Selling Yourself
Marketing
(No...not in that way.) ;)
For those of you out there that are running your own show (be it full-time or as a side business) what are the most effective ways you have found for marketing your services?
I guess I'm looking for ideas in a few different categories.
-Free:
How do you spread the word verbally?
What kind of directories, classifieds, etc have you used with good results?
-Cheap:
Do you ever do any flyer campaigns? Trade shows? Buy ad spots on other websites?
-Not Cheap:
I'm not even sure what this could be...possibly buying advertising on more expensive sites? AdWords campaigns?
I know a very good way to grow your business is to just strive on pleasing your current customers, but this way is probably ranks near the bottom in the rate of growth.
We just discovered recently that you can do press releases through PRWeb.com fairly inexpensively...there are a TON of press releases on that site though. Which may water it down too much to really notice an impact.
Joshua Cyr said:
Marketing is really broken down to:
Product, Price, Place, and Promotion
I think you are probably talking about the promotion part. For that it really depends on on your customers, or target customers. Figure for general advertising 7 impressions before someone actually notices, and 3 times that they notice before they actually remember what the ad is. So advertising is about lots of repetition. Buying an ad on the superbowl and blowing your whole budget would be silly. Lots of people would see it, but it wouldn't probably make enough of an impression beyond that 4 minutes. Ask someone to describe the commercials a day later and it all gets very fuzzy.
For effective advertising many people think that if you can trigger an emotional responce it will help quite a bit for effectiveness. That is why many ads are funny (or try to be). In the blog realm maybe hitting on the idea of exposure, being famous, or just having a voice?
As for effective mediums...
Free: google search (organic), DMOZ, listings in script sites, etc. I think those are most effective. Press Rleases have been not so effective from what I have seen, though milage may varry. Blogs have a very strong impact on viral marketing. One of my sites has been featured on forbes, economist, npr, bbc, etc. But the most traffic came from boing boing by a long shot.
Cheap:
Tradeshows... mostly good for brand awareness. Get a good giveaway or promotion while you are there to tie it in. Ad spots may be effective, if the web site you are on is very targeted.
Adwense can start to get expensive. I found that links from external sites using adsense were not very qualified, and we limited our ads to google results only. Magazine advertising is brand awareness usually and not driving direct customers to you, and thus can be expensive.
Other: For your product I think partnerships are king. Who can you find that will be your partner and promote your product/service to their existing userbase? You want to add two zeros to your customer count? Find someone else with a very large userbase to connect with. Maybe some sort of affiliate system where you share money or a referral fee for each user that signs up. Then get some huge site to sign up and promote you, then watch the others follow.
Product, Price, Place, and Promotion
I think you are probably talking about the promotion part. For that it really depends on on your customers, or target customers. Figure for general advertising 7 impressions before someone actually notices, and 3 times that they notice before they actually remember what the ad is. So advertising is about lots of repetition. Buying an ad on the superbowl and blowing your whole budget would be silly. Lots of people would see it, but it wouldn't probably make enough of an impression beyond that 4 minutes. Ask someone to describe the commercials a day later and it all gets very fuzzy.
For effective advertising many people think that if you can trigger an emotional responce it will help quite a bit for effectiveness. That is why many ads are funny (or try to be). In the blog realm maybe hitting on the idea of exposure, being famous, or just having a voice?
As for effective mediums...
Free: google search (organic), DMOZ, listings in script sites, etc. I think those are most effective. Press Rleases have been not so effective from what I have seen, though milage may varry. Blogs have a very strong impact on viral marketing. One of my sites has been featured on forbes, economist, npr, bbc, etc. But the most traffic came from boing boing by a long shot.
Cheap:
Tradeshows... mostly good for brand awareness. Get a good giveaway or promotion while you are there to tie it in. Ad spots may be effective, if the web site you are on is very targeted.
Adwense can start to get expensive. I found that links from external sites using adsense were not very qualified, and we limited our ads to google results only. Magazine advertising is brand awareness usually and not driving direct customers to you, and thus can be expensive.
Other: For your product I think partnerships are king. Who can you find that will be your partner and promote your product/service to their existing userbase? You want to add two zeros to your customer count? Find someone else with a very large userbase to connect with. Maybe some sort of affiliate system where you share money or a referral fee for each user that signs up. Then get some huge site to sign up and promote you, then watch the others follow.
