Alright. Here’s a silly question for you: Do you want more clients?
Of course you do! The only way to get more clients is to grow awareness of your services, which boils down to good old marketing.
Since you probably don’t have time to develop a full-scale integrated marketing communications strategy, here are a few ideas to get the wheels turning:
- Build a Blog – Show off your expertise! Not only will a blog build awareness of your abilities, blogs are free through Wordpress.com and other sites. Blogs eliminate the need for a fancy – or expensive – website in most cases. Make sure you can commit to updating the blog at least once a week and start showing the world why you’re an expert they need to hire.
- Cup of Coffee – Get some face time with local businesses. Remember how much you hated being stuck in the cube? Give a potential client a reason to get out of their office and meet you at a local coffee shop or restaurant. Coffee is a good idea because it’s not as expensive as a meal, but you can also have 3-5 business meetings a day at a coffee shop without breaking the bank or your beltline.
- Super Sale – Offer a two for one deal or a significant discount. Not only does this encourage customer retention, but you will hopefully get a few leads as well. Clients often order more when they can get a discount, so be prepared for new business and a surge in existing orders.
- Partnership Programs – Work with other professionals in a different industry. Web designers need copy writers and copy writers would be smart to work with a web design firm. These relationships could be as simple as a web link or as complicated as bidding a formal partnership agreement.
- Email Magic – Email is cheap as free, but requires careful thought. Make sure to include an opt-out option and never spam people who have not given you their email address. Use an email capture form on your website or blog so clients can sign up. Try giving away a free eBook or white paper for signing up.
- Free Stuff Sells – Provide potential customers with free, but valuable information. This builds on the last point, but you may want to consider not even asking for an email address or other contact information. People appreciate free, so long as it is useful information.
- Press Releases – Many freelancers do not realize that local and regional press outlets like newspapers are often hungry for content. You can also submit the press release to a number of free online press outlets like PRLog.com or iNewsWire.com. Take a little time to understand some basic formatting and content requirements for press releases and you may stumble into a gold mine of free publicity.
- B-Card Brilliance – Use business cards creatively. You’re probably as sick as I am of the worn out “You need business cards” message, but they work. Put cards in relevant books at the local library. Buy movie tickets for the folks behind you and leave your card. Get creative and wacky.
- Phone Fun – Cold call some customers. This is admittedly my least favorite, but it works. Start with your local Chamber of Commerce and call some local businesses. Sure, they get sales calls all the time, but you never know who might be willing to share that cup of coffee with you.
- Multimedia – Incorporate video and images into your repertoire. Want a huge tip on screen capture software? Check out Techsmith.com’s free Jing video tool. Did I mention it’s free? Incorporating media into blogs, articles, tutorials and the like is quickly becoming standard fare. Don’t spend too much time on this, but a little multimedia can go a long way towards engaging your customers.
