I'm looking at economic methods of marketing my services, along the lines of high exposure for little financial outlay (time and effort not a problem), or word of mouth.

 

I have done some websites for a few charities free of charge and thought this might be a good way to go. I would target charities that hold regular public events and exchange my services for exposure in event media and advertising, also charities that regularly get mentioned in the press. I would target my offer to a particular genre and region, local to myself so I am able to visit face to face, and avoid being overloaded with requests. There are also tax benefits.

 

I also thought of offering free re-designs to local high footfall companies to increase my exposure. Maybe making agreements to charge for updates/additions and hosting etc.

 

Has any one done something similar? Or would this just create a mass of workload and not much investment?

I honestly think you should avoid doing free work for companies, regardless of the footfall/traffic they will gain. There's many connotations associated with the word free, and doing a job for absolutely nothing will be of no benefit for you. Many people will think there is a catch, many business people don't value free work. Offer them a discounted rate, showing them that you can make them a saving while doing the work. If you do free work for large companies, and they pass your details on, then people will contact you to do free work for them. But, if you do a discounted rate, they'll say 'this guy did us a great website at a great price'.

 

You never see plumbers or sparkies doing free work. Value your time.

 

The charities thing is a good idea, and something I've done recently as it not only gives me a boost as I'm helping out in a way that I'm good at but also it gives you the chance to get your name out there. But again, be careful as people will contact you, ask for cheap or free work and disappear when you tell them that you charge.

 

Type in, lets say, 'Dentist in Derby' (or whatever is your town) and find websites that are on the second or third page, which are poorly designed, and write them a good letter and basically tell them what you can do for them. A good sales pitch is important, don't seem spammy and don't seem impersonal. Some might not get back to you, and just bin your letter, but others might not of considered their web presence and your letter just reminded them that they should get around to it. Suggest that you can increase enquiries to their business and that the initial outlay will be small compared to the number of extra books they could get. Don't promise that they'll make loads of money, cos it might not happen. It worked great for me, and I got a fair few companies this way.

 

They gave me the figures of website enquires/telephone enquires from the web, and we set up a promotion and sometimes a new number which I could track and they allowed me to Bcc in the emails and the number of enquires from their new website, after a few months was massive compared to the figures they gave me. Job well done.

 

there are plenty alternatives to free work, if thats the route you want to go down. Discounted rates is the way I would go.

 

Hope this helps?

You have to spend money to make money!

 

Network like crazy.

 

I do 1 charitable site a month (helps with tax), but I get myself in every bit of media associated with that charity including launch parties / dinners and so on. Id do a free site if they could prove they have traffic of 250,000 + a month as its good exposure.

 

If a business is making money locally why would you want to give them a service for free? Your a business no? Bills to pay and so on.

 

The trick is to network and self promote like no tomorrow, if you do a site get it out there push it hard on every social network you can tell your friends, family what you do. If your serious about eating next week its really not that hard...

Hi Yesfan,

 

After reading your post I had a bit of advice that may be of help to you.

 

You mentioned cost effective, or free marketing of your services. Something that is overlooked by many small businesses is the massive potential of Facebook marketing.

 

Not knowing too much about you personally, but your presence here suggests you are a competent web designer, I would suggest creating a customised facebook 'page'. Use it as an opportunity to be flashy and show what you can do (examples of 'customised facebook pages' include companies like Pepsi, Justin Bieber etc).

 

Not only is a facebook page completely free, but it is utilising the one site in the world that pretty much anybody and everybody is using most of the time, in one way or another.

 

From there you could look at cross-networking your services with other designers and companies - it may seem counter-productive to work in conjunction with your competition, yet in the long run you may end up with them sending you overflow work. This works much like a basic affiliate scheme and I would be happy to go into more detail with you if you were interested.

 

Facebook aside (though there is a lot more you can do within this outlet) you could look at blogging. Again dependent on web experience, it shouldn't take too much effort to create a nice professional blog on wordpress to demonstrate your skills and abilities. From there the basic premise is similar to facebook again, find like-minded individuals or small companies and take an active interest in their blog - don't self advertise, rather impart some knowledge, pay a compliment where it is due and make a new friend, rather than just a business partner.

