Marketing advice for small design team

From: Bonnie <BJSDeborah_at_aol.com>
Date: Wed 16 Aug 2000 21:43:38 EDT

We are a small (3 1-2 person) home-based design team
just starting our business as graphic designers for
both website creation and print media. Two of us have
more than 20 years experience in design and
writing/editing, one is a newcomer but creative and
talented. We turned to website creation about a year
ago and want to do more in that direction, so we are
already investigating online marketing techniques.

We're just starting now as our own legally owned
business entity but we've all experienced
"interruptions" in our careers due to illness and
family crisis. This seems an ideal way to return to
the field. We've got all the computers, software and
offices supplies we could ever need, but we're cash
strapped. However, we're starting in-home so that
should help. We began by pooling our resources and
sharing our clients. (We had each started to
investigate free-lance work individually.) However,
we're new to the area (small city) so we would like
advice on how to market our services both locally and
online.

In particular I'm worried about perception regarding
those "interruptions," because our portfolio is now
necessarily smaller and not so impressive anymore, and
we've just begun our website careers. I'm hesitant to
just march in and say, "Hi, we're good, we're capable
of high-quality work, but we've been away for awhile,
so please hire us and give us a chance to get started
again, get our portfolio fattened up . . . " Any
creative ideas?

We've got clients right now and we're working on our
first large site, but I still feel "naked" in a way.
I think we would make an excellent support team for
larger design firms, but would they welcome someone
like us, see us as competitors, or worse yet,
obsolete? Any creative ideas out there?

We really are good at what we do, though our size
limits the niche we can fill. We CARE about quality
and we care about meeting our clients' needs. One
strength is that two of us are professional writers,
but our past experience has been in technical writing
and historical research. How do we overcome these and
get those quality start-up jobs we need? I'm writing
our business plan right now and wondering how to fill
out the SWOT section (strengths, weakenesses,
obstacles and threats). . . do I tell the truth about
the battles we've won to return to full employment, or
just remain mum?

Perception is everything in this field and I'm trying
to think my way through this minefield carefully.
Good advice will be appreciated.

Bonnie
BJSDeborah_at_aol.com





Received on Wed Aug 16 2000 - 20:43:38 CDT