Brand Your Business with Consistency

We all want to be remembered, and those who succeed know one thing: Consistency is the key.

“A report from Forrester says that 95% of customers use three or more channels to connect with a company in a single service interaction,” according to Grammarly Business.

To get people’s attention, you need several routes and types of interaction.

Businesses that brand consistently are 3.5x more likely to get strong brand visibility than inconsistent brands.

How do you brand more consistently?

7 Top Tips to Stay Branded

1. Brand Consistency.

There needs to be a similar message and experience for your brand.

Brand consistency is important for every business because it directly and immediately impacts the perception of your brand and company, both internally and externally.

If it’s not consistent, it causes mistrust among your customers, which causes them not to want to do business with you.

2. Remember the Rule of 7.

Marketers need an average of seven contacts (or touches, impressions, or interactions) to turn a prospective buyer into an actual buyer, according to Eyal Katz of Oktopost.com.

Of course, you don’t need to take it literally but remember it takes several contacts to reach a potential customer.

3. Use Paid and Organic Material.

Engage customers with ads, but make sure you add your own worthwhile content. Start a conversation about business or strategies with your potential customers to keep yourself in the front of their minds.

4. Create a Great Website and Keep it Updated.

Make sure your website represents your business well and that it goes well with the printed marketing you do. It takes about 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) for people to form an opinion about your website, according to IWD Magazine.

5. Build Your Brand With Every Effort.

No matter what avenues you use to promote your business, you will need to be consistent. Make sure the images are similar, the logo is sharp, and the message is the same.

6. Keep the Same Tone and Voice.

When you create your copy for social media, print, or even the spoken word, ensure the tone is the same. If you want to be taken seriously, make sure the style is professional. If you are a fun, dynamic business, use those words. Just make it consistent.

7. Send Direct Mail.

Direct mail has a more believable delivery. Therefore, people are apt to read it and believe it, which leads to more sales for you.

Whatever you do to be consistent, know that we are consistently here for your printed marketing efforts. We are on time, reliable, and produce high-quality pieces.

Reach out today!  Contact us today to get started! 516-561-1468 or FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ANY OF OUR MARKETING PRODUCTS GO TO: www.printcafeli.com

7 Facts About Offline Marketing 

You Probably Didn't Know

1. It’s not online versus offline

It’s not a competition between online and offline marketing as both have their pros and cons.

Plus, your marketing strategy is usually more effective when utilizing multiple platforms, leading to greater brand exposure and returns on investment. Offline marketing effectively brings people to your business’s online website and social media platforms. This is why 58% of offline retailers use offline marketing to build online customer engagement without being too invasive. 

2. Offline marketing is not invasive 

As the market becomes more competitive, marketing strategies are becoming more intense. 

However, this can lead some consumers to find marketing to be invasive. 91% of survey respondents agreed that ads are more intrusive today than two to three years ago.

A potential client who finds your advertising invasive may not want to purchase from you. A helpful way around this problem is through offline marketing strategies such as direct mail, which tends to have a more positive reception. In a study conducted by Epsilon, 59% of U.S. respondents agreed with the statement: “I enjoy getting postal mail from brands about new products.” This positive reception is partly because offline marketing is less common.

3. Offline marketing stands out

As some companies move away from offline marketing strategies, a space reopens for your company to stand out. 

People naturally remember less common things. Think of all the ads you see and hear on social media, email, and your internet searches. You may struggle to remember them all. Now think of the advertisements you’ve received in your mail. They’re probably easier to remember because they’re less prevalent and because people remember print better than digital. But, just because it’s less common doesn’t mean it’s a dying business. 

4. Offline marketing is a growing business

Going off the language used around offline marketing, it may come as a surprise that it’s a growing business. 

In 2020, the spending on offline media in the U.S. was 182.2 billion. In 2021 it was 196 billion. In 2022, it’s projected to reach 207.6 billion. Thanks to its persuasive attributes, offline marketing has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

5. It is possible to track offline marketing 

Although offline marketing can be challenging to track, it’s not impossible, thanks to some creative solutions. 

