By this I mean that the gradual and more long-term approach will beat the rapid-action, ‘all at once’ approach many of us take to try and hurry things along. It’s better to send out 5 personalised and appropriate promotional emails every weekday than sending out 200 non-personal emails each month.

Instead of doing some self promotion once a month, do something small daily and stay consistent. You’ll find it’s easier to stick with doing small steps over the long-run than having to remind yourself to occasionally bulk email, for example.

This business is about gradually developing relationships with people, whether you like it or not. Being impersonal and occasional in your marketing effort will mean you lose out in two ways:

1) People will not respond to advertising from you or anyone that is impersonal or looks like you put little effort into it.

2) You lose out on gaining constant exposure, because you’re putting in more less frequently, rather than less, more frequently.

So, as you commit to promoting yourself and your brand, I recommend you apply the little by little approach in attracting prospects and keeping in touch with people already in your network.

Promotion of some kind should really be something you are doing everyday.

Good luck!

You can use classifieds as a means of advertising your services directly, or as a way to drive decent amounts of traffic directly to your blog and sites.

Because such sites are tailored to local areas, particularly some of the local community sites and portals (which you can find using search engines), you need to keep in mind the locality or region you are advertising your services to.

However, for those of you looking to advertise globally, it might be a case of choosing to place ads aimed at a few areas, or to place multiple ads covering many areas.

Some sites will charge you for placing an ad, whilst many will be free. Before posting an ad, it is worth writing out the ad in a text document to be copied first.

Writing the ad

Use a headline that highlights the main benefit of what you are advertising. For example: “Clean and contemporary website design”.

Write a section that explains exactly what you offer and provides explicitly and clearly what benefits you can provide.

Write a ‘call to action’, which is a line that specifically draws the reader to something, namely your base site. An example could be:

‘I would appreciate any feedback you might have on my portfolio, which can be found at http://…’

Pictures

If pictures are allowed, it is a good idea to use one that is relevant and will add to the depth of the advertisement.

Submit the ad

You then need to input this information into the form of the ‘new ad’ or ‘post’ on as many classified sites as you choose. Many sites will require you to register before submitting. Always keep your target audience, and (if it is necessary) your target geographical area in mind when submitting ads to classifieds sites.

You can use automated submission software for submitting ads at once, or hire someone to post several for you. The more ads you submit, the more exposure and traffic you will get in this way.

Delete ads that have been up for more than a few weeks, and re-submit them, to keep ads at the top of listings.

A large list of sites that accept classified advertisements for submission are available in the resources section of my online promotion ebook.

This could be in various ways, on and offline, including the ways in which I’ve talked about here and in my ebook, such as bringing targeted traffic to your blog, making connections through social media, engaging with prospects on forums, and introducing yourself via email to your prospects.

One of the best ways to get strong, consistent results with this kind of active self-promotion is to set yourself results-oriented targets instead of effort-oriented targets.

So, for example, instead of writing a post for your blog, tweeting it, then leaving it at that, make a real commitment to bringing a certain number of people to your post and blog within a week. This might mean using a few extra web tactics on top of using Twitter, but you know what you are aiming for.

Or, for example, instead of writing five email rapport-building introductions to potential clients, commit to writing as many emails or making as many calls as it takes until you receive a response from five people who ask for more information on your services.

You can apply these results-oriented methods to any active marketing technique you have in your arsenal.

These targets are short-term, but will help you stay focused on achieving your long-term goals, fast-tracking you to success.

Do people agree with these ideas?

Every once in a while, I will get a discussion going on the RLC Facebook Page that aims to bring together a collection of Internet resources, ideas and methods real people have found useful for their own self-promotional efforts.

This post focuses on a handful of sites that enable you to showcase your work, while having all kinds of other benefits too.

The comments area at the end of this post aims to extend the discussion further, so don’t hesitate to send through some feedback. It’s great karma for you!

Society 6

A site for artists and creatives to promote their work, connect and interact with others. I like the layout and clean design of the site. I’m also a fan of the voting system, which allows people’s work to be bumped up to the front page if it is popular. Some good exposure is afforded shortly after submitting work to the site, and you can sell prints through here as well. Society6.com

Behance

The site provides a single point of contact for anyone involved in creative industries. The site is for photographers, illustrators and designers. The site is beautifully designed, with some great opportunities to share links, showcase your work, notify people of your working status, look at all kinds of stats, and interact with others. The site can even be used as your default portfolio page. Behance.net

Pinkmuse

Pinkmuse is a service for artists to present work, browse galleries, message, critique, buy, sell, and search art by specific criteria such as artist name, school, city, medium, colour, mood, genre, material, dimension and price. Pinkmuse.com

