Designer of the Month Winners – July 2011

Checkout the latest winners for the July Designer of the Month!

http://www.creativepublic.com/design-contest-07-2011.php

What Clients Look for in Graphic Designers

Clients look for certain things in graphic designers, and unless you know what those are you’ll have trouble closing sales. The main objective of any selling you do to prospective clients needs to be to meet their needs. You can persuade them that you are willing and able to help them overcome their problems and accomplish their goals by showing them that you’ve got what they’re looking for.

Membership in Design Associations

Some of your clients won’t care about your memberships, but others will. You have to make a decision as to the type of clients you want to target. If joining certain organizations will make you more marketable to your target audience, then it’s something that you need to take into consideration. For example, a solo entrepreneur may have little interest in what association you’re a member of. That person’s primary concern is likely going to be costs. A large corporate manager may only hire graphic designers who are members of design associations that he finds credible or prestigious.

Expertise in Certain Areas

Graphic designers who hold themselves out as experts in limited areas will appeal to many prospective clients. Some examples of specialties include animators, logo designers and illustrators. A client who wants high quality work will often not gravitate towards a graphic designer who is a generalist. For example, a software development company will try to hire someone with experience and expertise in designing for digital assets. If you need additional training to become an expert, then find the time and earn extra money to do so. Research the Internet for free or low-cost tutorials so that you can teach yourself some of the skills that you’ll need to not only be an expert, but also to gain a competitive advantage.

Price Does Matter

Some clients are not impressed with low priced designers. The opposite is true and can give some prospective clients the wrong idea about the services that you offer. Clients who want great work may be suspicious of a graphic designer who promises to do the work for below market rates. They are looking for a good balance between price and quality, but if you lowball your services, many of them will go to a higher priced competitor. At the same time, you don’t want to price yourself out of the market. Research your competitors and your target market and try to figure out what price will best represent the value that you can deliver.

Communication Makes the Difference

The worst mistake that many graphic designers make is to stop communicating with clients once they’ve been hired.  Clients want you to communicate with them along the way and not just at the beginning or end of the project. Don’t just wait to speak with your clients when problems or questions arise. Notify them of your progress, when you reach specific milestones in the project and after you complete the project. You’ll build a great reputation and attract more clients.

Strengthen these areas and you’ll be in a better position to compete against other graphic designers. If you don’t, then clients will look to others who can give them what they want.

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Free Marketing Tactics – Web Design Business

You’ll have to invest money in promoting your business, but there are free marketing tactics for a web design business that are effective and can get you started. One of the benefits of doing a lot of your work online is that you can reach your target market using little money or nothing at all. Even a long term marketing strategy can include free marketing tactics. You’ll have to do more work to see results, but it often leads to a more profitable business in the end.

Social Media Marketing

Larger companies pay people, buy tools and sponsor advertisements in relation to their social media marketing strategies. You don’t have to do that as a small web design business, at least not until your business is established. You can leverage social media to promote yourself as a web designer, for free. If you don’t already have business accounts for the main social media websites and utilize them to build fans, members and followers, then take the time to do that this weekend. Here are some of the “biggies” that you should be active on:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube

You can post videos, link to articles you’ve written or ones that are written by others, share videos you’ve created, and generate discussions. For more ideas on how to be effective in social media marketing, read www.mashable.com.

Article Writing and Marketing

There’s still a place for text-based content on the web, and many people do still read articles. Prospective clients want information related to web design and you should be one of the designers to provide it to them. Of all the free marketing tactics for a web design business, this is probably the easiest to implement if you know how to write. All you need to do is write 400 or more words about topics related to the keywords you want to target. For example, if you want to hold yourself out as an expert in ecommerce solutions, then write about PayPal, 1 Shopping Cart and other services of interest to clients. You can then submit the article to directories and webmasters. If it’s a great article, other bloggers and web owners will pick it up and before you know it, your article could go viral on the web.

Webinars

Some of your prospective clients will not pay attention to the articles you write, but they would love to view your tutorial videos. Webinars are an effective way to showcase your skills and expertise. Webinar attendees benefit because they get to learn how to use a software application or some other technology that is difficult for them to understand. Don’t worry about them never coming back because you’re shared how-to information with them. The opposite is often true. They will have confidence in your skills and abilities, and pay you back by hiring you to do work for them.

These free marketing tactics for a web design business do require you to put in much of your time. However, if you approach it in spurts and with little effort, then you can expect very little in terms of results.

Preflight, Collect & Package Your Adobe Illustrator Files

You can preflight, collect and package Adobe Illustrator files before the output process with Markzware FlightCheck. It is the only thing I know that can do this.

For more information, visit:

http://markzware.com/articles/flightcheck-articles/collect-and-package-flightcheck-articles/how-to-package-illustrator-files/2010/07/07/

and

http://markzware.com/tag/package-illustrator

This could potentially help a lot of Adobe Illustrator users.

Texas State Hexagon-shaped Brochure

Gate Fold Brochure with Glueless Pocket

Free Music Loop – Sparks Will Fly

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Free Music Loop – Combination

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