The success of any marketing campaign is primarily measured through analytics and data and then using that data to inform your future decisions. Check out the following methods to better track your offline marketing. 

• Custom landing pages. Insert a custom URL in your offline marketing campaigns. This will take the potential customer to a custom landing page, allowing you to track your offline marketing.
• Discount codes. Distribute unique discount codes depending on the means of advertisement. For example, a direct mail discount code could be “DIRMAIL201,” while an online code from Instagram could be “INSTA202.” When the consumer uses that code, you can track the sale back to the advertisement method. 

However, it is important to remember that customer journeys are becoming more complex. Usually, a customer will see your company through many channels before looking the business up and buying. Allow room for this ambiguity by asking customers how they found the business and allowing them to select more than one option. 

Gaining new customers through offline marketing is wonderful, but those that stay are even better. 

6. Offline marketing boosts brand loyalty 

Various marketing methods are useful for specific purposes. 

Offline marketing is especially beneficial for building trust, brand loyalty, and customer engagement. This is why 60% of primarily online retailers use direct mail to build brand loyalty and awareness. 

7. Offline marketing is more versatile.

The non-online world isn’t constrained to a screen, allowing for greater opportunities.

Offline marketing allows you to get more involved in your communities by attending local events. It also allows you to play with the texture, size, and smell. 

The majority of people’s lives are spent in the offline world. Therefore, what better way to reach them? We can help you with your offline marketing campaigns by providing for your print needs. Reach out today! Call Us today at 516-561-1468 or Visit Our Website at:www.printcafeli.com

 

                     Use Words to Shape Your Designs with Three Distinct Tools

Words and messages are communicated in so many ways – through vocabulary selection, images, tone or personality, and even through design.

The raw material that words represent is more than just semantics, and graphic artists have many options for exploring the power and symbolism of unique words in design.

Here are three ways you can weave words into the visual elements of your design.

The Word Pun

Word puns present a play on words using alternative meanings of words (and word sounds) to form new meanings.

What does this look like in design? Here are several ideas:

-- A seafood café restaurant might feature server aprons sporting a wacky fish (wearing a top hat) with the word “SoFISHticated” sprawled below.

-- Well-known phrases can be changed to fit the message of the brand. For example, the bike manufacturer Salomon created a logo that changed the phrase “blood, sweat, and tears” to “Mud, Sweat, & Gear.” This message links the company's core purpose – making mountain bikes – to a memorable, motivating catchphrase.

-- Words puns can be created by substituting characters for sections of a word. Designer Wolff Olins created a word pun using the characters “Q8” to represent the oil-rich country of Kuwait.

The Visual Pun

Visual (or graphological) puns do not use phonetic writing.

Instead, visual puns create a play on words through imagery, graphics, or logos. Examples include:

-- An image in the fork in the middle of two parting streets (symbolizing an impending decision or a fork in the road).

-- A symbol can be used to replace a whole word, like “I [HEART] NY” or the character “He” with a box outline around it (to symbolize the periodic element of helium).

-- Making subtle tweaks to logos to add visual effect. Rebel, a rugged Australian sporting goods company, turned the second “e” backward in their company name. Or the logo for Poison Spider Bicycles depicts the venomous red section of its spider as a replica of a gritty bike chain.

The Rebus

A rebus represents words in the form of pictures or symbols, often presented as a riddle.

Think of the last time you puzzled over an obscure personalized license plate on the rear of the car in front of you. Was it hard to look away? People love to decipher codes, and using a rebus can stop people in their tracks, causing them to slow down, think, or smile!

Here are some clever ways the rebus has been put to work in marketing:

-- IBM created a poster with three images to represent its name: a cartoon eye, a colorful honeybee, and a playfully sketched letter M.

