As we discussed in part one of The 2010 Designers’ 8 Step Marketing Guide there are more freelancers out there vying for projects now. In order to continue to build your business, it’s essential to execute effective marketing strategies. You’ll find some ideas you can use below.

Read part one of the 2010 Designers’ 8 Step Marketing Guide.

6. Communicate with your prospects and clients
You need to continuously keep in contact with your clients and prospects. Timing is everything. Your prospects and former clients may have a wealth of designers to pick from in making their selections. You need to ensure that you get on—and stay on—the top of that list.

You have lots of options for marketing vehicles. You can distribute a quarterly or bimonthly e-newsletter, develop a blog, write a regular column, do quarterly mailings, or even make regular phone calls to your base. Regardless of the tactics you utilize, build out a plan for making these ongoing touch points throughout the year, and follow through. Sending an invoice doesn’t count, but the referral program does.

7. Use social media
Chances are you’re using social media in one way or another. But are you using it strategically to build your business? It’s with this strategy question that many designers fall short. You can utilize every known social media site to create buzz and generate a flurry of activity. But by doing this, you can also miss your target and lose track of your objective—to create a favorable impression of your work among would-be buyers, generate sales opportunities and make sales.

Take advantage of sites like DesignersCouch to highlight your portfolio and connect with prospects and partners. Actively work to build a community.

Use LinkedIn to highlight your accomplishments, connect with other professionals and drive traffic to your website. Some will recommend that you spend a significant amount of time responding to and asking questions on LinkedIn. You need to determine the value of that approach based on a cost-benefit analysis of your time. These sorts of activities can consume a lot of bandwidth.

Twitter is an easy and effective means of getting information of value out to your network. This can shape your credibility and keep you connected.

Blogging is one of the most effective means of using social media. Whether you’re contributing to your own blog or are a guest blogger, if done well, this strategy will boost search engine optimization. It will also help establish your credibility among prospects who research you. Use your blog to highlight your work, tell success stories, discuss design topics and subjects related to the industries you serve, and more.

Regardless of what social networks you utilize, including Facebook, designer communities, and social news sites like Digg, Mixx, Reddit, make sure you’re consistently pushing our your message. And use these sites to promote your blog entries too. But remember, focus on your customers, prospects and business partners and what matters to them. Don’t make your contributions entirely ego driven. Provide valuable content as well.

8. Network
This is a topic I’ll be writing more about later. Some love it. Some hate it. Many don’t go about it the right way. But traditional networking can work if you’re in the right room, patient, have a smart pitch and are willing to follow up on leads. Think about networking events in your town. If you haven’t checked any out, or it’s been a while, resolve to get back out there and get to work. The more you get out and network the better you’ll be able to be at determining the best places to be. And remember, the people you meet and reconnect with also have networks and can be good referral sources for you.

The bottom line: Measure!
Back to that pesky marketing database mentioned in part one. It’s critical to know which efforts are driving prospects into your sales pipeline and which ones are helping you close sales. Once you have good data to evaluate, resolve to track the success of your marketing to continually improve your results.

Once you’ve put some of these steps in place, report back to DesignersCouch and let us know how they work out for you.

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About the Author
Becky Sheetz-Runkle is a marketing strategist and copywriter, and an advocate for measurable marketing. She’s based in the Washington, D.C. metro area and can be reached at bsheetz@q2marketing.com.