How to get More Design Work from Existing Clients

Have you ever thought how much easier it would be to get more work from your existing design clients than trying to look for new ones?

Everyone always says when your quiet give your existing clients a ring just to see if they have any design work for you. I guess you could be lucky and call at just the right time but I have another idea you could try.

I have been doing a couple of internet marketing courses recently and hearing all this talk of upselling (selling something more expensive or extra that was originally being purchased) and realised that when I went to a meeting with one of my clients the other day that was exactly what I had done.

I went to see my client who wanted a little A5 leaflet designing as she was trying to promote her business locally (it’s a local only business). I suggested what about creating some very local keyword targeted mini websites (the competition would be low for this) to drive extra business to her main web site. I also put another potential idea to her that could make her business accessible to non local people that she was interested in. Now none of these ideas were me thinking about finding extra work, but were purely because I was trying to think of otherways she could market her business. I walked out of the meeting not only with the A5 leaflet but also with some simple mini wordpress websites to create and the potential to be part of another project.

Why not try this:

Take one of your regular clients and think of new ways they could genuinely reach more potential customers -

• Do some keyword research on their market to find out what people are really looking for
• Do they have a blog? Could it help create business
• Do they have a twitter page – how could this help them reach new people
• Do they receive much traffic to their website – how could you help them achieve more – could you create some highly targeted via mini sites, a squidoo lens, upload some imagery to Flickr
• Suggest things they could do themselves (or offer to do it for them for a small fee) – add themselves to google local, submit articles to article directories, find directories they could list themselves in. Although if they do these things themselves you don’t make any money – you will gain goodwill and show them that you are actively interested in their success. Of course if they make more money they will have more to spend on design (hopefully with you)

The next time you have a meeting with them suggest one or two of these ideas and see how it goes.

Would love to hear if anyone else has tried this technique.