Aaron Lynch said:
Wow, thanks for the great reply Joshua. A lot of this sounds familiar...wish I had paid more attention in my marketing courses in college! You are correct in assuming I was digging for some promotional ideas.
While we operate on a very thin, worn-out, frayed(sp?) shoe string budget...we have started talks about spending a little dough on promotions. I just would like to avoid spending, whatever budget we have, unwisely.
While we operate on a very thin, worn-out, frayed(sp?) shoe string budget...we have started talks about spending a little dough on promotions. I just would like to avoid spending, whatever budget we have, unwisely.
Nick Kwiatkowski said:
It all depends on what you want your target audience to be. I, personally go for local business. Therefore, my selling is pretty much to a local group exclusively :
FREE: Local tech groups. Attend things like your local CFUG, Linux User's Group, Chamber of Commerence, etc. Be active in as many link-exchange groups as you can. Participate in local mailing lists, etc. This will get your name out in the community, and will have people remember your name. I often get referals from people within the groups I participate in, and I get calls from people saying "Everywhere I turn, I hear people mentioning your name as doing good work".
Cheap: Sponsor local events. Sponsor a "race-for-the-cure" or cancer walk. Sponsor a local boy scout troop (or, help them with a merit-badge). Remember, while you can't do a typical "I printed 3,000 flyers and got Y customers, therefore my ROI is X%" comparison, it all helps. Many of these local charities print shirts, flyers, banners, etc. that linger. Your logo/message is displayed prodly for weeks, months, years while giving you an awesome image.
Not Cheap: Newspaper, Trade Journals, TV Ads, Web-Banners. While these methods often have lots of reach, there is too little signal-to-noise ratio for the dollar spent. Hell, for the cost of a newspaper ad with descent reach, I'd rather hire an intern for a couple months. If they enjoy their time, they will tell their all their friends, and all their friends tell their friends, etc.
But like I said, most of the stuff I do has a pretty limited reach. But I guess that's why when I've needed to sell myself, I've been able to do it pretty sucessfully.
FREE: Local tech groups. Attend things like your local CFUG, Linux User's Group, Chamber of Commerence, etc. Be active in as many link-exchange groups as you can. Participate in local mailing lists, etc. This will get your name out in the community, and will have people remember your name. I often get referals from people within the groups I participate in, and I get calls from people saying "Everywhere I turn, I hear people mentioning your name as doing good work".
Cheap: Sponsor local events. Sponsor a "race-for-the-cure" or cancer walk. Sponsor a local boy scout troop (or, help them with a merit-badge). Remember, while you can't do a typical "I printed 3,000 flyers and got Y customers, therefore my ROI is X%" comparison, it all helps. Many of these local charities print shirts, flyers, banners, etc. that linger. Your logo/message is displayed prodly for weeks, months, years while giving you an awesome image.
Not Cheap: Newspaper, Trade Journals, TV Ads, Web-Banners. While these methods often have lots of reach, there is too little signal-to-noise ratio for the dollar spent. Hell, for the cost of a newspaper ad with descent reach, I'd rather hire an intern for a couple months. If they enjoy their time, they will tell their all their friends, and all their friends tell their friends, etc.
But like I said, most of the stuff I do has a pretty limited reach. But I guess that's why when I've needed to sell myself, I've been able to do it pretty sucessfully.
Matt Williams said:
I have been picking up various bits of side work without a single bit of advertising. So much in fact that I may quit my regular job to become full-time freelance. Some of it has come from what I call 'word-of-blog'. Just by posting to my blog, but also posting comments to other people's blogs, I was noticed. Along with blogs was also the various CF lists. Answering people's questions and posting my own gave people an idea of my abilities and the type of projects I'm working on.
Of course there is also the traditional 'word-of-mouth'. Customers telling others about my service and ability is better than any paid advertising could ever be.
Honestly I haven't looked at places to advertise my CF programming availability. Your blog is probably one good place to 'announce' (like a press release) that you are available and even list some of your capabilities.
Of course there is also the traditional 'word-of-mouth'. Customers telling others about my service and ability is better than any paid advertising could ever be.
Honestly I haven't looked at places to advertise my CF programming availability. Your blog is probably one good place to 'announce' (like a press release) that you are available and even list some of your capabilities.
Kylie Lindstrom said:
With regard to marketing your skills, where would you suggest someone post job advertisements if they're looking for cf developers?
Aaron Lynch said:
I would suggest you find whoever runs your area ColdFusion User Group and notify them. They love to hear about new CF jobs.
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