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Power Marketing

Sep 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Frank McMahon

Bringing in clients requires more than word of mouth alone. Look to a variety of tools to get you the business you want.

Marketing is something we deal with on a weekly basis, or at least something we all should be dealing with regularly. Many times, when we get busy with clients, marketing consists of simply throwing together a website and creating business cards. But marketing yourself should be an ongoing quest that requires constant involvement. It doesn't matter if you are an editor, videographer, animator, graphic artist, or any other type of media artist — you should always be marketing yourself. This article will cover a lot of ground on how to go from a little marketing here and there to focused, power marketing.

Let's start off with those out there who don't market — I know you're out there. Chances are you got into the business, got a few good clients, and have been riding the waves ever since. Business has been steady (but perhaps not spectacular) from word of mouth. A happy client mentions you to someone else, and then, perhaps, they hire you. As long as you do a great job, the word will spread. Is this marketing? In a sense, yes, but it's not you who is doing the marketing, it is your clients. As long as you do well, this system is very beneficial, but bear in mind that if you mess up or underperform, this type of marketing could easily backfire.

Seth Godin wrote a book titled Unleashing the Idea Virus (he has since published several more good books, including Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside) explaining how marketing is less about products and more about ideas and information. He was right. When a client sits down with you, they are not purchasing a product, but rather they are purchasing your ideas, your vision. They came to you because what you have to say in your storytelling, design, or editing speaks volumes.

In marketing, these people are called potential sneezers. What is a sneezer? It's a person of influence, who recommends you, and then who spreads the virus. If you do good work, and people often highly recommend you, your marketing spreads quickly and broadly. If you do substandard work and people react accordingly, then your marketing spreads faster, but in a direction you don't want it to go.

Always be aware of the people you are dealing with, whether they are clients or associates, and always be professional: under-promise, then over-deliver. Any missed deadline, emotional on-the-set meltdown, or substandard job is setting yourself up for some bad buzz that will be next to impossible to chase down and eliminate.

If you don't market, but you have great word of mouth, is that enough? Not necessarily, because you can always strive for more, and word of mouth tends to be less focused. Word of mouth often spreads to those who may never hire you, which brings us to the subject of targeting: Who will be your clients, and how will you reach them?

It helps to visualize your ideal clients and then think about where you find them. If you are just starting off, you may think, “Well, I'll pretty much take anyone at this point.” This is fine, but as you advance in your arena, you will hopefully become more selective about the projects you take on.

The beauty of targeted marketing is that instead of blanketing an area and hoping to make some hits, you selectively pursue specific areas for a higher return-on-response, while making yourself known. Eventually, the market you are after comes to you.

For example, if you are an editor doing infomercials, but you really want to do music videos: The infomercials are paying the bills, and you're building a reputation in the infomercial world, but in the music video world, no one knows who you are. Even if you stress to everyone that you want to get into music videos, those people may not be connected to that industry.

So, break out. Part of the thrust of success comes from the hackneyed but true concept of thinking outside of the box. Looking at the market you want to go after instead of the market you are currently in sounds simple, but it is a detail many people forget.

Look at your career now: What are you doing, and what do you want to do? If those two match up, that's awesome. If not, market yourself outside your field and start the transition today. It can be scary, mainly because you might have a lot to learn in this new field, but don't worry — dive in and apply the skills you have, while learning new ones.

People who are successful at pitching themselves are always saying “No problem,” then only later wondering how they are going to deliver. They usually do, however, but they typically learn a lot along the way.

Once you have decided to market yourself, begin seriously promoting your skill set or dovetailing into a similar video field where you have less experience but where you have the drive to learn. As you begin marketing yourself, there is one question that you must address: What makes you different from all the other candidates out there?

Create an identity

Differentiate or Die, by Jack Trout, is a great book that has been a bestseller in the marketing arena. You don't even have to read it because the message is in the title — figure out how your business or service will be different.

Consider, for instance, if you are a computer animator and there are several animation companies in your area. They are all good, and you are too, but what do you offer that those other places don't? If the answer is “Not much,” then your marketing will become a lot tougher. In fact, if you offer a suite of services almost identical to the person down the street, then a consumer will not only have a harder time choosing, but the bottom line may also come down to price, and price is a slippery slope to market.

If you consider price as one of your main selling points, then consider that a competitor can always offer a lower price and snatch your customer. If you market on price, make sure you have cornered the lower- or higher-priced market. High prices can work amazingly well, though, because smart clients don't mind paying for value and paying for the best. One of my favorite print ads was for a wine company that had the tagline “We have every right to be expensive.” That says it all right there.

Also, avoid charging by the hour. As you construct your rates for services, it's okay to come up with an hourly rate for quotes internally, but clients are paying for your vision and your talent externally, and those things cannot be measured as an hourly value.

