Five Tips For Creating A Successful Freelance Design Brand

There are many benefits to going freelance, such as becoming your own boss, no more office politics, you’re in control of your decisions and your time, you’re free to pick your own projects and clients and your earning potential can increase- the list could go on and on.

However, to succeed, you’ve got to make sure that you’re getting your brand out there and impressing more and more people, so that they not only see you as a strong brand, but also so that they give you some business.

Something that’s forgotten by many designers, in some cases even the extremely talented designers, is personal branding. Instead, many focus their efforts on proactive marketing when they’re in need of more business or new clients. However, building a personal brand means that prospective clients go straight to the designer, instead of being approached via other marketing methods.

We at The Interaction Design Foundation have delved into the freelance design world to highlight the things that designers must do if they’re looking to go freelance, including writing blogs, social media, and the wider design community. Are you thinking about stepping foot into the freelance world?

Here are five tips for creating a successful freelance brand:

1. Create (and use) a blog Creating a blog is one thing, but you’ve got to make sure that you’re actually using the blog to its full potential and sharing your work on there. Therefore, your blog shouldn’t just be a portfolio of your work. Your blog should tell your brand’s story, while also showing that you’ve got a true understanding of your industry at a larger scale.

2. Reach out to the wider design community If you want your work to be respected, you’ll need your peers and clients to recognize it. Spend some time on online forums such as Reddit, discussing the industry, and talking about the work of others in a constructive way. Show your passion for the industry to your peers, alongside your leadership skills, and you’ll be halfway there to having a strong personal brand.

Related: Five Tips For Achieving Co-Founder Alignment

3. Use social media to its full potential Make sure that you’re using social media to promote your work. You should aim to use at least one social media outlet to promote your own work as well as other design work that you appreciate more generally. Social media offers you the chance to reach a wide audience, so spend some time developing and caring for a community that you’ll create. Eventually, your following will become the brand’s unofficial ambassadors.

4. Increase your exposure Is there a way that you can get your work to go to a wider audience? Try and branch out from only corporate clients, and see if you can gain some more commercial work, where your design may end up displayed in magazines, blogs, and in other forms of media available to the public.

5. Create some value-added giveaways An easy way to increase your brand reach is to create some sort of giveaway that solves a specific problem for a group of your target audience. Don’t worry- in many cases those users won’t do what’s in the giveaway, they’ll contact you to do it for them instead. Showing expertise in a meaningful way can create a sense of trust with potential customers.

Related: Trust Is Built, Not Bought