Carbonmade

Containing close to 160,000 portfolios, Carbonmade is a crowded online space, but is one of the main hubs of creativity on the web. This provides an excellent opportunity for further self promotion across all creative disciplines. Carbonmade.com

Artwanted

As recommended by illustrator Jade Boylan: ‘You get a great portfolio set up and fantastic page and visitor stats right down to individual image hits and artwork comments‘. Artwanted.com

Creative Shake

Artist Dave Hile has had good results from this site. ‘In the last 2 years it has generated around $30,000 and costs about $450 per year (it might be $600 the first year). That’s a good return on investment. I haven’t gotten a lot of jobs from it, but the jobs I did get were large ones’. The site is for all kinds of creatives willing to showcase their porfolios for a price. Creativeshake.com

FormFiftyFive

A site that scours the web for the best in photography and design work. Also a great place for network building, setting up collaborations, interaction and inspiration. Formfiftyfive.com

Everycreative

A really nice online resource to enable further networking, collaborating and pitching for designers and other creatives. You can also use the site in finding work experience and gaining valuable feedback and advice from established industry workers. This is a great one. Everycreative.com

Of course, you don’t need to sign up to all of these, but perhaps have a look through some of the sites here you haven’t heard of, try them out, and see if they mould to your own style of work, and fit in with your own self promotion strategy.

One of the best ways to do this is to have people in your network, including fans, friends, previous clients and potential clients, sign up to your email mailing list.

Although it doesn’t have to be termed as such, a newsletter is the best way to attract people onto your mailing list in a mutually beneficial way.

Here are some great benefits for creative people of sending out a newsletter to your list to drive your promotional activities:

1. Building Validity. Getting a newsletter out to members of your mailing list will strengthen the way people view you as an expert/specialist/devotee to your area of interest. This will build trust in those following you in this way. This is why it is important for your newsletter content to regularly focus on your speciality or area, or at least be consistent in what you write about.

2. Receiving feedback and gathering testimonials. Keeping people updated on what you are doing will allow you to see what people think of your work if you request feedback from them. This feedback can be posted as testimonials (once permission is asked) on your site, to add value to your products and services.

3. Building loyalty. Keeping people updated through a newsletter, reminding them of you and providing them with good content, will have the benefit of increasing their loyalty to you.

4. Ability to introduce new products/services. Newsletters are a very practical means of keeping people updated with new projects you might be working on, products you’re marketing, exhibitions you’re in, as well as any changes you make to your set up as a freelancer.

5. Maintaining traffic. Newsletters can regularly boost traffic coming to your site through a link you place on the newsletter. Those coming to your site will then have a chance to potentially browse through whatever else you have to show/offer on your site.

6. Strengthens your own brand. If your newsletter content stays consistent, your personal brand as a creative can be strengthened over time. This is not only reflected in the information and expertise you provide, but in the way you transfer your personality, attitude, passion and everything else associated with ‘brand you‘ across to your readers. All these elements are important in creating a brand of yourself that people will remember you (and come back to you) for.

7. Improve your skills. Regularly writing for a newsletter, although this doesn’t have to be more than once a month, will improve your writing skills over time, but also add to your creativity, as you think of and apply new things to keep your readers interested.

8. Keeps you focused. Newsletters will improve your focus as a creative in aiming to succeed, producing and showcasing high quality work etc. Ideally you’ll want to be updating your readers with positive things that are going on in your freelance world, so newsletters help you set goals and hopefully get things done!

9. Re-establishing connections. Contact with a proportion of your business network in this way will help fire up relationships with clients or fans that were perhaps previously lost.

10. Expands your network further. Newsletters are a useful platform on which to hint to readers the other ways they can keep in contact with you. This can enable your network to strengthen and build further. For example, if you let readers know of your LinkedIn profile, and they connect with you through this, you receive the benefits of having a new LinkedIn member, which includes their access to your profile and more regular updates, their LinkedIn contacts being aware of you, receiving recommendations and so on.

If you have any suggestions or comments, don’t hesitate to contribute using the comment form below!

Thank you.

Here is my list of why you need to make use of social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter:

1. To bring admirers, fans and followers of your work to you

2. As a source of inspiration from others in your field

3. For constant and regular free exposure

4. To advertise events such as gallery exhibitions in the real world

5. To establish a network of professionals who can support, inspire and teach you in your industry

6. To drive traffic to your site

7. Improved indexing of your site/s and thus your name in search engines.

8. To stay on the pulse of your industry (what’s trending, what are other people saying?)

9. To build rapport and establish and build business relationships

10. To keep in touch with old clients

11. To provide a market for your products (such as prints for artists)

12. To drive up the standard of your work, through the enabling of freelancers to share work with others (i.e. we want to show off good work)

13. For spreading referrals to and from others

14. To facilitate direct marketing

15. By building a following, you increase your value (at least perceived value) when viewed by prospective clients

And there you have it, although I do believe there are many other benefits of social media platforms for promoting your work.