 

Youtube is again a nice method to self advertise - if you have a basic knowledge of search engine optimization, keywords etc, it would be beneficial to create a short youtube video that is interesting and to the point - telling people what you do and providing them with a value proposition, or why you are better than the competitor and what you can offer to them.

 

These are just a few really simple and completely free methods that can have great benefits dependent on execution. All it takes is a little care and patience.

 

Bear in mind that people are subjected to an information overload in terms of marketing - tailor your marketing to how you can help THEM.

 

You mentioned picking a particular genre/category to advertise to - this is very wise. Essentially this will be your growth phase so picking a 'niche' may help you tailor your services specifically to some 'need' out there, for instance - small businesses who need a very specific type of coding.

 

If you really wanted to generate a lot of success with your marketing, I suggest reading or downloading an e-version of 'Marketing For Dummies' - don't let the name fool you, this book is an excellent resource and contains pretty much everything budding entrepreneurs/self marketers require!

 

Hopefully some of this was of use to you, regardless I am sure you will figure out something that works for you in the future - you sound like an intelligent and hardworking designer.

 

Sincerely,

 

James

Edited June 27, 201115 yr by JPreneurial

linkdin or whatever its called

@ Jason Dexter

 

Completely understand what you are saying about working for free for companies that expect to pay for services. I would imagine the discounted approach would be just as effective, as long as everything was contracted to make price point changes completely clear for any future business. May as well plan to break even at least.

 

@pandadoodle

 

It looks like self promotion and networking is the way to go initially, to build a solid foundation of customers who will go on to promote your services free of charge..... hopefully..... if you treat them properly! Its difficult to choose the correct path when you are just starting out. You do a bit of market research, find established competitors are charging £6k plus for bespoke CMS based ecommerce sites, another £400 for freelance photography and more for the copywriter, then the bloke down the road will do the same for a grand all by himself. I know who is likely to give the best service but the £ signs usually win the day.

 

I understand the importance of good customer service and delivering promises, and also the benefits of networking to sell your service. But having a high level of confidence in your abilities with so many competitors around you, so much more experience in different areas, its difficult to offer a competitive all round service.

 

Anyway, definitely going to stick with the charity thing. Plenty of opportunity to network there, most of the charities I have worked for are food and drink based local promoters and festival organisers, plenty of footfall there. A few of the other sites have been for friends in business, mates rates, just to get some stuff in the portfolio. So I've still got to make that step onto the "charging a decent fee" ladder and be confident that I am offering value for money.

 

@JPreneurial

 

Not really into the whole social networking scene personally, so definitely hadnt thought about using it as a promotional tool. Get with the times, I suppose! Off to get my copy of Marketing for Dummies.

I'm surrounded by some of the biggest agencies in Wales if not the biggest and I still get work in. Competition is good and price is not a sales factor anyone with a solid sales background will tell you that. If you sell on price only you will go out of business fast. Having people charging 50p to 50,000 for a site is no excuse not to get work sorry!

Edited June 28, 201115 yr by pandadoodle

 

Exactly, otherwise how comes Aldi or Lidl aren't the top supermarkets?

Quality > Quantity and a smart client will know that.

Same as any business, its down to you to instill product confidence in prospective customers. Current climate, price is a major player, gonna have to disagree with you there, and if I did agree we would both be wrong !? lol

Not a good analogy, Lidl dont shout about it but they have a turnover way in excess of Tesco and the big UK players (worked for them for 6 years). We digress!

No such thing as a recession in this game, people need a web presence to sell advertise you meet the clients requirements if times where hard I wouldnt be getting 4-5 figure jobs in or have 6 pending...