When IKEA wanted to help American customers grasp their company's correct pronunciation, they created a rebus design featuring a cartoon eye, followed by a house key and the text phrase “ah!”

-- The East End Brewing Company chose to market its energizing coffee porter with this eye-opening rebus: a cartoon eye and a classic handheld bottle opener   

The creative use of language can help precisely position an idea, company, or product in unique and refreshing ways. Tailor your message toward a target audience and play with words until you find just the right fit!

Need some fresh ideas? Contact us today to get started! 516-561-1468 or FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ANY OF OUR MARKETING PRODUCTS GO TO: www.printcafeli.com

         Psychographics Sell: Finding the "Why" Behind the "Buy"

In 2011, Matt Salzberg was a restless associate at a Silicon Valley investment firm. He and his friend Ilia Papas wanted to create a business and were intrigued by food.

"We both loved food," Salzberg said. "We liked trying new ingredients, new recipes, new techniques, but we found it really inaccessible to cook at home. It was expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to find recipes that we trusted."

The duo tried a few ideas before landing on the one that became Blue Apron: give people an easy way to make dinner using chef-recommended recipes and the fresh, precisely measured ingredients they'd need. By August 2012, the team was shipping recipes to early testers. Three years later, Blue Apron delivered millions of meals to monthly subscribers, the company valued at a whopping $2 billion!

Why Niche Markets Are More Than Skin Deep

Initially, some scoffed at the thought of paying restaurant prices for something you labored to cook at home.

But they overlooked Blue Apron’s unique advantage: appealing to a unique, target group of “foodies” who loved high-end meals but relished the opportunity to cook them at home. Blue Apron found a niche in the market that catapulted them to exponential growth and national exposure.

A niche market is a focused, targetable portion of a broader market in which specialized products or services can be sold. Establishing a niche market helps businesses gain competitive advantages. One way to succeed in connecting with your niche market is to examine your target customers' psychographics.

Psycho WHAT? Finding the “Why” Behind the “Buy”

Psychographics refers to people’s qualitative characteristics.

While demographics analyze quantitative traits like age, gender, or income status, psychographics focuses on personality, opinions, attitudes, values, activities, and lifestyle. While demographics addresses the “who,” psychographics targets the “why.” What prompts people to purchase, and how do their values, beliefs, or worldviews drive these choices?

Here’s a car sales example. While BMW and Mercedes might sell a very similar product, each is constructed and marketed to the persona of two different niche markets. BMW often seeks to connect with customers who are fearless, young-minded, and successful. The company even sponsored some James Bond movies to “cast” BMW into a sexy, sophisticated starring role. On the other hand, Mercedes tends to target high-minded customers with an interest in wealth (specifically those with a more classic, conservative style) using taglines like “The Best – Or Nothing.”

Research shows that highly targeted marketing campaigns that speak directly to customer wants, needs, and beliefs can increase conversion rates by 40 percent. If this is true, the most important step in your next marketing campaign is to gather this data on your audience!

Sound challenging? It doesn’t have to be! Information on demographics is pretty easy to obtain. Here are a few areas you can probe for this information:

• Client interviews
• Customer surveys (included printed options or JotForm-style digital tools)
• Market research firms
• Feedback from your service team to provide (like key phrases, FAQs, and the language they hear customers use during daily interactions)
• Facebook Analytics (set up a Business Manager account and install Facebook Pixel on your website to collect free data from the “Measure & Report” section)
• Google Analytics (for a soft start, access the “demographics overview” by selecting “reporting” from the drop-down menu in the top left of the Analytics interface; then select “Demographics > Overview” under USER in the left navigation bar)

By segmenting your audience and tailoring content for specific groups, you can convert prospects into customers in a compelling, cost-effective way. 

Need some fresh ideas? Contact us today to get started! 516-561-1468 or FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ANY OF OUR MARKETING PRODUCTS GO TO: www.printcafeli.com

               Build Customer Confidence: 4 Brand Identity Essentials

Trust builds confidence.

