Why You Should Blog | Freelance Graphic Design Blog

Your Business Needs a Blog :: Part 1

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Why You Should Blog

When working with new web design clients, one of the questions that I ask when sorting out the content that will go on their website, is whether or not they will have a blog.  Often times, their answer is in the form of a question, “Do I need one?  My answer is always “yes.”  I truly believe that every business should have a blog because it is a relatively low cost way to market your business.

Having a blog drives more traffic to your site.  Before I started blogging for my business, I was averaging less than 10 visitors a month.  Not per day or per week, but 10 visitors per month.  Granted, at that time I was still working as a graphic designer in corporate America and freelancing only on the side.  I built a website like most businesses do, to establish a web presence and showcase my portfolio.  In my free time, I built an unrelated site to blog about some of my interests in natural hair, art and healthy living.  Within a few months, I was averaging over 1,000 visitors per month on that site.  10 visitors per month for a business that helps put food in my mouth compared to 1,000 visitors per month for something I do for fun, about random stuff that I like?  Yes, I thought the same thing you are thinking right now.

When I decided to freelance full-time, I also decided to dedicate time to blog for this site as well as my other site.  Actually, this site has become a significantly higher priority over my “fun site.”  Within a few months time, I saw my site traffic triple to over 30 visitors per month.  In a year’s time, I was averaging over 100 visitors per month and I only posted a new blog post once a week.  Not only did my website traffic increase, but it was what I consider “quality” traffic.  I blog about topics relating to: graphic design, marketing for small businesses and projects that I have done.  The services that my business offers relates to the topics that I write about.  As a matter of fact, most of my blog posts are born out of the questions that I get from clients; and friends and family that like to pick my brain.  That means that the majority of the visitors to my blog fall within the demographics of my client base.  In my opinion, that makes it “quality” traffic.  The added bonus is that this “quality” traffic only costs me the time it takes for me to sit down and type.

This leads me to my next point.  Having a blog can increase revenue.  It is all about the content.  If you have quality content related to your products and/or services, it can influence a visitor to want to learn more about your business, which can lead to a purchase.  How many times have you turned to the internet for information on a particular product or service and ended up on a blog?  If what you read was informative and helpful, did you do some further browsing on that site?  Did you make a purchase or contact them for further information about their services?  If you answered yes, then you fell within the category of being “quality” traffic for that particular site.  I have had several clients that were the result of landing on one of my blog postings and many more inquiries into the services that I offer as a result of reading my blog.  Again, the cost to market in this way for me, is just time.

Blogging as a form of marketing your business is fairly inexpensive.  If you have a website, then you already have a domain name and hosting.  You may have to get with your web designer if you are not very technically adept, but it will be fairly easy to add a blog to your existing site.  If your website was built within the last two years or so, chances are that it is already built on a content management system (CMS) like WordPress.  Websites that are built on platforms like WordPress make it easy to add a blog.  Other than time, which I consider a cost, most of your out of pocket expenses to blog will be related to content creation.

Can you spell and write a decent sentence?  Then you can probably write a blog post.  If not, you can pay to have one written using a freelance writer or a service like scripted.com.  If you are not sure where to find a freelance writer, check out sites like odesk and elance.  Not sure what to write?  Think like your customer.  What would they want to read?  What information would be helpful to them?  Remember, it’s not about you, but about them.  Help them and they will reward you with their patronage.

Think Like Your Customer, Make More Revenue

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You hear it asked all of the time, “How do I make more revenue?”  The simple answer is to think like your customer.  This simple rule can make a world of difference when applied to your marketing plans, product development and the services you offer.  Often times, businesses approach their marketing from their own perspective, making money.  Your business’ goal is to sell, sell, sell, but you can actually sell more if you try to think from the perspective of your customer.  Put yourself in their shoes.  Ask yourself why your current customers buy your product or use your service?  Yes, it solves a problem that they have, but what made them buy your product or use your service over something or someone else?  If you can identify what that is, you can use it to your advantage and begin to look at your business through their eyes.  Give them what they want to see, hear and how they want to see and hear it.

No one, not even you, wants to be “sold to,” but businesses constantly bombard potential customers with “buy me,” “try me,” “I’m great!”  It’s all about them, the business, the product, the service.  What about the customer?  Step into their shoes and make it about them and not about you.  Here is a fictional example to illustrate my point, Lucy is a tax professional who’s clients love her because she is a certified tax professional.  This eases their minds and gives them confidence that their tax returns are done right, because they are afraid of being audited.  In her flyers to new potential customers, she uses this to her advantage.  The sales copy on the flyer plays on the fear of being audited while showcasing the fact that she is a certified professional and her years of expertise.  She even lists that in 5 years, she has only had one client selected to be audited, and she was able to help them through that process with a favorable end result.  Potential clients that view the flyer are still being “sold to,” but the language feels more relevant to them.

If you take this approach, thinking like your customer, you will be able to better engage them and sell to them.

KISS:: Keep It Simple Stupid

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The KISS acronym is a common term used within a variety of industries, namely marketing.  While I think it is a great concept and rule of thumb, I am not very fond of the “stupid” part.  I feel that whoever came up with this acronym thought it would be cool if it spelled out the word kiss and added an extra letter.  Nevertheless, it is a great rule of thumb when coming up with marketing concepts and design pieces.

