As a graphic designer for over 20 years, it’s fair to say that the industry has changed dramatically in just a few short years. Gone are the days of long liquid lunch meetings with clients and seeing marketing budgets that would spill over to photo shoots in some exotic destination far away. These days, small businesses and start-ups are living hand to mouth and are not going to pay through the nose for a graphic design service, which they perceive, rightly or wrongly, as not giving them value for money. . .
So what is there to do? The graphic designer needs to earn some money to live and expand his business, while the client wants to pay as little as possible for marketing so that he can be successful. The answer lies in the old adage “give the customer what he wants” in this case: a quality graphic design service for free. Here are some simple ideas that you can implement without too much hassle and have business flowing to you in no time…
free design consultation
This almost goes without saying, but there are still some graphic design agencies that think it’s acceptable to charge prospective new clients to visit their facility and discuss a potential upcoming design project. Of course, there are many more designers who wouldn’t dream of getting paid for what is very often an informal discussion between two parties with no obligation on either party. However, even if it’s a meeting that lasts half an hour or less, this still takes a bite out of your design rate per hour/business day. So, if you’re not going to charge the prospect for your time and advice, be sure to at least let them know and publicize the fact on your website or marketing brochures that you offer a free, no-obligation initial design consultation. . It will reassure the client that they might otherwise be thinking that the longer the meeting goes on, the bigger the bill they will receive in the mail. Add a cup of coffee and cookies and bobs your uncle – how can they refuse to go with you?
Free graphic design offer
Now this may go against the instincts of many designers, devaluing the graphic design service across the board, however if you look at the big picture it starts to make a lot of sense. In the same way that a retail store will lure shoppers with a loss-leading item in the window at a scrap price, the astute graphic designer can also offer a free or low-cost design offer to try to land the job more. big at the moment. corner. For example, if you’ve just designed a new logo for a business, the hard work and time spent tweaking and refining it has already been done, why not offer a free stationery design as part of the logo design package? It’s not going to cost the designer much more in terms of time to make a letterhead, compliment slip, and business card, and you can always offer to print them if you offer a design and print service that you can then recoup in terms of costs. the little extra time he has put in.
Another quality design service that always works well is offering brochure design clients a free digital version of the brochure. There are quite a few companies online these days, like YUDU, that will take your designed pdf brochures or newsletters and quickly turn them into beautiful dynamic e-brochures that can be embedded on websites or emailed as links. Offer this as an additional free service to your clients and in most cases it will be this part of the service that interests them the most, forgetting any effort that goes into the design of the actual brochure.
royalty free images
Any self-respecting designer will have built up a veritable arsenal of vector graphics, extra-large format photos, and interesting background textures over time that can prove invaluable when designing marketing brochures, flyers, and newsletters. These days, it’s pretty easy for anyone to go online and get some thumbnail images to illustrate any document. However, once you explain to your customers that printing one of your tiny website gifs at full page resolution will result in a blurry/pixilated abomination, hopefully they’ll see the valuable service you can provide them by offering a free selection of royalties. Free images from your own unique collection. Particularly if it means saving them the expense of buying large format images from some of the online image libraries, which aren’t always cheap.
Free Dummy Brochure Design
For any substantial brochure design or newsletter design job on the horizon, there’s no better way to prove yourself to a potential client than to offer to put together a sample page or page, free of charge, emphasizing that there’s no obligation on your part. part. to take things further if they are not happy. Yes, from time to time you will find yourself working for a prospective client only to find that they turn cold on you once the dummy design has been sent out for them to look at. However, more often than not, if you are confident in your design skills, you will find that clients who have come a long way with you and have developed a good relationship will generally be eager to see things through to fruition, which means that a couple of hours spent tweaking a page is worth it in the long run. Also, if you protect your PDF files with a password or watermark protection, you can ensure that they can’t be used without your permission if nothing comes of it.
Following these simple procedures can make all the difference in securing regular graphic design jobs in these challenging times.