This might be all good and well, but if you have any interest in staying afloat in the industry over a substantial period of time, it is essential to understand a system that allows for winning new projects and selling products regularly over the long term.

Marketing expert Michael Port introduced to me the concept of the ‘sales cycle’, which takes the essential elements of self promotion, and places them within a system that you can use to set out a strategy of effective long term self promotion.

A sales cycle simply highlights the key stages that need to be incorporated into your campaign of promoting yourself and your work in order to secure bookings with new as well as previous and ongoing clients.

The crucial elements of a successful promotion strategy for not only service professionals but all businesses and corporations are:

Getting your product or service noticed.

Attracting potential customers or clients.

Becoming credible.

Building trust.

Developing a strong relationship with those contacts.

Bringing clients to take action in using your services.

I have used the concepts introduced by Michael Port and formulated a straight forward sales cycle that brings in all these important elements to allow you to attract great clients and regular work (as well as sales if you have a product).

The ten steps described in my new ebook address and put into action all of the stages of the cycle I will describe below.

These stages are what a client moves through when deciding whether to use your services or buy one of your products. A potential client or buyer can drop in and out of this cycle, and they don’t necessarily have to start from the beginning in order to hire you.

Addressing all the stages in your campaign is important in ensuring a steady stream of work and sales if you sell products.

You’ll need to keep this cycle in mind as you go about promoting yourself if you want to see optimum results in attracting new work from clients or in selling to customers.

The stages are as follows:

Stage 1. Get Seen

Perform tasks that will get your name in front of your target market.

This covers any activity that introduces new people to your work, or reminds people of it.

By itself, activity addressing this stage will potentially bring new fans, clients, advice givers, collaborators, buyers and more, to you and your work.

This can include social networking, bringing people to your website, setting up referrals, writing articles, sending out mail promos, leaving blog comments, guest blogging and so on.

Of course, there may be instances where others will do the work for you, such as featuring your work on their blog having seen your work, or someone sharing a link to your site on Twitter, for example.

It is possible for you to get work with clients or sell products through this stage alone. This is also possible at instances anywhere into the cycle. However, stopping at this stage in the cycle, will make it harder for you to secure long term work and/or sales at a consistent rate.

Stage 2. Link Up

Secure contacts that you can build a relationship with.

This is where you establish a secure link with a targeted contact that will enable you to communicate with them over time and build a relationship with them.

A secure link can be in the form of attracting a Twitter follower, adding a Facebook friend or fan, and ultimately and ideally, adding targeted people to your mailing list.

There are no risks for your contacts here. People are not expected to hand over their hard earned cash at this point.

Before securing a link with the right people, it helps to demonstrate a positive reputation, credibility and value as a creative worker. This includes things like being the author of a useful and original blog, having an accomplished portfolio of work, showing client testimonials and adding good, readable content through Twitter and Facebook.

These are the things that will provide an incentive for people to secure such a link with you.

Stage 3. Keep in touch

Work on developing a trusting relationship with your contacts.

This is the stage that cultivates trust, rapport and a long-term relationship between you and your target contacts that you have already created a secure link to.

This involves tasks that maintain visibility in front of contacts at the very least, but also tasks that build trust and familiarity, and allow positive interaction with your key contacts.

Such tasks include sending blog post updates to members of your Facebook fan page, ‘tweeting’ through Twitter, interacting with people on social media sites, sending out status updates on Facebook and broadcasting a newsletter containing tips and new updates to members of your mailing list.

Stage 4. Strike a Deal

Create an offering that will lead to work.

The next step is to move your potential clients or buyers into the next stage of the cycle, which is in hiring your services or buying from you. Although creating an offering in this way is an element of selling products, it is also an important step to take in selling your services.

For most creatives, an offering in this way would simply involve reminding your contacts that you are available for work, and that any referrals that can be sent your way would be appreciated. ‘Calls to action’ in the form of a link on your site that suggests prospects ask for a quote is another example of an offering.

