Have you been freelancing or building your design business for a while now? You may be providing customers your services, however, remember to focus on how to grow your graphic design business as well. You’re not just a brand designer, but you’re a business owner too and it takes work to consistently grow your business. Here are the 7 ways you can grow your design business to take it to the next level!
Learn to talk business (not just creative)
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that to run a lucrative graphic design business, you must get better at “business.”
Freelance graphic designers often times must fulfill the roles of 8 people. Of course, you could also outsource these tasks — you can hire an agent, you can hire a CPA or business coach — but if you’re rockin’ solo as I did for many years, you’ll need to pick up some business sense.
Don’t be overwhelmed by the idea of “talking business”. You’re probably better at this than you think, but you’re just not yet embracing it. Simple things like talking about how your graphic design choices of color, typography and layout solve your clients’ needs is a great start.
Simply shifting the conversation from “what do you like” to “this is why this works” has profound implications for your professionalism and how the work is received by your client. This is a business sensibility that you likely already have, and just need to further develop!
Talking about how your creative work is directly connected to solving the problems of your clients or customers is the essence of what we need to do. This is “talking business.” Know that ROI means return on investment…not Red, Orange, Indigo. Ha! Familiarize yourself with terminology through listening to podcasts, reading and learning.
Additionally, staying on top of technology and processes that “bigger business” are using is hugely helpful. Using apps like Slack, Asana, Google Chrome plugins and scheduling tools all will not only help you come across as more professional, but you’ll be using software that your client is accustomed to.
If you want to make a CEO or CMO feel comfortable spending tens of thousands of dollars on your creative abilities, you’ll need to talk their talk, not your talk.
Stay competitive and the market expert
Always stay competitive and brand yourself as the market expert. It’s important to continuously do research on your competitors, continue your education, and improve your services so that you can not only get your dream clients but make sure your audience knows you have value to add to their business. Your audience should feel assured that you can be the expert that will help solve their problems. When your audience views you as the market expert, then you can continue to grow your business.
Brand Identity
Building a good brand identity is so important. Brand identity simply means who you are, what your business represents, the personality of your business, how it makes a person feel, how your business stands out from your competitors, visual identity, and many more. When you have a strong brand identity and clear messaging in place, you’re then able to attract more of the right clients and you have a great reputation in your industry.
Social Media
Social media is extremely powerful. You can continually be reaching and reaching and reaching to new people to learn about your brand and services organically through social media or through paid advertisements. I love organic reach, and my favorite platform to utilize for that is Pinterest, as most of my audience will use that platform. You would want to understand the social media platforms that your audience is spending time on, using those same platforms to market yourself and your brand.
Create free resources or content on your website
Your business is more than just your services. It’s you, your values, your experience, your expertise, and more. Try creating free resources or creating content on your website to inform or educate your audience. Your audience can include both your potential clients and people that want to get into the same career field as you. By creating free resources or content you’re able to bring more traffic to your website. Content, like blog posts, will not only add value to your audience but will increase your visibility on search engines with content that is SEO optimized.
Niching
This may not apply to everyone, but if you haven’t already niched your audience, then you should! You can niche by client, style, or specialty. This is how you’re able to get your bigger dream clients and raise your prices. It’s better to niche down to a specific market than try to get everyone in the world to know about you. Niching allows you to save valuable time and work by focusing on the right audience.
Customer Experiences and Referrals
Don’t forget to share your customer’s experiences and testimonials on your website and/or social media. Not only are you able to add on to your portfolio and showcase your work, but this builds trust. People are able to better understand the work that you create through your portfolio. Another part to add to this is that you can create a referral program. There is nothing that builds trust more than a potential client inquiring about your services through word of mouth. Word of mouth has a lot of power and it can lead to new clients coming your way! Word of mouth testimonials and referrals are like a snowball effect, where you will have potential clients reaching out to you for help, instead of you cold messaging and reaching out to them.
Outsource
As you continue to grow your business, you are going to need assistance and support. Eventually, you get to a point in your business where it’s not scalable until you start a team. You’re going to have new business projects or ideas that you want to work on, however, you will need the time and mind space to be able to do that. That is where having a team to support you will allow you those opportunities. Outsourcing is essential! I am so grateful that I have my design assistant, Madison Whiteneck, from Keeping the Creativity in my life. My business wouldn’t be running as seamlessly without her providing support in my business.
There are many methods and opportunities where you can grow your business and take it up another level. I mean, being a business owner can be such a fulfilling journey, and there are so many paths to success that you can take. Will you be using any of these ways to level up your business?
Read About What Does a Graphic Designer Do? And How Do I Become One?