That is why a strong corporate brand identity can make or break a business. Brand identity is more than key values or approved color palettes; it is the collection of all elements that a company creates to portray the right image to its consumer. Here is one helpful way to describe it:

Brand identity is the image or character of your business as people relate to it. For example, the BMW image of elite luxury has grown naturally from customers’ repeated exposure to BMW’s ads, endorsements, and products.

Brand imagery is the aesthetic appearance of your brand’s core identity and messaging. This results from all the visuals (from billboards, print ads, or product packaging) that represent your brand’s identity.

When a company has a strong brand, it is easily recognized, which grows people’s trust. Trust builds confidence, and confidence begets loyalty. When a business has built superiority in a particular niche, repeat customers are more willing to buy in other areas. When you have loyalty from your base, you have space to increase prices or ask for bigger commitments. 

Breaking Down the Brand Experience

When building a brand, think of an iceberg in which only the tip is visible.

The substance exists below the waterline. The brand elements that are most seen and celebrated (like brand imagery) are not always the most important. The brand experience – the mosaic of customer interactions people have with your business – is part of a greater journey.

Here are four dimensions of this mosaic:1. Brand Voice

1. Brand Voice

If your brand was a person, what would they sound like?

Are they loud and animated or reserved and refined? An organization’s name, tagline, and editorial style comprise an overall projection of its voice. As these elements are developed, consider how the words would sound in the mouth of a brand spokesperson or its founder.

Also, try to contrast the voice of your competitors. If your rival brand has a highly polished voice, you might consider adopting a friendly, down-to-earth style.

2. Consistency in Core Elements

Building the foundation of your identity starts with identifying core elements.

Strong brands create a style guide that anchors them to brand colors, key fonts, a logo projected across different backgrounds, and a style they hope to express (e.g., “elegant, clean, scalable, approachable yet excellent”).

Once you’ve nailed these keys, you can embellish with design tweaks, humor, or variations on patterns (of ads, print layouts, customer stories, and more). Like music, good design balances order and variation to make a beautiful composition.

3. Total Time

People want to feel like they are in control.

The total time invested in transactions is an essential consideration for today’s consumers. Don’t want to wait in a massive drive-through line? Order ahead in the app. Hate the grocery store line? Use the self-checkout. Perhaps you need to focus less on saving them money and more on saving them time.

Small tweaks you make to the customer experience can assure clients that their time is valuable.

4. Framing Customer Choices

Brand building is about affecting customer choice.

While prospects initially engage with emotional triggers like color, shape, image, or tone, eventually, they’ll ask deeper questions about their spending or time commitments. This involves both upfront expenses and opportunity costs; if customers buy from you, they implicitly say no to another brand.

Think strategically about speaking to buyer emotions regarding loss aversion, short-term sacrifices (vs. long-term gains), or sunk costs (how people don’t want to lose what has already been invested).

Brand identity goes beyond simple appearance. Decisions you make about voice, consistency, time, and customer choices can create strong feelings that prompt a profitable response!

Need some fresh ideas? Contact us today to get started! 516-561-1468 or FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ANY OF OUR MARKETING PRODUCTS GO TO: www.printcafeli.com

 Brand Messages that Spark Sales: Why   Authenticity is More Important Than Ever

As pandemic patience wanes, consumers are getting restless.

Many people are ready to get back to “real life,” to return to a routine, go on vacation, or be less conservative in their spending. This means this is a great season to kickstart a new marketing campaign!

Striking the right tone can be a challenge. Are you looking for relevance and timely messaging? In this sensitive cultural moment, it can be hard to say just the right thing. But bland clichés don’t sell products. Today, many brands are tempted to offer platitudes centered around themes of unity, healing, and getting along. Businesses are falling over themselves as they promise to be “here for you,” or remind us that, “in these uncertain times, we care about your needs.”

