Freelancers usually go through this same frustration: the struggle to find new clients. Web designers aren't an exception.
Finding more web design clients is not an easy task, but it can be achieved with preparation.
Whether you're starting out or if you're a seasoned web designer looking to grow your business, there are a few key steps you can take to boost your sales. Here's our list of 10 tips on how to get more web design clients fast.
- Define The Ideal Client
- Use Social Media To Promote Yourself
- Create A Website
- Create The Best Content Ever
- Offer Value Content For Free
- Send Cold Emails
- Ask For Referrals
- Improve Your Skills
- Don’t Give Up
- Use Forms To Get More Clients
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Define The Ideal Client
If you believe that you need to lower your prices to get new clients - think again.
The capital rule to getting any clients is actually to knowing who the ideal client is. That’s because it helps you predict where your clients are, what they search for, and what their needs are. Which already puts you steps ahead from most of your competitors.
When you know your client you can create the best persona and work with it. This helps you establish pricing, conceive better strategies, and customize your service. It guides you on your existing projects and in your pursuit of new clients. With the persona and the ideal client in mind, you can better direct your efforts.
It's good to remember that you're not always going to work with the ideal client. The client persona works as a guiding mechanism that can help you attract a specific public. As the saying goes, "you can sell to everyone, but you can't target everyone".
Client’s buyer journey
While you're taking steps to get more clients, clients also go through steps to decide on your services. Knowing what stage of the buyer journey a client is standing on can help you create the right content that will nudge them into purchasing your services.
Deliver information in the tone and medium suitable for each stage you're reaching out to. The stages can be happening through social media, a blog article, or even an over-the-phone sales pitch. Here's a quick summary of the buyer's journey:
The awareness stage
When the customer realizes they have a problem and look for solutions.
The consideration stage
When the customer starts to consider if they need to hire someone.
The decision stage
When the customer realizes they want and need to hire someone to do the job.
Use Social Media To Promote Yourself
Have you ever bought something from a place you didn’t know or trust? Think about it. The answer is probably "No". The same happens with your prospects. If you want to have more clients, you must show yourself to the public and start showing some Social Proof that you are a trustworthy brand.
Nowadays the fastest way to show yourself is through social media. You can build an audience on giant platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and, especially, LinkedIn that can help you share your work and create a network. Or even target niche communities that include hustlers just like you, such as Product Hunt and Indiehackers.
Network in person
Networking in person can also be very helpful. Use moments like parties and gatherings (on a post-pandemic life) to talk to people about your work and about yourself. Ask for feedback and learn from it.
When you reach out to potential clients you are no longer another online avatar. You can gain them by becoming an individual, with a face and a name that clients can trust.
Create A Website
You are a web designer. Yes, you need your own website.
Your website can be where prospects first see your work. It is your portfolio and your sales system. For this reason, you must focus part of your efforts on making both great content and outstanding landing pages. Preferably multiple landing pages. That makes it easy for you to be found through search engine queries. And your content can highlight your business.
On your website, you can add the kind of work you offer. One tip: keep it simple and focus on a main type of service. It may sound easier to gather more web design clients if you have a large range of services. But is quite the opposite. By narrowing down your offers you can specialize and provide a better service and product. That is what actually helps you gain more clients. All because doing so you can guarantee the trust in your product.
Therefore, specialize your website and create landing pages dedicated to specific range of services you offer.
The perks of having a specialized website
When you have a website you show your product and expertise for your prospects. That allows the potential client not only to get in touch with your type of work but also to understand if you are the best choice for their need. This means that anyone contacting you have a better shot of being your ideal client. And of them become a customer.
One more thing. Websites, well-made, and with quality blog posts, are useful for lead generation. But they take time to give results. Therefore, don’t rely on only having a website. Make sure you follow all the tips. Or, at least, most of it so you can get better results.
Create The Best Content Ever
There are skills that not everybody has. And as a web designer, you understand it. Most of the stuff that you can do, the majority of the people on this planet don’t have the ability to reproduce. Therefore, you have a winning card in hand and must use it. How can you do it? Creating the best content ever.
What kind of content?
Some examples of what kind of content you can offer are: Blog posts, E-books, Infographics, Podcasts, White papers, Videos, etc.
In short words, anything that shows your work and/or your knowledge. Putting yourself in the position of teaching the specifics of your expertise serves as the ultimate proof that you know what you're talking about. Create short tutorials for basic web design tools, or talk about updates in your industry, just make sure to add sources and data studies to your claims.
Offer Value Content For Free
You know that outstanding content you’ve just created? Now you can offer it for free. But, why for free? After all, you had spent hours researching and building the content. The answer is simple - because you want to educate your potential clients on the value you will bring them, so you can convert them into customers.