What your offerings are is up to you here and will depend on your area of work.

An offering to attract work, such as a discounted service, or offering tickets for an exhibition, for example, as well as discounts on any products you sell are also options here. They are not essential, however, because the important thing is that people are simply aware of your work. This alone can lead to paid projects.

Prospects who would like to work with you will hire you if they want to, or they may act as vital referrers.

It is important to be aware of this cycle as you go about the steps discussed in my ebook, if you are interested in consistently and effectively selling your products or services.

Your thoughts as comments are always welcome!

To go with my recently launched ebook on self promotion, I’ve put together a list of various marketing mistakes to take note of.

Here are 10 mistakes you should avoid as a creative freelancer or professional:

1. Not establishing a target market before promoting.

One of the main things that creatives and other freelancers overlook when taking action in attracting new clients and getting their work seen is the importance of knowing who it is that you are producing work for.

If you produce work to please anyone and everyone, with no target market in mind, you will have trouble maintaining high quality, focused work. You will also create too much work for yourself, and you will have difficulties promoting it. If you have no idea who you are promoting to, your strategy of promotion will be aimless, fluffy and ineffective.

You need to decide on a group of people you would be passionate about creating work for. This is the group of people who will come to enjoy and experience your work upon its completion.

2. Ignoring the smaller details on your portfolio sites.

A lot of us neglect the smaller details when we go about showcasing what we have produced to share online. This includes providing good high resolution images in your portfolios, having links that work, aligning things properly, avoiding site clutter, and keeping words spelt correctly and sentences grammatically correct.

Attention to these finer details will have an effect on how viewers regard your professionalism and your general care about your own work. This can sometimes be the difference between someone choosing to hire you and someone quickly leaving your portfolio or site.

3. Not being contactable.

I still too often arrive at the personal sites of various creatives and find it hard to find out how to contact those behind the sites. The bare essentials of your online presence are your work being showcased clearly and properly, and a way to be contacted. The latter is often hard to get to, so make it obvious how to be found on the front page of your site/blog.

The best way is to set up a contact form, so that you don’t have to worry about email spammers taking your full email address through your site.

4. Not having a referral policy.

When it comes to attracting referrals as you network and interact with your contacts later on, having an official referral policy in place is one of the best ways you can attract more clients and more work. At least making a point of asking for referrals when dealing with clients is important also.

In the business world, 80% of companies get 70% of their business through word of mouth marketing. This can apply to creative professionals too. You will be surprised how many referrals you can make just by asking, especially when you find referrals for others.

See my previous post on getting referrals for more information on this.

5. Having an unfocused marketing strategy.

It can be easy to lose your way when trying to get the word out about what you do. Sometimes marketing activities don’t happen for weeks and months because there is not strategy in place. It is therefore important to lay out some kind of schedule in a calendar that will help you dedicate some focused marketing time each day or week.

Apart from scheduling a marketing regime in a calendar, there are other ways of creating focus within your marketing strategy. Writing a blog is one way of staying focused and building regular exposure for your own work, for example. Providing updates to a mailing list is another way of staying focused, hugely benefiting your promotional strategy in the process.

6. Not being set up effectively for promotion on social media sites like Facebook.

People’s views on social media appear to be fairly split, with one group seeing the self marketing value of networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and others ignoring it. In either case, it is crucial to get set up effectively on these sites, so that your work and services are promoted in the best ways that they can be. Many people miss out on the opportunity to take advantage.

Sites like Facebook, which attract huge numbers of people every day, come with a range of tools that will help you promote yourself that people are very often unaware of. Many people often overlook the various ways these sites can really help you promote yourself, such as one’s ability to showcase artwork to targeted people, or importing a blog through your wall on Facebook.

I’m giving away a free chapter of my book through Inspired Mag on setting up properly on Facebook.

