As a design company, keeping a steady stream of clients can be a bit of a challenge. After all, the needs of everyone who hires you can vary tremendously, and when it comes to landing more, being able to showcase yourself to every single person can be a little overwhelming. However, that’s why we’re giving you a few tips on how you can start improving your design company’s client base a bit. Check them out below:
See What Industry Trends Are
Design is a service that every brand under the sun needs, but the struggle with finding new business comes from finding clients that can not only afford you but also acknowledge the need for quality design. This can be tricky, as the primary people who need good design are consumer goods or services, but those companies also can’t afford a design agency until a certain threshold of revenues has been reached.
On a practical level, this is a problem a lot of agencies struggle with in trying to land new business, which is why it might not be a bad idea to explore some industry trends in other areas that might stray away from the norms. Because when you consider that the purpose of quality design is to evoke a sense of identity and trust, it’s important to think outside the box in who needs those core services.
An excellent example of this is with an industry like blockchain. Although a relatively new field, it’s picked up quite a bit of steam in the tech world, with Deloitte estimating that 49 percent of blockchain companies anticipate receiving between $1 million to $10 million in investment. To get ahead with landing clients, following the experts is a must; we recommend investment experts like Tom Zaccagnino and sources that are ahead on trends, such as Bloomberg or The Next Web. Regardless if you’re going after blockchain or not, thinking about what’s trending is a smart move, especially if you’re trying to see what’s ahead.
Create A Strong Base On Social
A significant aspect a lot of design agencies lack is their ability to create a strong foundation on social media. This is becoming much more of a prevalent medium for potential clients to get to know your agency, and with nearly 71 percent of businesses on Instagram alone (as noted by SproutSocial), you can bet that your page is something they’re going to view when making their decision. Which, if your social media channels have been lagging or put on the backburner, you might want to reconsider just how much of a value this can bring.
Start digging through your social media channels and ask yourself objectively, what would you think of your agency if this was the first impression. Does it convey a solid amount of work? Your brand aesthetic? What type of company you are? Are people fans of your page and engaging with it? These pieces of criteria can add up to quite a bit, and something you should look into maintaining on a day-to-day level.
When looking at your social pages, make a list of the brand aspects you’d like to convey, as well as how you plan to start showcasing them. It’s also a smart idea to start getting your engagement going; if you need a boost, then agencies like Social Gone Viral can be a huge help. Once you’ve started to gain a grasp on what you should be posting, it’s also important to be mindful of how often, making sure to post frequently, especially in showcasing new work. Although social isn’t impossible to grasp, it’s also something that requires quite a bit of practice and patience, so keep at it as much as possible to ensure consistency.
Showcase Your Thinking
In a similar vein to showcasing your work on social, showing your thinking behind your work is going to be an element that will set you apart. No matter it’s on social media, your blog, in case studies, or in a combination thereof, the goal is to define what’s different about you versus the competition. It’s simply not enough to post what you’ve been up to or the clients you’ve had. You have to dig into the details, rationale, and thinking.
For example, as noted by Zimmer Communications, color increases brand recognition by 80 percent, which while that’s a popular statistic is something you need to show in your work. However, building criteria for this are somewhat of a challenge, as you want to give away enough that they want to learn more, but not too much where they could just do it themselves or go someplace cheaper.
Make a list of the different aspects of your design elements, including where your strengths lie over the competition, as well as what information you consider proprietary versus what the public can know. From there, start mapping out the different examples of how this has been used, as well as how you can start conveying that info in a cohesive way. After you’ve got a few good examples listed out, take a bird’s eye view of all your case studies and ask yourself what’s the commonality between all of them as well as what did you do to highlight that aspect in all of them. While this all might sound a little overwhelming, once you get into the basic practice of showing you’re thinking, you’ll be able to relay it and pull from it time and time again.
What are some ways you’ve been able to improve your design base? Comment with your insights below!
