Building a successful Web design business takes a veritable Swiss Army knife of different skills. There’s the work of designing and building sites. There’s the work of marketing so you can ensure you have someone to design and build sites for. There’s the work of making sure you keep good enough books to pay taxes on time. There’s also the work of getting paid. In short, building a successful Web design business takes a lot of — you guessed it — work, and where work won’t suffice, it’s inevitable that money is needed.
If you’re trying to build up your Web design business, then the odds are good that you’re no stranger to work or the pressures of money. High-quality content marketing is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to build your business, and, if you can’t do the work yourself, here are five ways you should be able to finance it.
1. Convince Yourself You Need It
The first step in being able to finance your firm’s content marketing campaign is to convince yourself that you need to finance your firm’s content marketing campaign. Unless word of mouth is bringing in more business than you can handle, you probably know you need to flex some marketing muscle in order to grow your business. Here are a handful of reasons why high-quality content marketing is one of the best ways to do that:
- It will increase your search engine rankings.
- It captures customers’ and potential customers’ attention.
- It associates your brand with quality.
- It develops meaningful relationships with customers.
2. Use a Business Credit Card
So, now that you believe it’s in your best interest to engage in a content marketing campaign, how in the world are you supposed to pay for it? One of the quickest ways to access money for anything is to do so via a business credit card. While a business credit card isn’t the same as a business loan, when used wisely, it can still be very helpful. Many business credit cards offer rewards and perks that can come in handy later, and if you arrange to pay at least some of the content marketing’s cost at the end of the campaign, you should see some new business roll in to help you pay the credit card off before too much interest has built up.
3. Hire Local
Working with other local businesses is a great way to shore up your local economy. Not only will it create more financial stability for your business, but it will also encourage other local businesses to spend and hire locally — something you will inevitably benefit from as well. In addition, it may also afford you the opportunity to trade services with another business so that neither of you end up shelling out any literal cash. Once you find a local company whose content marketing you believe in, find out whether you can pay for their services by building them a better website, optimizing their existing site for mobile, or offering some other service that would benefit them.
4. Trim the Fat
Are all your business expenditures really essential? Or is there some way to cut back in order to free up some money for marketing? When it comes to trimming excess fat from your budget, you don’t have to get overly draconian. Just because you could leave the thermostat in the winter at 58 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t mean you should. Instead, look for expenditures that don’t see much use. Do you belong to trade organizations you barely think of? End your memberships. Does your office get magazine subscriptions to publications no one reads? Cancel them. Cut back on anything that isn’t an asset, and you’ll be surprised at how much money you free up.
5. DIY
Doing anything yourself has the obvious advantage of not costing you a dime, but it comes with the obvious disadvantage of being one more thing you have to find time to do. Also, if you aren’t great at coming up with high-quality content, including video, blog posts, social media mentions, photos, articles, and more, doing it yourself isn’t going to help you grow your business; it’s just going to be something you devote a lot of time to and have nothing to show for.
From trading services with a local company to utilizing a business credit, investing in great content marketing is something will pay dividends for your growing design firm down the road.