7. Not securing the relevant contacts you find.

People visiting your sites and those that you can interact with on social media sites, as well as clients, previous clients, referrals and fans are very valuable to you. For the benefit of your long term marketing success, as well as selling products and selling your services in general, you need to secure these contacts to you so that they are contactable and within your professional network.

This means directing people to your mailing list and making people aware of your social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. With contacts in place in these ways, you are able to maintain visibility in front of them over time, which will help you attract regular work and exposure.

8. Lacking credibility as a professional or expert.

For success as a creative who wants lots of work with great clients, you’ll need to be perceived as credible, likable and trustworthy within your field and within your ever-growing network.

Having a personal brand and giving off the right attitude both contribute to this, but there are a few other important things you need to consider if you want to appear credible and trustworthy, including having a unique domain name for your portfolio site, providing a high quality of service and providing testimonials of your services on your site. Several more ideas are provided in the book.

9. Not maintaining whatever self promotion steps we have already taken.

You might know about and put into action all kinds of successful promotional methods that get your work noticed and contribute to a strong brand. However, without proper maintenance, these efforts will be short lived and you are likely to see success in patches, as opposed to work coming in consistently.

Keeping things automated through delegating tasks is one way of keeping the momentum going and so is keeping a schedule together for posting blog updates, keeping your portfolio fresh and engaging on social networking sites.

Maintenance also includes tweaking, tracking and tuning the various activities you are involved with as part of your promotional strategy. It’s key to get regular feedback from what you are doing so that you know what to work on and improve and so that you know you are on the right track with what you are doing. Google Analytics is an excellent free service for tracking website stats that you can incorporate into your various sites and blogs.

10. Ignoring the importance of appropriate web etiquette on the sites we visit.

Internet etiquette, or ‘netiquette’ in general, is something everyone should be aware of before setting out on a journey of effective self promotion. These are practices used to make the internet experience a pleasant one for everyone you deal with. Often people try to market what they have, and annoy others in the process by being too aggressive and persistent without focusing on developing relationships.

Particularly when you are engaging with social media, where you want to build relationships, you need to communicate with people in a way that is respectful, professional and responsible and appropriate to the site in question.

When promoting a product or service, the old method of directly advertising what you have, has now gone out the window with Web 2.0 (the new phase of collaborative information sharing the internet is now going through). If you forget all else in marketing yourself online, remember this:

Relationship building and rapport come first, promotion comes second.

What does everyone think?

All these issues are addressed in my new book, ’10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives’, launching Wednesday March 10th at a reduced price for three days only.

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Sign up to the weekly tip mailing list to be alerted of the when the book becomes available.

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Get fixed up here:

*Your information will never be shared or sold

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What is the #1 area you need help with, in terms of promoting your work online?

Many of you responded with some great questions. This post will take a selection of them, and I will do my best to answer them. If you have anything to add, don’t hesitate to contribute within the comments section of this post.

If you are interested in my recently completed guide on effective online self promotion, go here.

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Here we go…

Reader Question:

‘How much time should I be putting in each day/week/month into promoting myself?’

RLC Answer:

‘That’s a good question, and not an easy one to answer. I think we can safely say that for most creative professionals, the ratio of self promotion to working is very small, so must of us should think about upping the amount of weekly promotion we put in compared to the amount of creative work we do.

Levels of marketing vary according to the method used. For social networking promotion, I recommend spending a few minutes a day engaging with people, and for sending out newsletters to subscribers, once every two or three weeks.

Generally you will need to tailor your self promotion time to yourself but aim to spend a proportion of what you do, unless you have help or representation, on some self promotional activities every week. You will find out what suits you through taking action and getting feedback from what you do.’

Reader Question:

‘I guess for me, my troubled area is how to engage prospects, readers (etc) to take action, to send me an email to buy ads on my blog, or to give me a call to book my services.. Even to subscribe to my newsletter, or to respond to my tweets.

So is it a matter of words? Content? Price?’

