The cost of launching a business depends on its offers, market, and industry.
A design business has a minuscule investment — its products are digital and work service-based. The Web and its free platforms facilitate its operations and expansion ultimately allowing any skilled (or amateur) individual into the market.
Yet, difficulty arises from one, common expense… the marketing budget.
Almost half of all small businesses spend $4,000 (and up) on its marketing budget. Most spend less than $1,000. How can one compete with business investing 400% more? How could you keep the budget low but still attract a steady flow of clients?
Take the Risk
In the investment world, they tell you to focus less on trying to time the market and, instead, simply get in. This holds true for businesses. The earlier you enter, the more time you’ll have to build relationships and mature your portfolio.
Many will work full-time jobs while moonlighting design businesses. This creates a safety net and income stream to purchase tools, resources, and advertisements. This also pays the bills with funding the marketing budget. Except, sometimes you need extra when an opportunity presents itself.
How can you capitalize on market awareness? Consider
Hedging your savings
Selling unnecessary items
The goal is to receive fast funding to strike when you’re hot. This may happen if your work picks up on social sites like Reddit or Dribble. Or, your portfolio is discovered and mentioned by influencers. A quick injection of cash — into the market budget — could go toward remarketing campaigns, Facebook ads, or sponsored content. Anything to keep your brand and portfolio in front of interested parties.
Crowdsource (What You Can)
Bootstrapping has its place during the early stages of your business growth. This keeps costs low by trading sweat equity. Tasks like content creation, customer service, link building, and social outreach are done in-house. Eventually, leveraging social media and your community will fill the gaps in these areas.
The Envato marketplace is an excellent example of crowdsourcing on a spectacular scale. Envato leveraged their Tuts+ site, already attracting designers and developers, into one of the largest digital asset marketplaces. The community, previously using the site for promotion, now had a way to sell. This further expanded into the Studio and Elements off-shoots.
How could you leverage crowdsourcing?
Accept guest posts on the blog
Hold contests with media submissions
Appoint followers into community roles
Open your platform and you’ll have passionate followers & customers willing to contribute. Placing them in the spotlight encourages their referrals and social sharing. This becomes your new customer acquisition funnel.
Doubling Down on Design Assets
Your design assets are often your best investment in keeping marketing budgets to a minimum. Large businesses can afford fresh designs with each, new marketing push. A small business? They need to make the most of their resources. Therefore, start remixing.
There are several ways to reuse design assets:
Digitizing print catalogs
Turning infographics into presentations
Copying site elements for social/newsletters
You made (or paid) for these assets, now change the media & medium to create consistent branding across all platforms. Small and incremental changes create a testing ground within marketing initiatives. This A/B testing could improve conversions & reach, leading to more income to grow marketing efforts. A win/win!
Consider what happens if you created a design freebie — it could:
Get picked up by design blogs in a list round-up
Share your brand/link when attributed
Fostering connections by helping SBOs or non-profits
Chris Spooner, of SpoonGraphics, is a great example of leveraging design assets. His blog regularly promotes design freebies. These freebies are picked up by the community sending visitors to the site. On the site, he includes a membership service to find thousands of design assets.
Let’s Not Forget the Basics
So far, you’ve learned three, smart tactics for marketing on a budget. Let’s bring things back to the basics before you go:
Share detailed tutorials of the design process
Create case & user studies of design projects
Engage the community in comments and social
Join design platforms offering free portfolios
Also, join freelance job sites and board
Attend conferences and industry events
Provide above-and-beyond customer service
Regularly send out newsletters
Guest post and gain backlinks
Contribute to projects and get attributed
Create a solid baseline and you’ll develop a routine for your marketing. Then, expand into the smarter options. You needn’t worry about competitor marketing spend when you’re doing amazing work and getting your name out there.
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