If you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to contribute your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you!

Getting your work and your brand out into the world is the flip side of the creative freelancing coin.

I believe that those who make use of the following 6 elements, can achieve self promotional greatness!

Here they are:

1) A network of relevant people

2) A database of accessible contacts

3) Direct marketing

4) A referral system

5) A regular flow of unique visitors to your work

6) Radical Strategic Visibility

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1) A network of relevant people

Establishing and growing an accessible network of people online will be massively beneficial to you as an independent (or not) worker. Those vital people in your network are those who:

a) are fans of and love your work;

b) have worked with you in the past;

c) share your interests;

d) respect and admire what you do, and;

e) are your prospects themselves.

Fans will inevitably go out of their way to spread the word about you and your work. A large proportion of those you have worked with previously are likely to want to use your services again. People who share your interests will pay attention to what you have to say, as well as providing inspiration to you, if you choose to listen to them. Those who respect your brand and admire what you are doing will do the same, as well as provide referrals for you and will support you.  Your network, particularly a substantial one , will contain prospective clients. However, a network will only be fully effective, if contacts are ‘seized and captured’. This is where ingredient number 2 comes in:

2) A database of accessible contacts.

As well as an address book to store your contacts, for example on your Google mail account (which acts as a great mail storage centre), an excellent system whereby you are regularly updating members of your network with news and information, comes in the form of an email mailing list. This allows you to not only keep in touch with contacts as long as they stay subscribed, but to allow them to be regularly reminded of you. For those non subscribers and potential subscribers, social media sites like Twitter act as a great aggregation of what I call ‘secondary contacts‘, who can be drawn to your mailing list eventually.

3) Direct marketing

Direct marketing is actively advertising your services and products to potential clients. This means contacting people and organizations with the intent of building a relationship with them in the least aggressive and spammy ways possible. In my view, self-promotion today, and actually marketing in general, is all about creating, building and maintaining relationships, as cheesy as it sounds, with those who may eventually use your services. Direct marketing is advertising without selling.

For freelancing professionals, contacting individual potential clients directly through their online contact details, ideally building rapport and directing them to your portfolio and mailing list (they will join if they are interested in your work) is a perfectly viable demonstration of this. Having a mailing list (or even emailing individual members of your network not on a mailing list) will allow for continued direct marketing.

4) A Referral System

Having a program in place involving active referral creation is often overlooked in my view in self promotion methods. Very often, people avoid asking prior clients and members of their network for referrals. According to referral guru Vince Golder, 80% of companies get 70% of their business through word of mouth marketing. This undoubtedly applies to freelancers too. I’ve found a large proportion of my work through referrals from key people in my online network.

The reality is, most people are happy to get referrals for you if asked, and especially when you have gotten them a referral already (in which case you don’t have to even ask, as most people are keen to return good favours).

5) A regular flow of unique visitors to your work

In order to build up a network, find new clients, and find new fans to rave about you, it is important to attract new eyeballs and/or ears etc to what you do. Whether it is a trickle or a torrent of new people coming to, and experiencing your work, it is all important in the world of self promotion. Even if you have created art to rival the masterpieces of Picasso, this doesn’t guarantee lots of new people seeing your awesome work.

You need to build the bridges to allow people to get to you. One of the best ways of doing this is to provide intriguing content in some form, such as a blog that focuses on your interests that will attract visitors to your content and eventually your work. Better still, would be to become an expert at something, ideally related to your super-focused niche, whereby people would be drawn to you and your services. An example is for a safari photographer to set up a blog on African wildlife photography, drawing interested people in who would add to your network, create referrals for you, add to your mailing list and employ you and so on.

6) Radical Strategic Visibility

This is a term coined by Facebook marketing specialist Mari Smith. Radical Strategic Visibility involves strategic steps taken so that you are seen everywhere (more feasible online) and you actively appear in the ‘peripheral vision’ of particularly key influencers in your industry. What this means is that, using the Internet as a tool, you create subtle and constant reminders that you exist, that you are active, relevant, and that you care about your work, your industry, your friends and helping others. This doesn’t have to be in your face advertising. This involves doing small things here and there including commenting on other people’s blog posts, updating your facebook status, ‘tweeting’ on Twitter and writing guest posts on other blogs.

When I read about this, I felt that the concept really added the last necessary ingredient to this self promotion cake by binding it all together.

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Does anyone think there are other key elements of self promotion? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

Please use the comments below to contribute your thoughts.