If you’re a freelance web designer, you already know how hard it is to land clients.
However, if you’re planning to increase your revenue, you have either of the two choices; get more clients or make more money per client.
It might appear as if only the first proposition is feasible, but it’s not the case. More clients would mean more money, right? Well, yes but that would also mean more resources for you and if you are understaffed or one one-man team, that can be a very expensive affair for you on your business’s expenses.
Hence, it makes sense for you to revalue your handful of clients to your benefit.
Ideas for getting more value from your web design work
1. Increase prices
A lot of designers dread increasing their prices. You might think that a higher price would shoo clients off and that can be true, but not always.
Most freelance designers are underpaid and do not ask for what they deserve. Hence, reviewing your prices could be a great option to increase your revenue.
You may start by reviewing prices for your new clients, and keep charging your regular client the same for a while.
Experiment by tweaking prices bit by bit to the point you find no change in your client base. That price point would then be the accurate valuation of your services as dictated by the market.
2. Compartmentalise your services
Web design is not a very subjective service, hence you would not always have a homogenous client base. With different clients demanding different things, you can charge them accordingly.
You can create a pricing structure for the different features you provide in your web design portfolio. This pierce structure will vary as per your time and service required.
For example, every client could pay differently for what they want to be done on their website. Animations, coding, graphic designing, all can be priced differently and the client can choose what they specifically require.
3. Offer additional services
In most cases, web designers only provide web design and development services to their clients. However, if you step into your client’s shoes, they’d be grateful if you can help them with a bunch of other digital-related services.
Think about it, you’re already working with the client as a developer, therefore, you’ll have already established a relationship with a good degree of trust with them.
With that said, more stuff doesn’t mean free (for the client). As you can now charge a corresponding fee for providing these additional value-added services.
There are many things you can push alongside your main web designing skills to the client, which include;
- Email accounts and configuration services
- Copywriting
- SEO (Search engine optimisation)
- Graphic design (logos, brochures and business cards)
- Ad management
- Website maintenance
Partnering doesn’t just stop there, but you can use it on a networking basis too. For example, we partner with this London Sports Injury Clinic, as a lot of their clientele fit within the niche we’re trying to break into (i.e. sports and wellbeing).
Meaning, you could also partner up with totally different industries too, if your goal is to also break into those industry’s customers for potential clients.
4. Create packages
Once you have curated your value-added services, you can create packages of several services that clients can potentially club together. As packages can attract attention from clients and encourage sales.
Enlist the services you’re often providing to your clients and then bundle them up to those that you think other potential clients would like to have.
You can even give them a name (to the bundled packages) and then put them up on your website and proposals.
5. Outsource related services
Maybe you don’t have the skill set to provide related services to your clients. No problem. Outsource those services to a third party, even if you need to use sites such as PeoplePerHour or Upwork.
This way you will be the provider of the services for the client, but outsourcing the work from the third party in the background, as arbitraging this way benefits all parties involved.
6. Partner with similar start-ups
You can also partner with different start-ups for this purpose.
Partnering can increase your resource pool and client base, altogether while lowering down your costs.
Partnering with businesses that provide complementary services is even better. That way your tasks remain segmented but you gain by increasing your resources and providing more services to your clients.
Building connections outside of your web design realm will only benefit you. Curate a list of suppliers — copywriters, illustrators, other specialist developers, etc.
You can refer your clients to your partners, and earn referrals back from them too — a win-win.
7. Maintenance packages
Websites constantly require maintenance. Even websites that are set up through website builders such as WordPress require regular maintenance (theme and plugin updates, for example).
With this, you can offer monthly maintenance packages to your clients, meaning you get recurring cash-flow, in exchange for a predetermined number of hours of work for every month.
8. Check-in with past clients
It’s always easier and profitable to get business from old clients than to acquire new ones. This is due to having an existing relationship with them already.
Keep checking in with your old clients in regards to the previous projects you’ve worked with them on, as they may require additional work or new services.
You could even consider email marketing as a great way to achieve this, given that you could update your client base about new services, discounts, etc., simply by sending a regular newsletter out.
Got any other recommendations? We’d love to hear from you. If you have used any other techniques to increase your revenue from existing client work, do let us know.