What compels someone to take action?‘

RLC Answer:

‘My best piece of advice here is in making sure you place a ‘call to action’ at any opportunity you have that is appropriate. A call to action is something that leads your site visitors etc to taking action, such as you saying that you are available for hire, and then adding a link to your contact address.

You’ll be surprised how often people are swayed into taking action, when they are reminded and shown how to do so, and how many people forget to use one.’

Reader Question:

‘I’d like to find out more about adding subscribers to my currently tiny mailing list. How do I attract more new clients to my list?’

RLC Answer:

‘If you have a blog, nothing beats good, regular content that demonstrates your expertise and credibility on some topic, and having a mailing list that is tied to this great content, such as by having a newsletter that gives away exclusive information that relates to the content you provide on your blog or site.

Make sure your opt-in page or form is clearly linked to, or clearly shown on your various sites, including your blog. This means placing it ‘above the fold’ (within view when the web page is fully scrolled up) and perhaps giving something away for free to people who sign up as an incentive.

Take advantage of the various other channels on the net to promote your list, including leaving the link in forum signature boxes, social media, blog comments, leaving a link on articles and guest posts on other blogs you write, and so on.’

Reader Question:

‘I have noticed the highly increasing popularity of Tumblr and I was wondering if I should recreate my blog in blogger to a Tumblr one if that might increase followers and visits to my work?’

RLC Answer:

‘Tumblr’s system is very straight forward and a well designed one. If you don’t plan on being too in control of your blog’s design, it could be an option, but generally your blog popularity will come down to the quality of the content on your blog, you having a well-defined blog niche, and the extent of your efforts to bring targeted traffic to it.’

Reader Question:

‘What is the best method of putting together a portfolio these days, Html, WordPress, Flash, CSS3?’

RLC Answer:

‘There are so many ways, and by all means use any of these, although lay off the flash unless really necessary!

I personally recommend WordPress.org for your blog, but it can also be used as a portfolio site as it is quite straightforward and very efficient once set up, and the design is very customizable. I would emphasize simplicity in any portfolio site you set up.

My new ebook lists all kinds of ways and options you can choose from in creating a site that works for you.’

Reader Question:

‘Even though I’m very new to the industry, are there promotional tactics that can help me and my work to appear more professional? (A “fake it till you make it” sort of tactic)?’

RLC Answer:

‘If you stick to the very basics of professionalism in all that you do as a creative, you’re sure to impress and basically look good to potential clients.

This includes communicating positively and eloquently with readers and prospects, but also in concentrating on little details that make a big difference, such as spelling mistakes, and fuzzy, unprofessional design on your sites. Make sure you always focus on consistency as you transmit the brand you are representing.’

Reader Question:

‘I know that writing articles and social networking are good ways of bringing traffic to my sites. Do you have any other ideas?‘

RLC Answer:

‘There are several ways that creatives can use the web to bring targeted traffic to their work and their blogs if they have one. Article writing on topics that relate to your own work or blog is one good way. Social networking is a great way of bringing in traffic, if used effectively and you have substantially sized networks on them.

My 10 Steps book lists over twenty other ways of driving traffic, including writing for ezines, posting classifieds, podcasting and writing free press releases. Collaboration with others is an often overlooked way of getting traffic to each of your sites as well.’

Reader Question:

‘The number one area I could use help with is interconnecting my various accounts so that one post is distributed on multiple sites. What are the best ways to do this?’

RLC Answer:

‘This is a great way of saving time and multi-tasking, so that promotion doesn’t take up any more time than it needs to.

Ping.fm and Tweetdeck are two examples of platforms that allow you post to multiple online destinations, so that you spread the word of new posts etc quickly and efficiently. What ways work best for you will take a little experimentation, but the tools to do so are available.’

Reader Question:

‘I’m quite self-promotionally active online, but I need some suggestions on how to cut down on my time spent on the internet. What do you think I can do to cut down?’

