Some time ago we were thinking about the way of growing our business. Except for increasing prices which would give a chance to hire new employees and as a consequence take more projects on board and hire more designers first, there also were some points regarding the search of projects themselves. Should you always increase the number of managers and work on loyalty programs or just launch another educational course or podcast? What works better and why?

Ways to Attract More Clients

There are different ways to attract new clients:

• work on the quality of work and portfolio, publishing more shots on Dribbble and more cases on Behance;
• increase the amount of designers, so that designs will be delivered faster to the end client;
• work on marketing;
• create SEO and invest in Google Ads;
• launch side-projects.

Let’s take a look at each approach to find out why it may be good or why it may not.

Quality of Work

Let’s say this stage is fundamental. An increasing amount of sales is impossible if clients won’t be satisfied since reputation works on you and not in the other way. Satisfied clients always will recommend you to their friends and it will give you a chance to develop a strong incoming line of orders.

Work Faster

In opposition to the previous point, working faster not always may bring you to the point of sales increase. We’ve tested this approach and sometimes it may lead to the moment when you will have project-free designers if the client will get sick or will be late with the feedback.

So, we’d recommend making a plan of having 2 projects per designer as optimal. Such speed always gives the client enough time to give you feedback and the designer always has something to work on just in case.

Work on Marketing

When we were working with the marketologist, we analyzed all possible ways of traffic and sales increase. And from our conclusion, content marketing appeared to be the best way for the design studio to increase sales. What is required to work on content marketing effectively?

• having a website with a blog, that will also be optional to subscribe on;
• having a useful material on the website that can be given out to the client in exchange for the email;
• being socially active in SMM;
• having good KPI and marketing plan with optimistic, realistic and pessimistic plans;
• having side-projects in form of blogs, podcasts and collaboration.

In fact, content marketing increases acknowledgement of the company and will make the client come to the company themselves to get orders. Many design agencies also launch YouTube channels and develop brands of the founders to make them influencers with educational courses. It also works well if you have enough resources for it.

SEO and Google Ads

Being pretty expensive Google Ads don’t show itself as an effective marketing tool. Our analyses have shown that not many companies have SEO and Google Ads on their website, and this is reasonable. Being pretty big, the market of UI/UX agencies is over-occupied with offers, so standing out is really complicated. At the same time, Google Ads are slow and cost a lot, so you may wait for the result for around half a year without any visible profit.

Having Side Projects

And we’ve ended up with the idea that side-projects are necessary for the studio’s growth and development, since without them you can not attract new people and form a community between the studio and clients.

Offering educational courses, podcasts and other stuff like books and clothes, you make your agency a brand. A brand with a face, that unite people around it. So side-project is not just a desire, but it’s a must for the studio to grow and develop.

Side-Projects Types and Advantages

There are numerous types of possible side-projects, among the most popular ones, there are podcasts, educational courses on Coursera or Skillshare, vlogs on YouTube and also SoundCloud with inspiration, themed parties for all who want to come to the party, educational courses offline and events of all possible types.

Mostly, projects work in quite an interesting way:

• your employees find it more interesting to work in a company that has an active marketing approach since they will be driven by knowledge from others and will feel influenced as well;
• clients will have a higher trust rate in the company since it will be visible on the market and will be offering use, not just sell services;
• you will bring up a positive and strong brand so that attracting new potential employees will be simple as well, people will want to work for your company since you will be announcing it and its values out loud.

It’s very important to keep a balance between podcasts and blogs, where you share stuff you know with the audience with team calls, parties, and educational events, where dialogue and a fun atmosphere also takes place.

Investing in marketing always seems risky, since you never know when and if it will convert into sales, but still it always makes sense. Try and you will see for sure.