For small-scale website design companies, acquiring good clients is a primary goal. Unfortunately, this is not an easy task. You have to encourage clients to trust your company, fulfill your promise, and finally, nurture the relationships regularly.

In this article, we will discuss few strategies that will allow small companies to acquire and retain valuable clients. We will focus on three basic issues-action, research and finally, delivery.

Action – Main purpose of this step is to earn trust of clients and engage them

Creating a unique personality represents the most important step of acquiring a client. For example, if you are passionate about offering people logo design or website design solutions, market it. Clients may not immediately sense your passion, but over time, it will provide you with rich benefits.

Of course, sometimes, honesty and passion are not enough. If you want to develop a warm relationship with a client, highlight the different ways you can solve his/her problem. Convince the client that you need to work together to deal with the issues.

Research – Main purpose of this step is to earn identify the issues that the client is facing. Tools can include research studies and customer journey maps.

Social science Research- The best way to gain an insight into users’ psyche is by conducting research. Research methodologies can be of various types. These can include focus groups (qualitative research where people are asked about their opinions about a product), ethnography (field research conducted in the respondents’ environment), and prototyping (identifying problems of a new product/design and solving them, before launching it).

Some of the research methodologies stated above are expensive and may demand investment of money. However, consider the fact that as compared to conducting research studies, launching a product and solving issues involve greater investment of time and money. In case the client cannot support extensive research studies, you can opt for inexpensive methods (interviewing people at a coffee shop, for example).

Customer Journey Map- This strategy will help you to understand emotional journey of users. Let us assume that your client has an ecommerce site. While the users are shopping, you can ask them about their experiences. They may be quite comfortable with the shopping experience or frustrated. Recording these opinions and studying them can help your client to understand the weak points about his/her site.

Delivery – Main purpose of this step is to deliver the final solutions to the client.

Delivery is a critical step for earning trust of the clients. Invest time for preparing the solutions. Ensure that the solutions are visually stimulating and organized. Use charts and graphs in your solutions. This will help the clients to understand the logic behind these solutions and retain their interest.

We highlighted few steps that will help you to earn trust of customers and enjoy a long-term relationship with them. Opt for these steps and build a powerful brand image of your company.

When you work as an independent web or graphic designer, you can get projects on the basis of your resume and portfolio. However, when you run a website design company, you have to show your business skills, besides creative skills, to secure new designing projects. You must create an impressive business proposal to convince your clients and beat your competitors.

Here are 12 secrets to write an effective business proposal.

1. Meet Your Client- Before you write the business proposal, meet your client and ask him all the necessary questions. Make a short questionnaire and give it to your client. Once you know all the details about his business, you can write the proposal comfortably.
2. Showcase Your Work- When you meet your client; show him some of the projects your company has delivered successfully. This way he will understand that you are good enough to meet the demands of his project.
3. Do Some Research- Apart from the information you get from your client, you need to do some research on your client’s background, his competitors, target audience and the current condition of his company. This will help you write an organized business proposal.
4. Know the Target Audience- When your client approaches you with a project, try to know his target audience and write clear details about them in the business proposal. For instance, write gender, age group and financial status of the target audience and state clearly how you can help your client grab their attention.
5. Write a Brief Executive Summary- Executive summary includes all project details in a nutshell. Most clients read this part of a business proposal carefully and you must write a brief yet impressive executive summary to convince your client. Show him that you truly understand his requirements and are ready to help him.
6. Discuss the Project Goals- Every design project has a goal, and you must know what your client expects from your design to deliver him exactly what he wants. If your client’s needs and your ideas do not match, he won’t give you the project.
7. Know the Competitors- There are hundreds of web design companies out there and it’s your duty to make sure that clients hire you for their projects. Take a look at your competitor websites and find out their weaknesses. Once you know their weaknesses, write a design proposal that can outshine your competitors.
8. Write Creative Strategy- Discuss your design strategies with your client and explain your decisions. Tell your client how you are going to meet the project goals and help him attract his potential customers.
9. Explain Project Methodology- You must explain your work methodology in the proposal. Show how you are going to handle the project from beginning to the end. This will help your client understand your work procedure and he won’t argue with you about the project deadline.
10. Explain Project Budget- Write the total project cost and the payment method in the business proposal. Break total cost in different parts such as “website design”, “frontend development”, “and backend development”, etc., to assure your client that you are offering him a fair deal.
11. Mention Project Deadline- When you set the project deadline, make sure that you keep some extra days in your hand. Website design is a creative process and sometimes you may spend a few extra days to design a beautiful layout. Therefore, if you think a project will take 10 days, give a 12 days deadline.
12. Give Your Contact Details- Always give your contact details to your client. Give him your mobile number, office landline number, email address, etc., so that he can contact you anytime regarding the project.

A well written and organized proposal can certainly win you a project. After you show the business proposal, don’t forget to send a follow-up email. Let your client realize that you are eager to work with him. If your client is impressed with your proposal, he will hire you for his design project.

A lot of people believe they can become a good professional website designer by purchasing a designing software and following its menus! Have you ever wondered if that is possible? If website design was so simple, why are there institutes teaching it?

Everyone who has been in the web designing industry has come across at some point of time, a software that claims – ‘no need for technical knowledge or skills’. The reality is, these claims are, to an extent, false promises of wish fulfillment. It’s not that the softwares don’t work. They do, and they are quite useful, but they don’t really satisfy the demands of a creative mind.

Creators of such softwares, market their products as ‘can be used by anyone and everyone. No technical knowledge needed.’ However, truth is, one cannot become a skilled web designer overnight by purchasing a software. Some level of technical knowledge is needed to understand the instructions and create designs accordingly.

The makers of design softwares claim to ‘efficiently substitute’ the need for creative thinking. They market their products ‘creating’ professionals and not merely helping them. This promise of instant accomplishment is what drives people to buy the software, because, in the face of an easy solution, no one would want to learn website designing in some media institute for years when they can create beautiful designs at home, with the help of tutorials.

One must not overlook the fact that such softwares are quite impressive, and to the novice, they promise to create amazing designs too by just a few clicks of the mouse. All you have to do is re-enact the steps shown in the video tutorial and voila, the design is ready!

Well, not really. The truth is that no software can create a web design all by itself. No matter how powerful and ‘efficient’ it is, it needs a human to do the work. It only provides the platform and the tools with which to work.

Remember, tutorials can be recorded through the action panel. They can be played back also. But that doesn’t mean the web designing software creates the designs by itself. The ‘designing with software’ trend was started by designers who preferred to take the help of templates instead of coming up with creative designs themselves. There is nothing wrong in it. Softwares save a lot of time and when designers have to work under strict deadlines, softwares are definitely a good option. But creativity cannot be artificially generated and talent can’t be mechanized. This is the most basic fact of the matter. Every website designer should know and trust this fact.

Dear Readers,

Wish all of you the joyful spirit of the NEW YEAR 2012 keeps glowing forever from all of us Quality Web Solution