Why is Marketing important for designers? You can be an architect, interior designer, photographer, creative director or any entrepreneur selling creative services.
If you are any of the above and have not started marketing your craft then stay tune. I will be sharing why it’s super important to start marketing your expertise.
There are three parts to note here,
Contents
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1. As Designers why do you even need to care about marketing?
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2. What is marketing?
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3. What needs to be done?
1. As Designers why do you even need to care about marketing?
As creative professionals or designers, you might be wondering, why can’t I focus on my skillset and keep working continuously without the need to market yourself?
The basic purpose of marketing is to educate the potential client about your business. The marketplace should be aware who you are and what are you bringing to the table. You might be really good as designers and love what you do. The work that you love, is possible only when you have a continuous flow of clients. Not just any clients, but clients who appreciate your craft.
There are three basic principles for designers or any creative professionals providing creative services.
1. As designers and creative professionals it is easy to get lost in your craft. Trust me, I am an architect and I have spent hours and hours on designs, rendering and creating that perfect picture which is very much an eye pleaser.
Being busy at the task in hand is good but we get so engrossed in the work that the marketing activity is neglected most of the times. We don’t provide enough time to market our services. Designers will think about marketing only when the inflow of projects in the pipeline are very low.
2. No clients = No Business.
The business will cease to exist without any clients. If you don’t market yourself as designers, people will not know you. This will hamper any chance of potential clients approaching you. To run any business you need clients.
3. One who masters marketing and sales, masters the business
Every business has expenses. Creative professionals, artists or designers are no different. You still have to work, manage expenses and finances. You might own a consultancy or an agency which means you have a real business. For a business to survive, consistent flow of clients is a necessity. That’s precisely the reason to care about marketing. By use of marketing, clients get to know you which helps in building trust and credibility.
2. What is Marketing?
A lot of people especially designers and creative professionals are doing marketing the wrong way. If you look at marketing messages of many designers or professionals, you will come across messages like, ‘We are industry leaders in so and so service. We provide amazing designs and really good quality graphics’.
You might have come across such messages a lot, especially on facebook pages, Instagram handles, youtube, marketplace websites etc. All designers or creative professionals seems to be doing the same thing.
Now, if I am a client and I have to choose between two designers X and Y, both say they are great for the same service in all aspects. In such a scenario, as a client, I have only one differentiating scenario which is money. It’s an excellent proposition for me as a client as I can negotiate and get the best cost.
But it’s an unfavourable scenario for X and Y. Both the designers will be competing against each other and will have to lower cost just to bag the project. The one who quotes lesser wins. Sometimes that means working at a much lesser amount than you desire.
The right way of marketing can be divided into three parts.
1. What is Marketing?
Marketing is creating a positive change in the minds of people and with respect to where they want to be. Now a person takes your service or buys a product from you.
When they take that service or buy that product they want to change something within them. They are at a particular level and there is a level they want to reach.
That’s the reason they are coming to you. You need to find out what is that level and the positive change that the client wants to create for themselves.
The three fundamentals in which you can create a positive change are,
a. Health – If you are able to improve somebody’s health, they are hooked onto you.
b.Wealth – If you are able to increase revenue for a client through your services, then the client will have your attention.
c. Relationships – If you can help someone with their relationships, they will be attracted towards you.
Many businesses and marketing consultancies advertise their products and services based on these basic fundamentals. Let’s look at some real life examples,
Think about any deodorant or perfume ad. The scenario is as follows, A guy puts on perfume or deodorant and then there are girls chasing them.
What do you understand? Can you relate to any of the three fundamental changes? If you guessed ‘Relationship’, you are absolutely right. Deodorant is driving a change in the relationship status.
Similarly creative professionals and designers can think about their services. There are plenty examples of these fundamental changes being used in marketing.
You just need to connect your services with these changes. Marketing is about creating a positive change and helping the customer to achieve that change.
2. Marketing is Value Addition
Marketing is not about selling and shamelessly promoting products and services. You know what you do when we receive sales call and someone asks you, Do you want a loan?
You just hung up or say you are busy. Baseless promoting or selling is not going to help. There needs to be value addition.
Value addition can help in gaining Trust and becoming an Authority for that potential client. The reason for this is simple, you help them understand where the customer wants to reach and how they can reach there.
You become an authority in the process. The potential customer will trust you more and is likely to buy.
2. It is possible to market without spending money
For designers and creative professionals, various marketing aspects are to be considered. You will need money to run paid ads or for influencer marketing etc. But there are ways where you can market without spending.
If you can create content like youtube video, podcast or blog post (like the one you are reading right now) etc., you can provide value through these contents. Such type of marketing can be totally free.
3. What Needs to be Done?
I will provide three simple action steps to get you started.
1. Understand Your Customer
The first step is to ‘Understand Your Customer’. You need to understand everything about them. Customer’s likes, dislikes, problems and needs.
Concentrate on the client psychology. Need to identify what they want? Understanding the customer will lead to identifying their desires.
Desires can be either a service level desire or a core desire. Service level desire is the service that your provide to your customer.
For example, you are an interior designer and you design an office for a client. The designing service that you provided is a service level desire.
Core desire is very important. You need to identify it. For example, Why do the client want to get the office designed?
Maybe the client wants to impress customers or maybe a better work efficiency for the employees is desired or there might be a different reason altogether.
You need to search core desire and identify it. Once you are able to tap onto the core desire, the client gets completely hooked on to you.
2. Do not solve Everyone’s Problem
Once the core desire is identified the second step is, ‘Do not solve everyone’s problem’.
You are not here to change everyone. You can’t change everyone atleast initially. Everyone refers to a lot of people. Many people will have multiple opinions and you cannot satisfy all opinions.
Hence you need to be specific in choosing the customer you want to work with. The client for whom you want to bring about a change, a group of people you want to change.
When there is a group with similar interests and wants, it’s easier to change them and transform their desires. It’s absolutely imperative to identify your customer.
3. Add Value and help Visualize the change
The third step is, ‘To add value and help visualize the change’.
As a service provider, designers need to solve specific problems for a client or a group. As they are a group, there will be a set of problems common to them.
All you need to do is solve their problems and demonstrate how your services can resolve their problems. Client’s trust is gained once they see the change materialise. You will also need to make the client understand the transformation process.
Once the process is understood, you will have client’s attention. It’s easier to sell your services, once you gain client’s trust and have undivided attention.
By The Way,
If you’re Interested in Exploring How You can set up an automated Marketing System For Yourself As an Architect, Interior Designer or any Creative Professional Offering Your Services,
Then Click On the Button Below to Book a 60 min Call.
