Freelance Designers: How Do You Drum Up Business?

[mikeyboy63 0]

I focus on one small business sector within 50 miles of my home. I send letters to the owners introducing my services and giving them reasons to have me set them up with a company website. I just keep hitting the same businesses again and again and again. I just wonder how other web designers get customers?

[castyna 0]

I've worked for such a company - 3 or 4 freelancer worked together. There was one person who search for ugly websites on the Internet and the second person sent offer (e-mail or just call them). They were succesful at this. Not every time, but often.

[mikeyboy63 0]

I've worked for such a company - 3 or 4 freelancer worked together. There was one person who search for ugly websites on the Internet and the second person sent offer (e-mail or just call them). They were succesful at this. Not every time, but often.

That never occurred to me! Find bad sites and offer to redesign them. I think I'll give that a try. It's free. You can't beat free.

[castyna 0]

Try - you know, there are some institutions or firm that aren't aware of matter of having own good website. They have website made few (e.g. 10...) years ago and have no updating Some of them have already site in prepare - that is most annoying while calling. Good luck

[networker 0]

I've done freelance coding for a lot of mickey mouse web sites. Any site really is sort of 'mickey mouse' if it doesn'thave a half decent google ranking.Getting a good google rankingis the tough part.These people have a lot of initial enthusiasm for they're sitesand it's sustaining that attitude which is the problem. Theres just too many 'fly by nighters'.

[Ousk 0]

Well one way to do it is the method described above, search on rentacoder, or other freelancing sites, or again direct marketing. Visit firms that don't have a web page and make an offer. A lot of people that own a small or medium business don't aford the prices that some web design companies ask so they don't bother to look for other offers or just has their kid do a 3s site in frontpage.Or just put a name on yourself, make a brand,don't advertise like: I am a freelanced looking for work. my name is bla bla call me. Make a company up like InoWeb or something and make an add for that and lie a little, like that you a are a group of ppl bla bla you founded the firm in 2003 bla bla.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Along with what they're saying, make sure that you have a nice portfolio ready to show them. Usually people will want to see your previous work.And a couple of tips to keep in mind:1)Do not overexaggerate your abilities. If you do this, your chances of ever getting another job with that person again is lower. Which also leads to #2.2)The happy customers are important, but so are unhappy ones. Just as much as one happy person can get others to use your services in the future, an unhapy one can also have a huge effect on keeping people *away* from your services.

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

Along with what they're saying, make sure that you have a nice portfolio ready to show them. Usually people will want to see your previous work.
And a couple of tips to keep in mind:

1)Do not overexaggerate your abilities. If you do this, your chances of ever getting another job with that person again is lower. Which also leads to #2.

2)The happy customers are important, but so are unhappy ones. Just as much as one happy person can get others to use your services in the future, an unhapy one can also have a huge effect on keeping people *away* from your services.

Agreeing with #1 very very much. Nothing I hate any more than someone saying Oh I am so good at doing sites, you will have the best on the net. and then what happends? it looks just like any other site around.

Also word of mouth is always good. do some small but freebie. just ask that they put a designed and edied by: on the site and a link to your site or sites. anything to get the word out.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

That's another good point. Contrary to how it may seem, doing free work can make you more money in the long run.More or less what it does, if you find someone who can actually help market you, is give your name out to a lot of others.It's actually a common thing for lawyers. You take a big case for free(especially if it will be in the newspapers) and you will have so much business because of it(assuming you win...Obviously if you suck at what you're doing it's not going to help you) that you won't know what to do with it all, .Same thing with websites. If you can find someone who's site you think will be successful, the amount of publicity that you gain from it is well worth the effort you put into doing it for free. All in all, both of you win, .But if you're not that good, obviously you won't want to go do work for free. It will just make others want you to do free work for them as well.

[aloKNsh 0]

haaa u should because i had never in gafand whenever i get in they said i am outbiddenbut i think they will be impressed by seeing the portfolio make a good portfolio and they will bid on you

[freshpub 0]

Your portfolio will be a very important tool. But you need something to show before you can build it.Look around for a charity, an event, anything that you think might do with a good new website, or a redesign of their old one. Then approach them and offer to do the work for free, or at costs if they want some very specific stock pictures. And here is the first project to put in your portfolio...But two things that you should do afterwards:1-Ask whoever agreed to you doing with the website if they were happy with the way you did it. Ask for suggestions on how to improve your customer service. And if they were desperately happy with it all, ask for a testimonial, a short quote to put on your own website, in promotional literature and/or to use in a press release...2-Get the local news involved. If the charity/event you've just finished working for is already planning to appear in the local paper, radio, tv news, ask if you can be mentioned as a sponsor, a volunteer or whatever they want to call you. Ask that they mentioned exactly what you did for them and that they are happy with your service. Create your own press release as well. Ask someone you know that is good with words if you can't do it yourself. Then sent the release to everyone you can think of and post it on your website and with press release agencies online.Mailing the businesses in your area repeatedly could do you some harm as well as good. Many people don't read flyers, and if they do, they might get annoyed to see your name crop up again and again. Unsolicited direct mailings are good, but only if you don't do it too often...Try getting in at business events. Doesn't have to be related with designing at all. Over here in the UK, we have networking events, specifically hosted to meet new business contacts. But almost every business owners I know are using free business courses and events about accounting, marketing, tax, purchasing... as a networking event, to make new business contacts.Just a few ideas...

[innermountain 0]

How about marketing to a specific group, like chiropractors? People who have $ but often times don't have nice websites. And I know they can really benefit from them. They also know each other and so referrals could to well in the long run.

[Quatrux 4]

I agree with most replies here and also wanted to add, that if you're searching for bad websites and then calling them and offering a design, which is much better and modern than their current..OK, you'll create a design for them, but usually they run on some kind of a CMS or a simple website programmed by someone, so you'll need to integrate it into the system, which can be quite hard or will take time, creating a design is not all, as usually freelancers need to know more or work in a team, if working in such a tactic for searching clients and offering services.It's no problem if the site is simple HTML, which today you can't really know even if it has .html files which can be dynamic and a lot of whom can hide the headers of the website, even though usually these kind of sites has a nice design :PSo when offering a design, you need to offer the integration of it into the current system, which is usually harder when offering your own CMS with that design and creating the same content.