Skip the Platitudes

There is a better alternative, and it starts with authenticity.

Authentic marketing means the heart of your business connects directly and deeply to the core of your audience. It's now time to stop hiding behind cheesy messages about how we’re “all in this together.” Instead, be bold and straightforward about matching the products you offer with the needs people have.

Today’s consumers can smell artificial ads a mile away, and it is a major turnoff. According to one survey, 84 percent of millennials stated that they don’t like advertising, and the increasingly fake tone of today’s campaigns certainly won’t help. When you want to inspire action, start with your own unique brand voice, and build messages that inspire action.

What might that look like? Rick Maynard, senior manager of public relations for Kentucky Fried Chicken, explains the authenticity of KFC’s brand voice like this:

“KFC’s social purpose is to celebrate ‘real.’ To us, being real means being honest, inclusive, boldly unapologetic, refreshingly to the point, insightful and occasionally, a little edgy. We steer clear of being artificial, judgmental, insecure, full of hot air, timid or gimmicky. We try to celebrate our real fans, engage in real talk and encourage real consumer-generated content. We prefer ‘man on the street’ images over staged food shots. That’s what being authentic means to our brand. And the great thing about being real is it’s also really easy. It’s much more difficult to try to be something you’re not."

To avoid a hollow, insincere tone, be as conversational as possible. This may be friendly, direct or daring, but it dials down on what you have to offer and why someone should respond.

Activate Consumer Instincts

What will drive people’s instincts to spend, make purchases that they’ve put on hold, and resume more normal customer behavior patterns? And how can you trigger those instincts?

First, your advertising should validate consumers’ need for preservation. Reflect an understanding of their natural desire to feel safe – like a prevention focus.

A Prevention Focus frames marketing messages around the problems a product can avert. Prevention themes are excellent for identifying problems and advocating for safety, personal health, long-term solvency, crisis aversion, etc. 

Authentic advertising should also help edge consumers more toward the perseverance or benefit side – like a gain focus.

A Gain Focus frames marketing messages around the benefits a product can provide. Benefit/gain themes are essential for brands selling security, reliability, peace, and comfort.

Reboot Your Image

Most consumers believe that most brands are not creating authentic content that meets them where they are at.

If you want to restart your sales engine, focus on what marketing can do best: reach people’s innermost mental processes and trigger their instincts to buy. Use a genuine voice, connect with your customers' benefit or prevention needs, and get straight to the point.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ANY OF OUR MARKETING PRODUCTS CALL: 516-561-1468 OR GO TO: www.printcafeli.com

Disable Defenses by Creating Curiosity with Your Marketing

You want your prospects to understand how your products can solve their problems, so they’ll be moved to make a purchase.

But people don’t go from uninterested observers to committed buyers overnight. Asking for a sale is a relational proposition. And relationships have rules. Understanding the stages of a marketing relationship is important because it helps you understand what your sales funnel needs to accomplish.

Just as you wouldn’t propose marriage before a first date, you can’t rush a customer into a purchase.

What do romantic relationships, friendships, and committed customers have in common? They all move through three stages:

1. Curiosity

2. Enlightenment

3. Commitment

People will not want to know more about you (enlightenment) unless they are curious about you. And until they know how you can help them, they will never commit.

Curiosity is a Snap Judgment

The curiosity stage of a relationship is about instant impressions.

Whether you are scanning a print ad or sorting piles of mail, your mind is always evaluating information. Anything not relevant to your survival is perceived as “junk.” You’ll toss it aside completely, or you’ll procrastinate and plan to give it attention later.

At the curiosity stage, prospects decide whether to keep or discard the information you’re offering. At this stage, if you don’t tell somebody how you can make their life better, they will set you aside.

When it comes to marketing – whether it’s the tagline on your direct mail envelope or your entire elevator pitch – you will never succeed if you can’t succinctly express how you will help people survive.