With all this marketing, you may need to adjust your fees to cover the time spent whipping your market into a flurry (which you will hopefully do after this). As you figure your profit and loss sheet monthly or yearly, set aside some cash for marketing materials. Adjust your rates away from hourly fees and toward what you are worth and what clients are willing to pay, because the difference between what you think you should charge and what clients are willing to pay can be significant.

When you meet with a client and talk over the production, you think “$5,000.” When you ask your clients how much their budgets are and they tell you they are willing to spend $10,000, what they are really saying is that this is the amount they are willing to spend on you. So, do you charge $5,000 or $10,000?

Before you answer, think about this: What if you let your clients set your fee? They would decide what they will pay you, what they think the project is worth to them, and their desire to work with you — you would easily make $10,000, but if you set the price, you would say $5,000 because you leave out the value of yourself. Yes, you tabulated editing time and calculated videographer tapes and so on, but you left out the worth of your years of experience, for which you should be fairly compensated.

A classic example of this is when a young woman, who wanted a portrait, passed by painter Vincent Van Gogh in a coffee shop. Van Gogh threw out a high price, which the women was eager to pay because the artist was legendary. When he sat her down, quickly painted an image, and presented it to her at the high price he quoted, she did not like that he painted it quickly. “The price is too high since you only took 15 minutes to create it, ” the women said, quite insulted. Van Gogh retaliated with a reference to his skill set: “Incorrect, my dear. It actually took me 15 years.”

So again, throw away the hourly rate and charge for your experience. When you raise the rate to $10,000, you advertise yourself to a high-end market and allow yourself more space to craft a great solution for your client, and, most important, you prevent selling yourself short, as many media artists and producers do. Don't be afraid to increase your rates. Your clients may see something you are missing, like your wealth of experience, which is worth more than you can imagine.

Working the Web

Demo tapes are great for show, but a website showcases your work better. However, you have to change your thinking about websites. The goal with many people who market their craft is to build a website, toss it out into the world, and watch the hits, but when they see it is not receiving much traffic, they go back to work, leaving the site old and dusty.

Don't think of a website as a traffic magnet. Think of it as a showcase for your work, an easily accessible online portfolio. A website is your world, and people are stepping into it. A good website tells a story, just like the video projects you work on, so make sure it conveys who and what you are.

If you are not a designer, let a pro design it (please!) because that impression ties into how people may perceive you. Clumsy HTML with animated bouncing things will make even a master video professional look like an amateur, whereas a professional, clean, easy-to-navigate website can convey a real top-of-the-line look.

What should you put on your site? A few key things, one of which is video. Web video has advanced in the past few years, and one of the best suites for compressing video is the Sorenson Media Sorenson Squeeze 4.1 Compression Suite. This program hits it out of the park with small file sizes and beautiful video. It also supports Flash video with presets for all bandwidth targets. In addition, Macromedia Flash MX 2004 now imports video and easily publishes it to a Flash video file, complete with controls for playback and volume. Flash MX, coupled with Sorenson, is an excellent way to get media up on a site quickly.

Flash presentations have also become a learning tool, and as video producers and artists know, you can market yourself as a teacher and make a nice living teaching others your skill set.

For example, you could create a learning section (or a section where visitors pay a fee to access your courses) by using programs such as Camtasia Studio by TechSmith or Macromedia's Captivate (formerly RoboDemo). These programs record your mouse movements and screen activity as you work with a program, then export the final movie as a Flash SWF file or streaming video to post on your site. You can also use them to make video training CD-ROMs.

For examples of these, check out some of the movies in the Apple, Adobe, or Discreet sections on the Virtual Training Company's site, www.vtc.com.

Perhaps you could offer a beginner's guide to editing or training in a desktop compositing program. The key is to provide value to your visitors. Successful websites are a resource where people go to for information or to learn. Add some worth to your site, and you'll collect more clients. Also, add an email signup to your website, which is a critical item because you can collect emails and market — with permission — to those interested in your work.

A business perspective

Finally, read or listen to as many business books about marketing as possible. Stroll through the business section of your local bookstore, and you'll find a wealth of information. Also, study what it is to be an artist, and you'll gain insight as to what makes you tick. Start off with one of my favorite books, Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, for some eye-opening perspectives on self-employment and creating innovative results professionally as well as just to learn and have fun.

The biggest lesson to learn in self-marketing is how to be shameless. Creative artists are wired to be humble. We sit behind a desktop, deck, mixer board, or camera, and create awesome work, but we don't jump up and beat a drum about it. Guess what? Start drumming! You owe it to your current and future clients to bring your work, vision, ideas, and methods to the masses.

With the information path of video and the Web, the playing field is level, and the ball is in your hand. Bandwidth expansion allows you to deliver color, images, and sounds to viewers you could never reach previously. The world is waiting to hear about you, so what are you waiting for?

You can find more marketing ideas in my podcast, “Media Artist Secrets,” at www.mediaartist.com

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