By Elizabeth (Bette) Frick | Fellow
This column explores the joys and challenges of managing your own technical communication business. Please share your experience and ideas. Contact Bette Frick at efrick@textdoctor.com.
In my 21 continuous years of solopreneurship, I have watched friends and colleagues start their own technical communication business but eventually go back to full-time employment. These were skilled practitioners and very bright people who hated marketing themselves, so they avoided creating and implementing a marketing plan.
I, too, hate marketing; I would rather do anything else than “brag on myself” (my family and teachers inveighed against self-promotion when I was young). Yet a commitment to independence is a commitment to marketing.
Since all endeavors are more palatable if you make them fun, I invite you to play Marketing Bingo©! Download your card at www.textdoctor.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Marketing-Bingo2.pdf and start developing a coherent marketing plan. We will discuss all the bingo squares in four “Business Matters” columns. If you will consider using each tactic as part of your marketing plan, you will better understand your marketing options and be able to implement your plan.
1. Brand Yourself
Most buying habits are based on brand recognition: We recognize and respect good brands. When Amazon.com “lost” a $25 gift card payment on a recent order, I called and led with the “brand” card: “I’ve been a loyal customer for 12 years,” and my account was credited within minutes.
Thinking about brands reminded me of a classic book on my shelf, The Brand You 50: Fifty Ways To Transform Yourself From An “Employee” Into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion, by Tom Peters. Despite its long title, it is a simple and clear introduction to branding that will help you understand why the corporate construct of brand might apply to independents and solopreneurs.
Peters defines a brand as a “trust mark…. It’s shorthand. It’s a sorting device” (25). Branding is the subtle interweaving of business qualities with your name, logo, tagline, and all communication. Branding is about market perception based on emotion and defined in your customers’ minds by their experience with you and your service.
Once you have established your brand, hire a branding consultant/graphic designer if possible so that your outward communications will be logically and consistently branded. Potential branded communication elements include letterhead, postcards, envelopes, business cards, brochures/flyers, websites, email signatures, thank-you cards, “nice to meet you” cards, fax cover sheets, mailing labels, invoice templates, marketing slide shows, LinkedIn elements, newsletters, give-away promotional items, signage, and elevator speeches. Many of these elements will be covered in this and later columns.
Of course, if you are just starting out, it may be tough for you to develop your own concept of your brand. The exercise of branding will help you to define and focus your business. You already have a brand, even if you aren’t consciously aware of it. Make sure you are optimizing your brand for your own benefit.
2. Business Cards
When you first start out, it may be necessary to design and print your cards yourself on your laser printer. While your business focus evolves, it may be wise to print only a few cards at a time. Once you are more stable in your vision and have firmly established your brand, consider investing in a professional designer. Online printing companies offer templates you can use as an alternative to professional graphic design. Large office supply stores also allow you to design your own card. Pay for the best quality design and printing you can afford. It’s the first impression you make on a potential client or associate.
Consider using the back of your business card to explain your services or accomplishments that may not be immediately intuitive to a new contact. I list my seven service lines on the back of my card so that I can highlight a particular service that might interest a potential client (I’ve left plenty of white space for writing).
Always carry your business cards with you (in your purse, briefcase, car, and even your gym bag).
3. Brochures
Brochures are one step up from a business card. The advent of easy-to-use publishing software makes it easier to create good-looking, well-designed marketing collateral ourselves, but I still use my graphic artist (and my editor) to help professionalize my brochure. I store it on my website so visitors can download it easily.
Consider designing the outside of your brochure in color and the inside in black and white (one page of color can cost up to six times what black and white costs to print). Just as you should always carry your business card with you, also carry your brochures protected in a folder or plastic cover.
4. Listings on Websites
Listing yourself on websites or in paper directories is the equivalent of putting up a virtual or print sign, and it’s so much easier. Many professional organizations maintain a database of members who choose to list themselves publicly. I have been contacted through such listings and have been able to convert those to contracts that greatly exceed the amount I paid to belong to the organization (BINGO!). Of course, if you have a website or a LinkedIn account, search engines provide a de facto global listing.
5. Promotional Give-Aways
Open your desk drawer and pull out all the promotional give-aways you have collected over the years: pens, highlighters, Post-it notes, letter openers. We all have many items with someone else’s name on them. I’ve had a lot of fun with this time-honored tactic.
I give two promotional gifts in my technical writing classes. The first is a $1 branded highlighter. Often I’ll ask training participants to highlight a section on a page, and if they have not brought a highlighter to class, BINGO! They now have a useful tool to take away, with my contact information.
The second item is a $2 branded folding ruler. Because most adults have a hard time holding still in class, I encourage them to play with the ruler as their fidgeting aid. We also use the rulers as a tool in a proofreading exercise (putting the ruler under the line being proofed to isolate that text and discourage jumping ahead). No one EVER leaves a ruler on the table when they leave class at the end of the day.
You must understand your target market well enough to know exactly what would excite them in terms of small promotional gifts—find the best quality you can afford, brand it, and give it freely. Remember to carry your promotional gifts with you at all times.
6. Direct Mail
The United States Postal Service claims that direct mail is a $900 billion industry (in Colorado, where I live, the postmaster says direct mail is worth $9.2 billion and affects 150,000 jobs). Direct mail has been very productive for me in maintaining my existing customer base and in uncovering new clients. I encourage you to consider direct mail as a potential tactic for the following:
-
Keeping in touch with longer-term prospects and keeping yourself top-of-mind when they get ready to “buy” services.
-
Announcing a new award, service line, or product.
-
Passing on your change of address, change of name, or an updated website.
-
Driving prospects to your website.
Always send mail first class with attractive stamps because mail with first-class postage will be opened at a higher rate than metered mail, and wrong-address returns are guaranteed. Consider writing a note or signing each piece if possible. Try mailing different pieces in a “drip campaign” about 2 weeks apart, then phone these potential clients after all items in the campaign have been delivered.
In Part 2 of this column, I’ll write about newsletters, signage, websites, social media, employing agents/recruiters, and the elevator pitch.
Yes, marketing is a lot of hard work. But then, so is starvation.
Elizabeth (Bette) Frick, the Text Doctor® (efrick@textdoctor.com), teaches technical and business writing in companies and organizations nationally and edits medical documents. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Minnesota and is board-certified as a medical editor by the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences.