I often tell my clients that less is more, which is keeping in line with KISS, but what does that really mean?  From a design perspective, less has more impact.  If you received a marketing piece that was full of text with maybe a few images sprinkled in here and there, how likely are you to read ALL of it?  If you instead received a marketing piece that looked sparse in comparison with the amount of text how likely would you be to read ALL of the text on that piece?

Any marketing piece that you create has a purpose.  You want to provide information to your potential client, whether that is information about a product or service that you offer or to inform them of a promotional offer.  By using less and keeping it simple, you have more control over what that potential client takes away from your piece.  If you have too much text and just too much going on in your piece, then the potential client will only take a portion of that information with them if any at all.  You also are unable to dictate which information they took with them or at what point they became tired of reading and stopped.

In design-speak, we often talk about “white space” and most designers are quite fond of it.  The reason why we love white space so much is because it gives you the power to control the viewer’s eye.  By keeping it simple and using less graphics, colors, images, fonts, etc. we are able to draw attention to what is really important in a piece and direct traffic or the viewer’s eyes through it.  White space does not have to literally mean white.  White space is just a term to refer to copious amounts of clear space; space that is void of graphic elements or text that would command the viewer’s attention.

Ultimately, if you are creating or having a marketing piece created, you want it to work for you.  By keeping it simple, you put the power in your own hands to get that done.  Make it complicated and the potential client will make all of the decisions for you and probably not in the manner that you would like.

Why You Should Invest in Your Logo

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This is a repost of an article I wrote for Under30CEO.  Click here to see the original post.

Your logo is the face of your brand and helps to form the perceptions that people will have about you and your business.  It is also the symbol that jumpstarts your brand’s recognition and you want it to be able to stand the test of time.  When you look at large brands like Apple, AT&T, FedEx and 3M, you will notice that although they may have tweaked their logo over time to modernize it, it is largely the same as when they first started.  Because of this, they are able to continue to reinforce their brand’s recognition and following.  Anywhere you go, if you see an apple with a bite mark, or a blue spinning globe, you know who it is, even if you only glanced at it.

Often times when businesses are just starting out, they neglect to invest in the creation of one of the most important aspects of their business, the logo.  It is easier and cheaper, to cut and paste some clipart together in Microsoft Publisher, Word or PowerPoint so that they can get the ball rolling with business cards, a website, etc.  Later down the line, once revenue has picked up or the business is experiencing growth, that is when they decide to invest in their logo, but it is really too late then.  Think about it.  If you are doing well with your business and increasing revenue and experiencing growth, that means that you have built a loyal customer base and following and you have generated buzz about your product or service.  If you change your brand’s look too drastically, you will confuse your current customer base and will essentially have to start from scratch in terms of building brand recognition, because it no longer looks the same.  It is similar to celebrities that have altered their look drastically either with plastic surgery, or with a change in hairstyle and or wardrobe styling (think Miley Cyrus, Christina Aguilera & Bruce Jenner).  Their fan base rejected the change and it took time and brand building to bring those fans back (if they came back).

I, myself, have been guilty of not investing in my business’ logo.  Wait…stop the presses!  “I thought you were a graphic designer, it should be easy for you,” I can hear you saying.  I started freelancing while I was still working on my undergraduate degree in graphic design and my first logo was actually a class project.  Back then, I was only focused on creating designs that were aesthetically pleasing, but there is much more to a logo than that.  To invest in a logo means to take time, or pay someone to do research in addition to creating the look.  How can you create something that will appeal to your potential customers and cause them to take a second look if you do not know anything about them or even who those potential customers would be?

Market research helps to give the logo’s design a direction to go in.  By researching the target demographic and learning about their attitudes, behaviors and habits, you can determine which colors, shapes and fonts will appeal to that audience and draw them in.  Yes, it takes more time, energy and money, but it will yield better results in terms of revenue and brand recognition.  Market research will also help you identify things that could be potential problems later on down the line.  If you have dreams to take your business global, doing research will help determine if you will have trademark issues in other countries.  It cannot prevent someone from having the same mark or name five years from now, but it can determine if that is the case right now.  Investing in your logo will also give you a custom logo and or icons that you will be able to trademark, unlike clipart.

I wish that I had done this research in the beginning, but I was young and a bit foolish.  A couple of years after graduation, while I was still getting my feet wet, I was still foolish.  I redesigned my logo again, along with a name change.  The name change I do not regret, but the logo design direction I do.  I went from CE Designs to Colleen Eakins Design and although I liked the design of the logo change, I neglected to really think about the application purposes of the design and it proved difficult to work with over the years.  The design was long and when I needed to use it in spaces that were square, it did not scale or resize well.  Now, fast-forward five years later and another redesign to the logo.  With more experience and knowledge gained from my graduate degree in marketing (MBA), I am now a lot wiser and my approach to design has changed.  I am now more focused on design that is aesthetically pleasing AND effective.  I am also on a crusade to save entrepreneurs from making the same mistake I made in creating my brand.

This time around, I did the research and put the same energy and thought into the process that I would do for one of my client’s, and I like the results a lot better.  Although I am semi-starting over in terms of brand recognition, I am getting a better response to the new, revamped look than I did with the old one.  So please, invest in your logo!  Choose a marketing company or freelance graphic designer that will do the research.  Make color choices and request edits to the designs you are presented with based on the research that they have furnished you with.  Get feedback from family, friends, business partners or people that you think would be potential customers.  If you invest in your logo, you can achieve the same brand recognition and success that Apple has.

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