UX Consultant

[Claire Freshney]

Hi All.

I am a UX Consultant and I am looking for a way to find good Clientele through advertising. I have never advertised before, most of my work is formed through pitching to tenders.

Any tips for ways to Market would be helpful. Please see my website here to gain a better understanding of what I do.

Link removed

I use Linkedin, but with no real strategy and find many people do not respond. Which is really disappointing.

 

[Richard Moore]

I use Linkedin, but with no real strategy and find many people do not respond. Which is really disappointing.

- welcome to the world of sales and marketing

Seriously though, this is just something you will need to get used to, as soon as you start promoting yourself people's attitudes towards you will change. What used to come across as banter suddenly appears to people as a hostile spam attack. Ok, I exaggerate somewhat but the gist is there...

The trickiest thing for you will be to identify your ideal target market and then figure out a way of reaching them. It's really easy to spend a lot of money on ineffective adverts, and if you talk to people that sell adverts (magazines, websites etc...) they're not going to tell you that your advert probably won't convert to many sales. Sorry for the double negative there, but it's a polite way of saying "beware of snake oil salesmen".

If I were you I'd look at facebook advertising, it's come on a long way since its early years and can be cost effective as well as highly targeted. You'd need to formulate your own strategy as all businesses are different. But you could (for example) run an ad campaign where you target your advert at people that have liked a competitor. Or target people whose job lies in specific sectors. etc...

 

[Claire Freshney]

I have a FB page, however for the UX market it is extremely difficult - i would say because my clients are the 'big boys' and usually they go to recruitment agents to hire people like me - simply because those who require UX generally have the money to spend on it.

Smaller companies are now also realising the 'need' for UX, but I find don't always have the money, it's not an easy sell, when you are competing against the likes of web designers knocking up pretty sites for £50. Albeit, pretty designs don't drive sales - but the Customer does not know that. Through my website I can explain - but I find Linkedin better than Facebook as its where my Customers are - but i find it difficult with the no responses.

I think mine sector is so niche, i need to come up with clever ways of advertising.

 

[webgeek]

Pretty designs also don't include SEO optimisation. Perhaps you could partner up with an SEO agency and offer them a spiff for any referrals they send your way. SEO peeps are always looking for additional revenue opportunities in which their clients could genuinely benefit (financially from the ops).

 

[fisicx]

Smaller companies are now also realising the 'need' for UX.

They have always realised the need for UX but they didn't call it this. They looked for ways to increase conversions, get more leads, improve marketing and so on. So stop calling yourself a UX consultant and start suggesting you can get them more bang for their buck.

And what makes you think your prospective clients are browsing facebook of even linkedin for help? If they wanted help reckon they would go to google. Are you #1 for 'UX consultant' or any of the keywords people use for your services?

 

[Alan]

i would say because my clients are the 'big boys' and usually they go to recruitment agents to hire people like me

My two pennies worth, having serviced smaller business for the last 6 years - don't bother - go for the 'big boys'.

Small businesses in general are a pain with no real money, and as @fisicx says, they don't know exactly what they need or at least can't articulate it, they know they need more sales with less effort but thats about it.

So all these £50 web designers, of which there are approximately 14.6 million fully qualified web designers in the UK alone, that are prepared to work at less than 65p per hour, also have to become business consultants for free giving digital marketing advice to businesses that only last 18 months before the give up the dream of being their own boss and get a proper job.

This is how you get the big boys without being employed via a recruitment agency, become a freelancer or associate with ties to a few bigger UX & Digital Agencies. How do you do that? Well I know at least one way but I won't publish it here - PM me if you want to know more about linking up with digital agencies.