down self-marketing strategy into five core areas. All of them are focused on fulfilling the needs of clients.

1. Creating a business offer

First, you need to be sure you are targeting your best clients--and work out a persuasive offer for them.

You need to ask yourself the following:
Who should I target? What can I offer that will take the risk out of hiring me? What sets me apart from the competition? What kind of business-to-business marketing tools should I use to promote myself?

You need answers to these questions before you start to contact companies and ask for work.

Why? Because these answers will affect how you prioritize the work in your portfolio, how you structure your website, and how you present yourself in your self-promotion.

'Creating a business offer' is covered in the first chapter of The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing Handbook. Click here to buy the book.

2. Approaching companies

The most effective marketing tool available to you is the telephone.

So why is picking up the telephone so scary?

A lot of people aren't comfortable with selling themselves over the phone. Some people hate cold-calling because they don't appreciate telemarketing calls at home. Most find rejections difficult to cope with.

Well here's some good news. It doesn't have to be that way.

You can avoid all the stress if you think of prospecting as a 'selling process'.

The longer you extend the selling process, the less commitment you require from people to get to the next level.

That means fewer rejections and friendlier responses.

The secret to successful cold-calling isn't about having a "positive mental attitude". It's about changing your approach so it becomes achievable, effective, and (dare I suggest) enjoyable.

Telephone prospecting is explained in the second chapter of The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing Handbook. Click here to buy the book.

Internet marketing

Marketing your business online can offer the greatest return on your efforts.

But first, you need a practical website. And I emphasise the word practical.

That means: no unnecessary Flash intros. No dashing self-portraits. No abstract visuals that hide your text.

Sure, you are selling yourself as a designer. So the design of your site is important. But save it for your portfolio pages.

You need to keep in mind that clients aren't looking for a nicely designed site. They’re looking for information about you. And they want it fast.

My advice:

Forget about yourself when developing your website. Think about your clients. What are they looking for? How can you provide it quickly and easily? How can you convince them you are worth investigating?

Also think about how you will use your website. What role will it have in your marketing later on? How can you structure your online portfolio to make prospecting easier?

Then, when your online portfolio is ready, you can use it as a platform in various marketing activities.

One marketing activity is to set up an email campaign. This involves selecting a data-list of contacts, writing a well-targeted email, and using relevant tools to track responses.

Another activity is to focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This involves adding the right content to your website, and getting incoming links from the right people.

Internet marketing is the third chapter of The Freelance Designer’s Self-Marketing Handbook. Click here to buy the book.

Newspaper exposure

Advertising in newspapers is expensive. That's why most designers avoid it.

But think about it. Most of your potential clients read a trade magazine specific to the industry they work in.

Advertise your services in one of those trade magazines, and you’re looking at quality exposure.

If you’re the only designer with an ad in that magazine, you won’t be competing with anyone else.

Writing an advertisement for your business isn’t difficult. Follow a few well-selected copywriting and conceptualizing tricks, and you’ll be able to write a persuasive ad in no time.

Don’t have enough money to advertise?

No problem. There’s a much cheaper method of getting newspaper exposure: Get yourself featured in a news story instead.

Got an interesting story to tell? A press release will help you to make editors aware and persuade them to print it. And it won’t cost you a cent.

Maybe you recently won an award. Maybe you stumbled upon something interesting. Or maybe your design contributed towards some kind of achievement on behalf of your client.

You’ll find tips for writing press releases and advertisements in the forth chapter of The Freelance Designer’s Self-Marketing Handbook. Read an extract from the ‘Writing a press release’ section, or click here to buy the book.

Creating client lock-in

OK, let's say you already have lots of clients. So there's no need for marketing your business, right?

Wrong. You may have clients today. But there’s no guarantee you’ll have clients tomorrow.

You may think to yourself, “the work I’ve done for this guy is pretty good, he’s sure to come back to me”.

Not necessarily.

Maybe your client wants a fresh new approach. Maybe another designer has moved onto the scene. Maybe your client’s needs suddenly change—or evolve over time—in a way that excludes the need for your particular style of service.

It’s tempting to think that you have no control over these scenarios. But the fact is: you do.

As your clients needs change, you need to change with them. It’s what separates successful businesses from the rest.

So how do you keep up with your clients’ needs? Simple. You ask for feedback. For any small business, market research is a key activity.

It may feel wrong asking clients to reveal everything they like and dislike about your service. But you’ll probably find your clients will actually appreciate it.

Who knows, they might be itching to tell you what you do well—and how you can improve.

The only thing that is more important than asking for feedback is how you respond to it. At the end of the day, there's no point in doing market research if you're not prepared to act on the suggestions you receive. Be ready to hone your service, learn new skills, or find new contacts if need be.

Creating client lock-in is the fifth chapter in The Freelance Designer’s Self-Marketing Handbook. Click here to buy the book.

Buy The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing Handbook now--and take advantage of this special discount price of just $27 USD (discount valid until December 2010)

Simply click here to download the book.

For just $27 USD, you'll see how to turn your one-shop freelance service into a small business empire.

1. Over 150 tips in 95 info-rich pages you can easily print off, bind, and read at your leisure--or keep handy in your bookcase.
2. All you need is Adobe Acrobat Reader to download the book. If you don't have it, click here to install.
3. Payment is fast, easy, and secure--it's all done by PayPal.

About the author

Shaun Crowley is an experienced copywriter, trainer, author, and marketing consultant. He currently works as a marketing communcations manager for a major UK publisher.

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Comments? Questions?

Email enquiry@marketing-designers.com

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You may need to adjust your computer's firewall settings to allow Tradebit's automated email through your Spam blocks. If this does not resolve the issue, email enquiry@marketing-designers.com with your PayPal purchase number to receive a PDF of the book within 24 hours.

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© 2009 Shaun Crowley; The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing Handbook

• The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing Handbook
• How to write a press release
• How to structure your website
• The ultimate deisgn brief
• Free marketing advice

• Free articles:
• How to start a freelance graphic design business
• Free copywriting tutorial
• The rise of the copywriter / designer

• Shaun Crowley's Blog