Marketing

The Real Reason Why Your Emails for Design Jobs Are Ignored

May 24, 2016SheilaBusiness Tips, Freelancing, Marketing, Random2 college, design, email, etiquette, jobs, portfolio, students, work

Hey design students! Stop sending those lame job-seeking emails They say you’ve built a successful business when you start getting regular spam and solicitation requests. I say it’s when you get inundated with endless emails asking for employment. Around this time of year, right when the design students are putting away their graduation gowns, is when my inbox gets flooded with various cold email requests. (For those of you who don’t know, a cold email…

Smart Brands Use These—and Why you Should Too

January 28, 2016SheilaBranding, Marketing1 archetypes, branding, brands, hero, outlaw, Star Wars

Instantly improve your brand using one of these 12 timeless archetypes. Archetype. Did I lose you already? It’s one of those words that sound not-so-fun. A little stiff, maybe a little scholarly. What is it? And how does it relate to branding? I’ll tell you a big secret. Archetypes are something that hundreds of national and multi-national brands have harnessed to their success. It might even be argued that some of the most successful brands…

What Star Wars: The Force Awakens Got Wrong

December 20, 2015SheilaBranding, Marketing2 archetypes, brand, branding, myth, Star Wars, stories, the Force

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a huge Star Wars fan. If my parents did anything right, it was introducing me to this classic space opera at a young age. I was about 10 when I first saw Star Wars: A New Hope, and I fell in love with it. The characters and the story stuck with me, as it has for millions of others. *spoilers ahead. Duh.* Star Wars’ secret sauce So this leads…

How to Get the Best Images for Your Business Marketing

February 24, 2015SheilaBusiness Tips, Freelancing, Marketing2 business, depositphoto, free, images, istockphoto, marketing, photography, photos, shutterstock, stock images, stock photos

The first question most people have when they start to think about images for a project they’re working on is, “Where will I find good images to use?” To answer that question we’ll start by looking at the four options for getting images, and what the pros and cons of each are. (I’ll give you a big hint: stock photos are one of them!) Option 1: Take your own photographs You can take your…

How to Effectively Use Social Media to Get Results

January 10, 2015SheilaBusiness Tips, Marketing2 business, clients, customers, followers, LinkedIn, marketing, social media, twitter

Everyone is going digital. There’s nothing earth-shattering about that. This makes being somewhat social media savvy is necessary to attracting new business from these potential clients. I know, I know, it was only a few months ago I was griping about the evils of jumping on the social media bandwagon. While I still think social media is not necessary for everyone, it still has its place in a healthy business’ overall marketing strategy. Through the…

8 Reasons Why Design Contests Are Bad for Clients

September 29, 2014SheilaBusiness Tips, Graphic Design, Marketing9 cheap design, crowdsourcing, design, design contests, graphic design, logo, spec work

Last week we talked about the dangers of design contests for designers, which are usually pretty obvious. But for the clients that actually get work done from them, the dangers can be a little more elusive. If you are the owner of a start-up, or simply don’t know where to turn to find a decent design, I’m sure the allure of design contests sound pretty sweet. Heck, they sure market them enough to push anyone’s…

5 Reasons Why Design Contests Are Bad for Designers

September 22, 2014SheilaFreelancing, Marketing, Random34 AIGA, contests, crowdsourcing, design, designers, logo, spec work

Whether you’re a designer or a client, I’m sure you’ve heard of these things called design contests. Also called crowdsourcing or spec work, websites like 99designs, CrowdSpring, among dozens of others, dot our graphic design landscape. And they’re here to stay, unfortunately. And I’m sure, either as a designer or a client, that they’ve had a certain pull or power over you. Or at the very least, you’ve been curious about them. If you’re a…

How to Get Traffic to your New Website

August 14, 2014SheilaBusiness Tips, Marketing2 blog, content, Google, marketing, networking, SEO, social media, traffic, website

I just did a simple website for a startup massage business. Now, this guy is a great guy, but let’s just say that his tech skills were something to be desired. Which is pretty common among my clients, so he’s in good company 😉 He loved the website, but the first question out of his mouth was, “So how do I show up on Google?” I saw that coming a mile away.

Social Media is Dead. Long Live Social Media!

June 13, 2014SheilaBusiness Tips, Marketing12 business, facebook, Google, marketing, ROI, social media, twitter

I know I’m not the only one to come up with this oh-so-clever headline. But I think it’s true. Social media is dead—at least for small businesses. Whoa, what? But not without a caveat…social media is alive and well. I’ll explain in a minute. I finally found some evidence of what I’ve long suspected…that marketing budgets spent on social media is a waste.

Show Your Clients Some Love

February 14, 2014SheilaBusiness Tips, Freelancing, Marketing2 business, clients, love, marketing, Valentines

It’s super easy to neglect your current or past clients and customers. Why is that? Probably because, as a small business, you’re up to your neck in a million other things—invoicing, marketing, paying your bills, walking the dog, meetings—it’s so easy to neglect the people who are most important to your business: your clients. But whatever you do, don’t.

Category: Marketing