Capturing new clients is no easy task. When you have outstanding content you can convince people that they can trust in you and in your job. Such trust can give you new and loyal clients. And they can do referrals about your job to their colleagues and so on.
For this reason, you must offer some of your content for free. Make sure you are building outstanding content, capable of delight and impress the potential client.
Invest on Email Marketing
Yes, email marketing still a thing. And you know why? Because they work. Don’t go buying email lists, that's not cool. What you should do is boost your lead generation tactics, and start a mailing list.
When a email is well-structured it gets better results. Pay close attention to the quality of your emails and the quality of the lead. You must focus on sending emails to potential clients that are closest to the ideal client you’ve designed. Don’t worry about the quantity. Is better to have 10 quality emails sent to quality web design leads, than 100 sent to various people that may not convert.
Follow these three tips to send an email that will give you the return:
Know with whom you are talking
We already talked a little about the importance for you to know your public. Now it's time to be more specific. Investigate, study, and get to know the needs of your potential clients. Before sending any cold email you, as a web designer, must have an idea of what prospects’ desires are. Once you know the prospect, you can send emails that have more persuasive content. You can show how interesting you are and offer the most suitable service for each potential client. This can make the lead trust in you and convert.
Give before asking
Any time you are sharing your work and struggle to get more web design leads and clients, you must remember - always give before asking. And make sure that what you're offering is actually valuable to the client in the stage that they are in. A 10% discount means very little for buyers that are still on the Awareness stage, but it's way more relevant on the Decision stage.
Capture the attention of the lead, make them want to open your email. Show the recipient that you did your research by giving customized solutions for any issue you may realize they have. Make them see your value and what you can do for them.
When writing your email for any prospect, try to answer to this question:
How can you, as a web designer, improve the potential client’s business?
Send more than one email
Don’t give up if the prospect doesn’t reply to your email right on the way. Give them a few days. Maybe they forgot, maybe they didn’t have the time to reply. Try a second time to reach them out. Send one more email and wait. If you still got no reply, move on to the next potential client.
Ask For Referrals
As a web designer, you should have a few clients or people that know your work. Ask help to them on the task of conquering more clients. If you need something the best way to catch is going for it. And you are looking for new web design clients. Therefore, you must look for them in the most probable place they are. And old clients can be the way. Ask for referrals, with no fear.
Another way to guarantee referrals is by doing your work better than expected by the client. Under promising and over delivering is an excellent flow to adopt. It allows your work to speak for you and help you get more positive reviews.
So, you have two ways to get new clients using referrals. One is by asking for it directly to clients and friends. The other one is over-delivering and doing great work. Preferably, try to do both. After all, people only referrer those they trust. So, you must struggle to worth the client and potential trust. And then, you will have the referral you are looking for, guaranteeing more clients.
Improve Your Skills
Have you heard the saying that knowledge is never too much? Well, it is a Universal truth. So you are a web designer and are looking for more clients. One secret to conquering it is to get more and more knowledge. Learn new skills. Discover different tools. Do old stuff with a new perspective.
Acquiring new skills allows you to do better at any project, which can improve your results and, for a consequence, more clients will refer you to other leads. And then you will get more web design clients. And the circle goes on and on.
Most people don’t have your skills. Now imagine how you can build on the skills you have and that other people are willing to pay for. The more you know the more you can gain.
Don’t Give Up
Then you did everything we’ve been suggesting and yet you got no new clients or merely a few of them. Don’t give up on your first try. Neither on your second. Keep struggling, and learning, and networking.
All the effort you are putting on conquer more clients are giving you more experience and a bigger portfolio. Which means that in just time you can have all the clients you need.
Try new approaches for different clients. Dig deeper until you realize what can you do for the client. Use your website to gather more web design leads. Quality leads that may convert. Create trust in your work and brand.
Use Forms To Get More Clients
Capturing leads is not an easy job. But it can be facilitated when you use features and tools to assist the task, such as forms. Create a customized lead capture form, using a strong CTA. Reward the lead that submits the form. We already mentioned valuable content you can offer for free, like e-books or white papers.
You can also use contact forms, to make sure your lead finds a way to contact you. It can be embedded on your website, or work as an independent landing page.
You can have a client intake form or create an order form to give the opportunity to prospects to make a direct approach, saying how you can be of help, or to require your services right on the way.
And, of course, you can use a feedback form to ask for testimonials from your customers. That can give more credibility to your business. And also can help you to improve your techniques and skills.
Maybe you can have all kinds of forms on your website. Make sure your forms are both responsive and personalized with your brand. Forms can assist you in your task of lead generation and gather more web design clients.
