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As a freelance web designer, usually most of your work will be conducted over email, fax, phone, etc. Personally most of the clients I have done work for aren’t even in the same state as me. With established sites such as Digital Point, Web Hosting Talk, and Sitepoint, and even Craigslist it has become very easy for a freelancer to find work online, especially when first starting out. While there is nothing wrong with doing remote work, there are many advantages of finding and working with local clients.

Advantages In Advertising To Local Clients

While it’s true you have a much wider reach with advertising your design services online, you can be just as effective in advertising locally offline, and often for less money than it would cost you to advertise online. Here are some methods, listed with their advantages, to offline local advertising,

• Local bulletin boards - Believe it or not, the local bulletin board in your library/church/townhall/Starbucks etc. can be a very good way to spread the word about your design services. It costs you nothing to put up a flyer or ad, and you’d be surprised how many people actually will read them.

• Buying an ad in a local newspaper or magazine - Unless you’re living in North Dakota, your town/city is almost guaranteed to have at least one newspaper. If you live in a major city, you’re in luck. Your city probably has a half dozen newspapers, and a half dozen more “city magazines” or periodicals. These are a great place to put your ad. The cost will vary from city to city, and individually between magazines and newspaper, but often you can spend under $100 to get your ad to hundreds of thousands of people.
• Cold Calling - A tried and true method for gaining local clients. The beauty of cold calling is you can pitch your services to literally any business in any field. I’ve yet to come across a business who won’t at least hear a proposition out. A business needs a website, this is true 99% of the time. You can cold call an established business (perhaps offer them a website redesign), or a business that hasn’t even opened yet. Look through local newspapers for any news of a new business opening, and take down phone numbers of lot’s with coming soon signs on them. Again, this method is entirely free, and gives you a chance to personally talk with potential clients and build trust with them. You can either call by phone (hence the name), or visit a business and ask to speak with the owner.

These three basic advertising methods are pretty basic on the surface, but can go a mile deep (especially cold calling) when you get into them.

It is easier to track advertising online, but you can easily track local ads as well, with a little more work. When writing an ad, you will want to make sure you have some good sales copy. Here are some links that will help with that, and some links that deal with cold calling as well. There are literally books and cours devoted to the art of cold calling, and the writing of sales copy, but these will hopefully help to get started.

Your First Cold Call
The Art Of Business: Why Cold Calling Isn’t So Bad (Really)
Tips For Writing Effective Sales Copy
The ABC Of Writing Good Ad Copy
Copy Writing Tips

Advantages In Working With Local Clients

There is something to appreciate in the fact that when working remotely, the client can’t actually see you, or drive up to your office to chat with you, but there is a value in this, as seen by some of the advantages of working with local clients.

• Local Clients Pay More - You can often charge more to a local client, because they are used to “brick & mortar” pricing and understand the cost that goes into a business.I am sure this is not always the case, and that sometimes the opposite is true, but I have found in general local clients are willing to pay more.
• Contract Negotiations Are Easier - We all know how frustrating it is to try and knock out a solid contract with a client going through email and fax, but a lot of the stress is eliminated with local clients. You can easily take the client out to lunch, draft up and complete the contract, and have it signed the same day.
• Security Of Payment - When the client has a physical address that you can (and should) visit, this is very helpful when it comes to collecting payment. You should always have a payment plan, that is understood by the client, and is included in the contract, but there is an added layer of security when you can physically show up, reference the contract and prompt for payment. If something goes bad, you don’t have to worry about different jurisdictions across states and so forth, you know where the client is and can deal with them locally.
• Quicker Approval Times - Possibly one of my biggest pet peeves is waiting for a client to approve a design. This can sometimes waste days of your time, when you could be working. Regular meetings with the client will greatly speed this process up, and you have a great advantage when you can show them a mock-up or working prototype on your laptop at a lunch meeting.

As you can see, there are many advantages and good reasons why you should, if you aren’t already, advertise and try to get some local clients. Another reason, and perhaps one of the best is word of mouth. If you think it’s big online, you should see it in action in the local business community. Every business owner deals with a few other businesses in his day to day dealings, and if you do a great job he’ll probably tell a few people.

Not all of these advantages hold true all the time, they are not absolutes. This article also does not deal with the disadvantages and pitfalls of dealing with local offline clients, that’s another article for another time. Let me know what you think as I’m always looking to improve, and also let me know any tips or hints you have about dealing with local clients, and also any stories you’d like to share.

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