Are you struggling to find the right clients for your web design business? How to get clients for a web design business? Is this a question that comes frequently to your mind?
It’s not only you but there are a lot of freelancers and web developers from all across the world who don’t know how to approach a client for website design that converts. According to industry statistics 70% of those who have involved in the web design business face this problem at one point or another in their career.
Agencies have reported that writing blog posts and publishing content works well for generating leads, but it can take up to a few months before you start to see results, and your bills can’t wait to be paid. Waiting for referrals to come to you isn’t a great idea either.
At this point, you may ask, how to get high paying web design clients who want recurring work and are willing to pay for what it’s worth is impossible? They are not easy to catch, but they are out there. Without the right set of skills to sell yourself you may find yourself not knowing where to look for the right client.
Here are the 6 incredible strategies that you should try for getting a pipeline full of new clients ready to work with you.
- Find web design clients through proposal
There are people in this world who like to write proposals and there are those who don’t.
Despite how you feel, proposals are an important component for finding new web design clients. It can be a great selling tool when you are looking to close a deal and a great conversation is going on between you and your client.
You can use proposals to pitch new business to outbound leads. Businesses these days issue Request for Proposals (REF) online, so as to allow your business to bid on larger projects, and earn more visibility.
The only thing you need to know is where to look for them.
- Find web design clients through job boards
RFPs can lead to solid contracts and great project opportunities but they are time intensive. And when you are wondering how to get high paying web design clients to grow your monthly revenue, time is of the essence.
In a scenario like this it is better to use a third-party “marketplace” instead.
These platforms list various client projects and allow freelancers and agencies to bid on them. Meanwhile, web designers and developers post their hourly rates and clients approach them for specific project types.
Here you can also work on various projects of different clients at the same time. And search for client projects, while clients search for you.
Upwork and Freelancer are two of such (among many) third-party platforms you should try out right away.
- Find web design clients through cold pitching
So far we have discussed proposals and online job boards, but what if we can pitch our potential clients in a more direct manner?
No, we’re not talking about cold calling here, though if you like to try it you can give it a shot.
Now you may be wondering, how to approach a client for website design without cold calling? 🤔
But not every business afford to be on a phone all the time, cold-email and in-person pitch are perfect go-to approaches for such businesses. But unlike cold-calling, there is an art to do these successfully.
There are websites like Lime Leads where you can find the contact information of your prospects to start your cold outreach.
The ability to reach out to prospects over email can be considered both as a blessing and a curse.
It is a blessing because you can have direct access to your prospects. But it can also be a curse in case your prospect’s market your outreach as spam, which will also affect your domain reputation.
In case you found a potential client on a social media channel and you have the opportunity to meet them in person. You’ll need a pitch that really wows them. You’ll need an elevator pitch.
An elevator pitch is a 30-second explanation of you and your business, and why the person you’re pitching should listen to you. It’s based on the theory that, if you’re in an elevator with someone, you’ll only have 30 seconds to get your point across.
- Find web design clients at events
Want to practice your in-person elevator pitches? We’ll tell you about the perfect place to do it.
If you’re looking for clients, attending different events is a great idea. It’ll give the visibility and exposure needed to grow your business exponentially. Conferences are a lot of fun as well – who doesn’t like to travel, meet new people and experience new things.
It doesn’t matter if the event is free or paid, nearby or across the country, they are always a great investment in yourself and your business.
5. Find web design clients through referrals
Your internal networking (existing clients) can play an important role in finding new clients for your business.
Have considered establishing a referral process for your web design business? If you haven’t, it’s the peak time to do it. Word of mouth is one of the essential marketing tools available to your business, and if you aren’t taking the advantage it offers you’re missing out a lot to get people talking about your work.
Your work is awesome, and the world should know it.
People surround themselves with like-minded people. Therefore there is no one better than your existing clients to help you find new business.
That’s why, it’s important to have a referral strategy in place when it comes to finding new clients.
6. Find web design clients through inbound marketing
All the above outbound marketing efforts are cool but wouldn’t it be great if your potential clients came directly to you?
This is why inbound marketing plays an important role in driving the growth of an agency business.
Do you really know how to get high paying web design clients with inbound marketing?
You’re probably already using inbound marketing methods, but are you doing it efficiently? Let’s maximize your efforts to roll in those potential web designing clients.
- Blogging
If you aren’t blogging for your business already, you should consider investing some time to identify your niche and start writing about it. It’ll help you to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry and gives you a platform to educate your clients and build your inbound marketing efforts on. Just like we are writing this blog on how to get clients for a web design business to help you with your marketing.
- Downloadable content
As you grow and move ahead your clients might ask you some common questions and you’ll find yourself offering similar solutions to different clients. These are common pain points that recur from client to client, project to project.
You might want to write this precious information down and keep it safe because it’ll come in handy afterwards.
This information will help you to create valuable content for your business – guide books, templates, whitepapers, and other resources that your potential clients can download in exchange for valuable information (email address in particular). It doesn’t matter if your content is long-form or short-form, as long as it provides value to your prospects and aims to solve a problem, it’ll do the job.
For instance, we can create a guide book on how to get international clients for web development and avail it to our clients in exchange for their email ids.
- Email newsletter
Now so that you are producing enough content, be it in the form of blog posts or downloadable resources, you should create an email newsletter for your business. It’ll help you to passively educate your current and potential clients on your area of expertise.
The good thing is that you can automate it easily.
You can use your RSS feed and an email automation tool to send out your blog articles and resources in the form of a daily, weekly, or monthly email newsletter.
- Social media
Awesome!
Now you have all your content and resources that you can use to convert your website visitors into clients. But how will you get them to your website?
This is when the role of social media comes into play.
SEO aside you can use social media to increase your blog’s reach.
You may have heard people asking “how to find web design clients on Instagram?” or “how to find web design clients on LinkedIn?”.
And that’s because social media is a great way to build your online community and nurture them, participate in industry-related discussions and create engagements to increase your brand awareness.
- Portfolio and case studies
Your portfolio is one of the most important marketing assets.
It’s a great way to demonstrate the beautiful web designs that you create on a daily basis, which also helps your clients to decide if you are the one they’d like to work with.
Alongside your portfolio, your website should have dedicated a page for case studies. Actionable and data-driven case studies act as tenable proof upon which your prospects make their decisions on whether to hire you or not. And if it is written and optimized well for search engines, this can be a goldmine for your business.
And congratulations, there you have it!
Conclusion
You don’t need any unconventional tactics to make it in the web design business. You just need to know how to approach a client for website design in the right way.
Strategies mentioned above have helped many businesses to generate a flow of qualified leads and keep their sales pipeline full. Now it’s your turn to do that. Go back and implement these strategies and see the results.
Which of these tactics have you tried for your business?
What are your favourite ways to find qualified leads for your web design business? Feel free to comment down your thoughts.
If you like some more info on how to get clients for web development business just let us know.
Author Bio-
Mrityunjoy Bora is a passionate Digital Marketer and Strategist. He helps small and mid-sized companies to generate leads and sales through his digital marketing strategies. He is also one of the Alumnus of AADME.
You can find him on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsmjbora/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/itsmjbora)
