Freelance designer marketing tips
For the past year and a half or so I’ve been paying my bills by doing design work for bands / musicians all across the country. It’s everything I wanted to achieve when I started getting into graphic design in highschool. The funny thing about it, I would’ve never been doing this if I hadn’t been chronically online during the pandemic. So instead of having more people get months of their life taken away from TikTok, I figured I would give a quick guide on how to market your work compared to every other designer on social media right now.
Step One: Finding a niche
A large majority of people using tik tok or instagram, aren’t in need of a graphic designer, so you gotta pitch it to people who need one. So most of the work I post is geared to hardcore / metal bands. I know that bands and musicians are in constant need of flyers, album art, merch, logos, and whatever else is needed to be edgy. Obviously though most people don’t wanna design work for that kinda community. So pitch your work to a community you’re in. Maybe you love baking and cooking, well there are a lot of small business owners who would probably love for you to make them logos, business cards, and menus. Or maybe reader, you’re into anime, and there’s a lot of small businesses that make and sell anime related merchandise online and at conventions. Guess what they need, logos, business cards and merch. Basically what I am trying to say is you’re a designer, be a designer for your community.
Step Two: Market Research
It’s important to get your work out there to the most people, so see what’s trending in it. Look at what songs popular posts are using, which ones are trending and up and coming, and use those songs on your post. Then look at the hashtags in those, use those while sprinkling in design related ones. What are those posts about? Maybe you mention it in your post. It’s not doom scrolling, it’s market research. Now memorize these core details. This is most likely the most important detail. Otherwise your post isn’t gonna gain a lot of traction, and you’ll be posting your amazing work to barely anyone.
Step Three: Design, Curate, & Simplify
When posting your work to social media it’s incredibly important to show off your most eye-catching work. That needs little to no explanation to get, as frustrating as it is, no one is reading your paragraph in the caption or on the post after explaining and deconstructing it. The work you’re posting needs to relate to the community as well. If you’re showing off your mock-up business cards that are themed for shoe collectors to a community of gardeners it’s going right over their head. So design new work in your spare time that explores the community or your choosing.
Step Four: Rinse & Repeat.
It’s as easy as it sounds, the more you post the more your work gets your name out there and the more clients you get. So using these steps hopefully more people can help provide for themselves making design work for the community they love.
Hello everyone, my name is Mattais, I am a Junior in the CD class, and I’m extremely passionate about music and graphic design, and using my skills as a designer to help bands look as good as they sound!