RLC Answer:

‘Tackling time wasting is something I’m keen to address in all the self promotional methods I share and I think it is important to cut down as much time as possible spent on the computer as we go about promoting ourselves. This is why having at least a vague internet use schedule is important, as well as doing any work that doesn’t require a computer away from the computer!

I have written a post that discusses some ideas on saving time as we go about our daily business on the net.’

Reader Question:

‘The #1 question I have about promoting myself online, is what is the appropriate way to send your site to a targeted person, like a creative director at a company you are particularly interested in working at.

Is putting together a self-promotional mailer something that has gone by the wayside due to digital advancements or is it still considered a good idea?’

RLC Answer:

‘Marketing to specific people is something that is addressed in my various posts and in greater detail in my book. The key thing is to always build a relationship with someone before blatantly marketing to them.

This can happen in various ways, including in building rapport with them via email and engaging with people on social networks like Twitter. Once you have build rapport in this way, you can go ahead and share a little more about what you do.’

Reader Question:

‘I’m worried that my social media accounts on for example Facebook and LinkedIn aren’t properly optimized for promoting myself as best as they can so I was wondering where I can find out more about this?’

RLC Answer:

‘One of the things you need to be careful about is in the way you mix business with pleasure on any social media accounts you have. Make sure that any contacts you have on these platforms who are potential clients, for example, sees the professional brand side of you, as opposed to the party-animal side of you.

There are ways of making sites like Facebook an excellent self promotional platform, with security measures you can take to keep certain information from certain people, so that you maintain a professional image. I run through creating ideal social media accounts for self promotional purposes in the ebook.’

Reader Question:

‘The #1 area I need help with is finding the ‘best’ and most appropriate places online to promote my art/illustrations and my online store, in order to generate sales. And how can I avoid getting lost among the thousands of other new creatives trying to do the same thing?’

RLC Answer:

‘This will inevitably require a bit of research on your side, and it is best to always have your target market in mind when going out and promoting your sites/work on other sites. Always think about who exactly you want seeing your work, find them, and reveal your work to them (using non aggressive, relationship-building, marketing methods).

You can perhaps use online forums to not only market your work but in finding suggestions from others on which sites to use for promotion.’

Reader Question:

‘Should I work on getting my own website together before diving into promotion?’

RLC Answer:

‘I think it is crucial to have some sort of what I call a ‘base’ in place before promoting. A base is your personal site that showcases your work, that you will bring targeted people to. This does not need to be a complex site filled with loads of information, at least initially.

Stick to something professional-looking and contains at least a simple display of your work and your contact details before promoting it. Then you can add to it later. Ideally, your own site should have an element of uniqueness, including having its own domain name and of a style that reflects your brand in general, although this is not necessary to get started. As I said, something simple and professional is key before going out and marketing.’

Reader Question:

‘The area I need help with most with regards to online promotion would be my forthcoming book. My project is not entirely finished yet, but would need help in promoting it to as many people as possible. What’s the best way to promote a book?‘

RLC Answer:

‘The sales cycle that I address in the book applies to both marketing your services, but also in promoting your own products. Book promotion is something I am going through at this moment, and I can say that the internet has proven to be an extremely valuable tool in doing so.

The key thing is spend time adding contacts to your own network who are likely to buy the book or at least spread the word about it for you. You need to build relationships with these people and keep them interested. Once rapport and a solid relationship has been established with your target market you can start revealing the book to them.

This is where mailing lists and social networks can help, but there are also many other ways of building buzz. The other important aspect about promoting something like a book, especially if it requires your own expertise on something is in building your own credibility and respect amongst others before selling it. You can work on this through a blog and in sharing content and engaging through social media, forums, article writing, video-casting, and more.’

Thanks for the questions everyone!

Closer detail on all these issues are addressed in greater detail and clarity in my new ebook:

’10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives’.

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Join the weekly tip mailing list to be alerted of the book available at launch at a discounted price.

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Sign up here:

*Your information will never be shared or sold

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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.