Want to build engagement by provoking curiosity? Get them wondering about something or look for ways to turn information into a quest. A few ideas:

--  Strive to make the information personally relevant

--  Avoid using material that is given away freely elsewhere

--  Use a compelling “missing information” teaser

--  Offer the promise of something worthwhile

--  Combine a curiosity headline with a self-interest subheading

--  Use visuals to suggest or create the perception of mystery

Samples of Curiosity Teasers

• Learn why you never want to eat this before flying!
• Is the Honeymoon Over?
• If You Live in Siberia, This Trick Could Save You Thousands!
• The Secret of a Clutter-Free Office
• Why You Don’t Want to Drink the Pool Water
• Are You Maintaining Your Life or Actually Enjoying It?

Finally, remember to provoke customers with a vision of the “ideal version” of themselves.

Very little of what makes people curious is rational. People don’t buy products or join a movement because they are thinking rationally. They commit based on emotion, status, or dreams of their aspirational identity. If you can stoke curiosity by tugging these heartstrings, you’re already halfway to a sale!

FOR INFORMATION ON MORE OF OUR MARKETING PRODUCTS GO TO:www.printcafeli.com

5 Ways to Grow Brick-and-Mortar Sales Amidst a Burgeoning E-commerce Landscape

The ongoing pandemic has proven that no business is immune to its impact – companies of all sizes and across all industries have been hit. With consumers often opting for an online experience, many companies have quickly shifted resources and budgets to chase this new shopping behavior. While a digital transformation was needed by many companies, it’s important to focus on omni-channel growth and not lose sight of the value that brick-and-mortar provides.

Let’s consider the importance of a strong retail presence. To start, many local stores are trusted subject matter experts to their loyal customers. They focus on finding their shoppers the right product – not just upselling them. A strong partnership with these stores gives manufacturers an opportunity to extend their reach directly to customers needing help and solutions. Secondly, now more than ever, consumers are looking to shop locally. Abandoning brick-and-mortar could have an adverse impact on overall brand perception. Finally, brick-and-mortar stores are how many brands get their foot in the door and are often instrumental to growing large scale.

While it is critical to keep up with changing consumer behavior, including online sales, the retail channel should not be abandoned. Here are five ways to support brich-and-mortar sales while continuing focus on a growing e-commerce presence.

1. Ensure MAP (minimum advertised price) standards are adhered to across all channels

The internet gives e-commerce companies the opportunity to launch 24-hour “flash sales” in front of millions of people within seconds. This capability has led to many e-commerce giants predicating their business on extremely deep, short promotions. While these promotions can be alluring, they can also train customers to strictly shop while products are on promotion and only look online. To combat this, have a MAP policy that is strongly enforced, preventing any online sale to be promoted more deeply than what a retail store can do – leveling the playing field.

2. Consider channel-specific pricing and merchandising strategies

To build on the above, put together a strategy that sets a premium for the online business or prohibits certain products from being sold online altogether to drive people back to stores. For example, in third-party marketplaces like Amazon, we only offer our products in four-packs, while retail stores can sell singles. Furthermore, the individual unit price of each meal online is higher than retail MSRP. In doing so, online traffic becomes a customer-acquisition vehicle that ultimately brings people back to stores.

3. Use digital advertising to drive people to stores

Digital advertising has revolutionized the way marketers spend budgets; within 30 minutes, a targeted ad can be launched that garners thousands of impressions in no time. However, these advertisements don’t have to exclusively drive traffic to online sales, they should consider the full funnel – and sometimes have multiple objectives at once! A digital ad can direct people to stores with promotions, newly-launches sales, or to key partner stores.

4. Look for new ways to get coupons and samples into consumer hands Though in-store demos have been the traditional medium for trials and getting coupons into customers’ hands, the pandemic has led to most retailers prohibiting them. Even when in-store demos resume in the future, it’s likely that consumers will still have an aversion to these interactions. With that said, you shouldn’t abandon driving trial and awareness through sampling and coupons. Rather, consider alternative ways that you may be able to reach consumers – email newsletters, direct mailing campaigns, localized apps like Nextdoor, and sampling through digital providers are all great ways to continue these programs.

