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.
By Elizabeth (Bette) Frick | Fellow
In my last column, we covered the first blocks on the Marketing Bingo card, available at www.textdoctor.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Marketing-Bingo2.pdf. In that column, I argued that a coherent marketing plan using Marketing Bingo would produce a steady income flow and new opportunities for independents. I have seen steady growth in my net income using Marketing Bingo, and my individual contracts have been larger and more enjoyable than in the past. In this column, we will cover tactics #7 through #12 (newsletters, signage, websites, social media, using third-parties, and your elevator pitch).
7. Newsletters
If you want to stay top-of-mind with your clients and potential clients, consider writing a regular newsletter packed with interesting articles, tips, and links. Six years ago, I migrated my newsletter from paper to digital delivery. The paper version had been highly labor-intensive and expensive to mail; my ConstantContact newsletter costs about 80% less than a direct-mail delivery and allows fun interactivity with polls, quizzes, links, and storage in an archive. Nevertheless, I believe that the paper newsletter generated more direct sales after each mailing than I see with ConstantContact.
Other digital options include Emma and iContact; most offer free trials. Select your vendor carefully; designing a newsletter and building contacts creates a commitment to that vendor.
8. Signage
Signage is an easy passive marketing tool. Unfortunately, if you are a small business operating in a home-based office under association covenants and city or county laws, you may not be able to post traditional signage. However, you always have your car! My license plates say TEXT DR, a short version of my business name (The Text Doctor LLC). Some call these “vanity plates”; they do cost more than regular plates, but they are fun and often inspire questions from the public. Consider signage on car doors, rear door, or windows as well. Of course, if your office is in a commercial building, signage will be allowed.
9. Websites
Websites are essential marketing tools for independents. Your website does not have to be complex, but it should be professional. If you are not a website designer or a geek, invest in hiring another independent to design your website and help you learn to maintain it.
Try to learn one new thing about your website every week (or every day or month); when you have a goal of constant learning, it becomes a game and, by definition, fun. BINGO! Here are a few matters to research:
- Learn about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and tagging and keywords and similar tools to ensure that you show up high on the list of searches. You can hire someone to do this, or you can attend a few classes and read a few articles and do a pretty good job yourself. Remember to update regularly, adding new content and revising outdated material. Frequent revisions help increase SEO.
- Learn about Google AdSense; you may be able to monetize (earn money from) your website.
- PLEASE, once you have a website, be sure your email address contains your domain name. Nothing says “professional” more than a domain email address rather than yourname@somefreemail.com.
10. Social media
This brief section will discuss LinkedIn (LI) but not Twitter or Facebook. Use LI to keep in touch with colleagues and announce your successes and news. You can also datamine LI for potential clients through the Advanced Search function. Recently, I did a cold-call campaign to locate some more local editing clients. Within my LI second-degree connections, I found the name of a manager at a large company very close to my condo. I called her, explained what I could offer, and had an appointment the next day. BINGO! There is no other way I could have found this connection so quickly.
Here are some tips that may help you grow your LI network:
- Your profile is a cross between a resume/flyer/website. Copy the formats that you like in others’ profiles (formats are not subject to copyright).
- Use keywords in your profile. If someone searches LinkedIn for a technical writer, for example, what keywords would make your profile show up in a Google search? (Hint: Try adding up to 50 skills in the new Skills section, currently in Beta.)
- Use a closely cropped professional photo, not one from a picnic or tennis match.
- Link to your LI account through your email, website, blog, or business card.
- Set a weekly goal of sending out a specific number of invitations to link. You have up to 3,000 free invitations, so invite colleagues liberally.
- Use the update function as a Twitter feed; respond to your connections’ updates to keep in touch.
- Offer sincere recommendations when you can. Be aware, though, that the person you recommend may be so grateful that they may exuberantly write a recommendation for you. Do not accept that recommendation right away, because LinkedIn sends updates every week, and if your mutual recommendations appear in the same update, it will look like quid pro quo. Wait a few weeks before accepting.
- Selectively join groups that will allow you to see names of people that you might want to link to; you will appear less of a stranger if you are in the same group.
Finally, be sure to check a prospective client’s profile so that you might drop a few relevant comments into any communication: “I see you graduated from the University of Pennsylvania; so did I!” or “How did your documentary work out for you?” This will personalize your communication and make it more fun for both of you.
11. Employing agents and recruiters
Agents, recruiters, and contract houses find work for independents and earn a commission on the contract amount. Independents receive less money when contracting through agents than they would when contracting directly, but the work may be steadier (and some clients will contract only through a third party). Many independents use third-party resources when they start their independent careers but rely less and less on them as their career progresses.
Do read your contracts, every word, even if these are boilerplate contracts that look the same every time. Do ask up front about noncompete clauses and carefully consider whether to sign anything that limits your future flexibility. Ask what happens if either party terminates the contractual arrangement. Can you continue working for the client once you are no longer represented by the third party? Ask others in your network about their working relationships with a specific third party. Chances are you will get honest answers, and you should be honest with others who ask the same of you.
12. Your elevator pitch
An elevator pitch is a brief overview of your past accomplishments, product, and service; it tells others what you can do for them and their business. The name reflects the time span of an elevator ride (30 seconds and 130 words or fewer).
There are many reasons to write out your elevator speech. First, you will be able convey a positive, consistent image of yourself and your company. Second, you will start introducing yourself by expressing the benefits you can bring to a potential customer. For example, if you build and manage databases, you could say, “I build databases,” or you could say, “I build databases that will provide everyone in your organization with the best information in the shortest amount of time so that they can do their jobs better and make you more money.” A third reason to write out an elevator speech is that you can use it on your website, in your brochures, in your cover letters, in networking situations, in any marketing communication.
I have found it helpful to work with a partner to develop and rehearse my elevator speech. Once you have finalized a current version, memorize it and be ready to talk about yourself when asked, “What do you do?” (at the gym after working out; at a networking event; at your kids’ hockey practice; in an elevator!). Work to link your past success to a future benefit for your listener. Remember to answer the question: Why would you want to hire me? BINGO!
In part three, you will learn more about the next six Marketing Bingo tactics: cold calls; targeting industry sectors; joining industry groups; offering coupons or discounts; underwriting; and podcasts/webcasts/blogs.
Yes, marketing is a lot of hard work. But then, so is starvation, and not nearly as much fun as playing Bingo.
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.
