With the recent boost in consumption of online digital content, there's no time like the present to learn how to market yourself effectively! So we want to give you our best tips for putting yourself out there in front of people that will really appreciate it.
First things first, what is marketing? Marketing is the action or business of promoting and selling products and services. In other words, marketing has a lot to do with the sharing/articulating what you do with the world. As a creative, getting exposure or your work seen is essential for gaining more bookings and/or commissions. More importantly, if you don't shout about your work, then nobody else will! Luckily for you, we're armed with some tips to help you get started!
1) Use social media
We’re sure you know just how powerful social media can truly be, it can reach places that your feet may not. In most cases, you can build a very strong brand using social media without having to run any ads, but simply by engaging with the platform. ‘Engaging’ here means posting content, sharing other people’s content, liking content, commenting on content. The key to building a successful brand on social media, is again consistency as this will help to gain positive results in terms of your own audience growth, but also in terms of your content reach. When it comes to choosing which platforms you will use, consider which will be best to reach your target audience. However, do not feel pressure to be on every social media platform! Sometimes it’s wiser to just pick one and master how to use it most effectively, before trying to move onto other platforms. If you want to know more about how you can utilise social media, be sure to check out our guide: ‘Social Media Marketing for Creatives’ on the Resources Page of our website.
2) Start a Blog
Blog posts are great because they allow you to further demonstrate your expertise and or share more about you and what you do. Furthermore, blog posts are easy and quick to share online via social media which means an even greater reach to more people. However, the best thing about blogs is that since you can have it as a feature of your website, you stand better chances of hire rankings on search engines. Blogging is part of a process known as search engine optimisation (SEO) which refers to where a site ranks when particular terms are searched for. Blogging provides new links for you, giving you a greater chance of being picked up by the various search engines. If done right, good SEO can be most of your marketing done for you!
3) Run Ads (PPC)
If you do have a website, getting yourself a good ranking organically on the search results is by no means an easy task. It’s even more important because not many of us even venture past the first page of results. Therefore, in order to get traffic to your website, a combination of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is recommended. PPC campaigns come in many forms ranging from Google Ads, to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter Ads. What’s great about these types of ads is that you can customise them specifically to your niche so that you can have better conversion rates (i.e. from prospective customer to paying customer). If used correctly, paid advertising can massively increase brand visibility within very short spaces of time.
4) Referral Schemes
Throughout all the history of marketing, one thing is incredibly clear- customers really value and trust peer recommendations when making purchasing decisions. That is why referral programmes are a really great way to increase the visibility of your brand. Previous clientele who are pleased with the service you provided them, or indeed the brand experience, will be glad to share their positive experiences, especially where there is good incentive to do so. Referral programmes are great because they allow you to access people indirectly online and offline- it’s a win-win and really provides the opportunity for quick brand growth.
5) Invest into PR
Public relations (PR) is extremely important for really getting your brand out there. But what exactly is PR? It is the business of persuasion. You are actively trying to convince an audience to buy into you, whether this be to support your music, or hire you for a service. Often PR is only really spoken about with music artists, however effective PR can be really useful for any type of creative. Why? Because PR is all about building trust, as a brand that has a product or service, building trust is important for converting prospective customers into paying customers. Forms of PR may include social media promotions, podcast features, event panel appearances etc. anything that gets you in front of your target market in a favourable light.
However, none of the above will even be possible without producing quality content! That's the real main key to marketing success!
Need more advice? Feel free to drop us an email (hello@withmusta.com) 😊