 

for the record aldi and lidl are great just dont buy meat there costs way too much

Edited June 28, 201115 yr by pandadoodle

Get the message though, why would you want to be a Lidl when you could be Waitrose! Worked 20 years in retail and its time to turn a hobby into a livelihood. Everything I know is self taught and I'm far from being complete, although I did spend a bit of time at Art College many moons ago.

 

Did start to get a bit of momentum behind it a few years ago, then the missus got ill with the big C, and that has overwhelmed for the last 24 months. All seems to be good again now though, thank f*@k! Do have my own site, that hasnt been updated for a while (24 months), but after the advice I have had I think its time to restructure, re design and re plan. Anyway, throwing the link to the dogs.... try not to be too savage:

 

meloni

text does not render for me! but as you said 24 months old update yes it could do with new everything Good luck

lol cheers

100% economic solution.

 

 

Now there's a history graduated who knows a depression when he sees one... Lol. I wonder if his sign worked?

One of my first projects was a facebook micro-website for a non-profit event held by a group I am part of, I did this free of charge and it has had great results in terms of exposure and referrals.

 

Aside from that, all of my work so far has come from networking and word-of-mouth. I haven't done any paid advertising (apart from networking which has been very cost-effective for me) and so far I have only had time to build my home page

Hi Yesfan,

 

After reading your post I had a bit of advice that may be of help to you.

 

You mentioned cost effective, or free marketing of your services. Something that is overlooked by many small businesses is the massive potential of Facebook marketing.

 

Not knowing too much about you personally, but your presence here suggests you are a competent web designer, I would suggest creating a customised facebook 'page'. Use it as an opportunity to be flashy and show what you can do (examples of 'customised facebook pages' include companies like Pepsi, Justin Bieber etc).

 

Not only is a facebook page completely free, but it is utilising the one site in the world that pretty much anybody and everybody is using most of the time, in one way or another.

 

From there you could look at cross-networking your services with other designers and companies - it may seem counter-productive to work in conjunction with your competition, yet in the long run you may end up with them sending you overflow work. This works much like a basic affiliate scheme and I would be happy to go into more detail with you if you were interested.

 

I agree with you on this one, I have also had success through Facebook and I've only recently set up the page. You can use Facebook's paid advertising to target a specific audience, I haven't done this though as it's doing well without so far

In my experience it's very difficult to get someone to pay for something if they have been getting it for free (or if others have been getting it for free). I ,therefore, wouldn't suggest working for free. Getting a good website up and running and doing some good SEO would be a better bet. So many people use the internet to find services now - take advantage of this.

Not a good analogy, Lidl dont shout about it but they have a turnover way in excess of Tesco and the big UK players (worked for them for 6 years). We digress!

 

 

Not in the UK they don't. Both Tesco and Asda (Walmart) are way, way ahead. In fact I think both are bigger worldwide, too. So dunno where you got that one from.

Not a good analogy, Lidl dont shout about it but they have a turnover way in excess of Tesco and the big UK players (worked for them for 6 years). We digress!

 

If you're telling me that Aldi (or Lidl) pulls in a larger profit in the UK than Tesco then i'd have to say Bullsh*t...

Edited June 30, 201115 yr by MikeChipshop

Ok, might have guessed that a bit! Tesco 2010 £60bn, Lidl £48bn. You win.

 

Lol.... first rule in business, get your figures right!

Edited June 30, 201115 yr by yesfan

Ok, might have guessed that a bit! Tesco 2010 £60bn, Lidl £48bn. You win.

 

Lol.... first rule in business, get your figures right!

 

Haha thought so... but i'll admit i'm still shocked at how high Lidl's turn over is!

Here's a good one for cost-effective marketing - a lass posted earlier about needing a WP fix. I took a rough guess at the problem and told her it would take more of my time to raise an invoice than it would to fix the problem so I couldn't be bothered to charge her for it. It took me literally no more than 30 seconds to find and replace some malformed quotes in one template and reupload, and I got glowing recommendations in a blog post, on Twitter and on her Facebook page.

 

Word of mouth is the most cost-effective form of marketing you can get, because it comes to your prospects from a trusted source.