advice on company marketing?

[edge9]

Hi,

I own a VERY creative design company www.edge9.com, specialing in high quality web design services. Our services and product standards are very high, yet we can afford to keep our prices down due to low overheads.

Problem is, as we are new, not many people know we exist and as designers, we need some good advice to "get us out there"!

Any advice?

Thanks in advance:)[/url]

[creative-keyrings]

I would suggest promo merchandise. Its a good way of getting the word around and giving the potential customer a free gift at the same time!

Check out this thread for a review on my services

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=8480

Prices range from £49 delivered for 100 promo keyrings. We also sell mousemats and a whole host of other merchandise.

Regards,

Callum Slade

[directmarketingadvice]

Advice?

Hire a marketing strategist, of course. :)

First thing I'd do is develop a clear selling message. There's a lot of web design companies out there and it would serve you well to be able to explain why people should favour you.

Unfortunately things like "VERY creative" or "high quality web design" or "high standards" don't really mean anything.

It would only really differentiate you from a competitor who "boasts" of being "unimaginative", offering "low quaility" and hainv "low standards".

Once you've got a selling point, you should have an idea of whether you should be going after the whole market or just a segment. And that information should guide how to get yourself "into the market".

Sorry it's not a "do x", "do y" and "do z" type of answer, but you'll end up a lot further 6 months from now if you take a moment to work out where your business should be headed, based on its strengths, and develop an overall marketing strategy that's aligned with that.

Steve

[elite123]

Get good letterhead as cheap as possible then mailshot as many people as possible within a budget !

[Stationery-Direct]

Any kind of printed Stationery such as letterheads are our speciality, maybe some nice gloss flyers to hand out?

Get in touch if you require a quote.

Kindest regards

Damon
Stationery-Direct

[directmarketingadvice]

I realise my post my have given the wrong impression.

When I said "first thing I'd do is develop a clear selling message", I should have said "If I were you, the first thing I'd do is develop a clear selling message".

Steve

[MorethanWords]

Networking and word of mouth is one of the best ways to promote creative services.

Offer existing clients a bonus for referring you to new clients, say a free bottle of wine or discounted design on something else.

I don't know if it will work for everyone but I've just spent the morning going through the business pages making contact with people. Then you know if you're barking up the right tree before you get deflated sending out mailshots and emails that people just don't reply to. There are also companies that offer this service and can do it a lot more professionally than you can do yourself (ask EbonyBailey).

Finally try and think of something innovative and let the local business press know about it. For example see if any local charities need a website designed and offer to do it for free or very cheaply. Once it is done, you can tell the whole world about your charitable act, and get your name seen by people! And, it makes you feel good about doing your little bit for charadee.

If you need any more help then do please PM or email me as I'd be more than happy to help you.

[gapgb]

I would agree with Steve, first decide why people should buy from you in a very crowded market place and then use every method you can such as those listed, to get the message across.

I would have a concern trying to push a high quality and low price message at the same time. Price wont be such a big issue if you can demonstrate your quality.

In the end you will need to come up with a marketing plan, trying half a dozen different approaches and then measure their success rate. Logging where your new leads come from will help confirm where your marketing money is best spent.

PM me if you would like to talk further, I'm in Manchester as well.

[billhilton]

What I'm about to suggest is heresy, but it worked for me when I first went freelance.

Sign up for freelance marketplaces like Elance and Guru.com. By themselves, they are terrible places for making money - second rate providers drive prices down, the commissions are huge and the work is often quite dull and workaday.

However, they are great for making client contacts. I have fourteen clients for whom I do regular monthly work - each and every one of them I've found through an online marketplace.