5. Offer exclusivity

Finally, there is no better way to drive retail sales than offering exclusivity to the channel. If you don’t have the resources to develop a litany of new products to keep all of your retail partners happy, there are other ways to offer exclusivity. For example, a new product can be given to a single retail chain weeks earlier than other stores or channels. Similarly, you can keep a new item exclusive to the retail channel for a period of time before offering it up online. Exclusivity always drives excitement and it is more attainable than many manufacturers realize.

As we enter a new year, keep in mind your retail partners in mind and consider how you can help work towards a mutually beneficial relationship amid the ongoing pandemic. Though consumer behavior points towards an increasing focus on online shopping, it’s crucial to not leave behind the stores that offer your products in-person.

Katie McCarron founded Portland Pet Food Company in 2014 after finding success formulating  meals at home for her aging poodle, Rosie. Prior to launching the company, she worked as President and CEO for Academic Network LLC, a medical communications company where she led and organized medical advisory consultants to educate consumers about nutrition, such as The Milk Mustache Campaign.

Brick-and-mortar stock photo by Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock

For More Information On All of Our Marketing Products go to: www.printcafeli.com

Five Things Every Graphic Designer Should Be Doing to Promote Themselves

Five Things Every Graphic Designer Should Be Doing to Promote Themselves      

1. Create a Brand for Yourself

Before you do anything else, you need to brand yourself. This includes identifying your style, specifying the types of designer you are (e.g. print designer, web designer, etc.), creating a logo and more. Think about what makes your designs special, and why you design at all. Then translate that into your branding, whether it’s in your slogan, design portfolio,business cards, or anything else.

An established brand helps potential clients (and current clients) identify your business and understand why they should choose your services. Perhaps they identify with your values or find your style a perfect match for their business.

2. Create a Website

This is your “real estate” where you can get creative. We recommend creating your website on a platform that gives you traffic insights (e.g. WordPress). Your website is where you can take your branding to its highest level. Tell your story, show your designs, and make contacting you easy. Ensure that it is user-friendly and that it includes a quote form.

3. Promote on Social Media

Social media is also a great place to showcase your brand and drive traffic to your website. Many designers already use it, but make sure that you’re one step ahead by maximizing social media’s potential. First, separate your personal account from your business account to keep it professional. Many social media platforms also allow special features for business accounts, so be sure to take advantage of them.

Second, join groups—not just groups for designers but also groups related to potential clients and business partners. For example, if you specialize in designing for print, considering joining a print-related group. Not only will you get valuable information that could help your designing process, but these groups could also hook you up with some good deals in the future.

4. Network at Social Events

Networking online is important, but so is networking in person at social events. These include not just traditional networking events but also job fairs, trade shows, conventions, and more. Attending in person helps build trust between you and your potential customers or business partners.

Networking events are especially important for graphic designers because your clients will often be people who are a little less tech savvy. That’s why they need your help. So instead of interacting with you on social media, they may feel a lot more comfortable talking to you face to face.

Tip: If you design for print, social networking events are a great opportunity for handing out printed samples of your designs.

5. Start a Blog

When you create a blog packed with informative content, appealing designs and unique branding, you demonstrate that you’re a knowledgeable professional who is consistently producing high quality designs. Don’t forget to use SEO to increase your online presence, so that those searching online can find you.

Having a blog also gives you more things to post on social media. Link back to your blog when you repost the content on social media. And finally, interact with other design blogs to expand your professional network. 

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Promoting your graphic design business is a step that every freelancer needs to take, from branding yourself to updating your blog frequently. Make sure your promotional strategy includes at least these 5 tactics so that you can expand your client base and grow your business.