I'm also going to (slightly) disagree with Guy here: marketing plans are fine, and you should have one. But don't spend time on one at the expense of spending time working the forums, getting to know people and making contacts. As has been observed, there are so many design and media outfits out there that you're going to have to spend a lot on a planned marketing campaign to attract sufficient attention. The firms in your sector that do well are the ones whose staff are personable, proactive and give the appearance of actually being bothered about the success or failure of their clients' ventures. The ancient virtues that predate the web by thousands of years - courtesy, reliability, sociability, humour, friendliness - are the ones that win business in this game.

[mattk]

My advice to you is specialise. Web designers are 10 a penny nowadays and as Bill said, amateurs who work out of their bedrooms drive prices down and it is difficult (but not impossible) to justify to a prospective client as to why your quote is twice what someone else claims they can do the work for.

Unless you have a really kick-ass portfolio and lots of excellent contacts who will spread your name around, you'll always be working on small time sites for your local corner shop, plumber, etc. This is where I get to the point - specialise.

Find something you're good at and/or interested in. For me it’s search engines and online directories. Learn as much as you can about your given subject, get yourself out there and maybe even offer to do some work for free. I'll give you an example. Whenever someone on here mentions AdWords, someone always, invariably, mentions a chap called Rob who has a company called Top Click. He specialises in PPC and will pop up with a golden nugget of advice. He is the PPC/AdWords guru. Everyone values what he says (well, I do!). If you can specialise then you have a good chance of making your mark. If you can;t, then you're doomed to be just another Web designer in a ferociously competitive marketplace.

[billhilton]

I think that's a spot-on piece of advice from Matt. I occasionally do work for www.website-superstore.co.uk (they're on here, somewhere...) The guys there specialise in businesses that wouldn't have had a web presence a few years ago but are now realising it's quite important. Their clients tend to be small, but not so small that they don't have any money to spend. Most of my clients are similar.

If you can specialise in a popular SME area - even something as dull as injection-moulded plastics makers or estate agencies, you'll immediately have a lever for getting work.

Now, maybe you want to be a bit more glam and upscale than that. If so, fine: but it's a good idea to remember that there's a HUGE demand for web, advertising and media work from small to medium businesses - a demand that these days easily exceeds the demand from the big guys. SMEs also tend to be much easier to work with. Typically you deal with just one guy or gal - often the boss - and the job gets done quickly and efficiently. If you work for a bigger business you spend ages having your work bounced from department to department while all and sundry mess around with it to prove that they're earning their salary and to justify their continued employment to the boss. SMEs are generally much nicer people, as you can probably work out from the people who frequent this place :-)

[gapgb]

Don't get me wrong Bill, I didn't mean go out and sign up an expensive agent to implement a plan but just simply list all the things you could do to market your company. Then choose those you can afford and start. Your advice is spot on, doing some low cost, interent based newtorking is an excellent way to start but they should try some other things and see which gets the best quality leads.

By the way what's wrong with Injection Moulding I spent many years in that industry.

[billhilton]

LOL - sorry! There's nothing wrong with it. It's just the example I use, in my arrogant media person way, when I'm talking about industries that aren't very glamorous but without which the economy wouldn't go very far.

As for marketing plans, I don't think we really disagree on a lot. I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that the Internet represents such a liquid, fast-moving and - let's face it - unstable marketplace that 'traditional' business techniques can cause problems if they're not updated.

I once worked for a bloke who had been in the army. He was very keen to apply military sayings to business. His two favourites were 'plans are nothing - planning is everything' and 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'. But dramatic, maybe, but true enough when applied to Internet business. Any marketing plan needs to be able to be adapted, dropped or changed completely at a moment's notice, based on the circumstances.

On that basis, making a list is excellent idea. However, one thing I notice when dealing with startups is that they're sometimes very wary about the use of the word 'plan' - especially if they've been nobbled by a bank manager who's spent hours droning on about the importance of business plans to them. Do you see what I mean? I guess I'm saying that while plans in themselves are good, it's the *planning culture* that causes problems.

[gapgb]

I agree, all the best plans have changes, scribbles, revisions etc. all over them. A nice shiny plan which you frame and put on your wall is no use.