How to Land More Web Design Clients
Prefer to watch?
Here’s the video!
Mentioned in the Video:
*Yup - that’s an affiliate link! My margarita fund thanks you kindly!
Rather read all about it?
Struggling to find new ways to fill up your calender with web design client bookings?
My past student Jessica has an introvert friendly marketing strategy that with just a little creativity and planning, can lead to inquires landing in your inbox daily. 😍
Jessica set up this method on top of juggling being a stay at home mom with two kidos on the loose.
Today we’re talking overcoming imposter syndrome, maternity leave, landing new clients as an introvert and how to work in different timezones as your clients .
Jessica is also sharing her tips on how you can add that extra umpf to your services that allowed her to seriously up the prices of her web design packages.
Keep reading to learn how participating in bundles can lead to landing more web design clients than you can handle.
Let’s get into the interview!
So Jessica, what were you doing before you became a website designer?
So I actually used to work for a bank.
I did that for almost ten years before starting my business - so I was definitely not in the website design realm. But before starting my business, I did have to build a blog on WordPress, and I blogged for probably 6 or 7 years.
Then when I got married, I built a website for our wedding since we were getting married overseas and I thought it was an easy way to share details with family and friends.
And way, way before that, before I even started working at the bank, my ex studied website design. He did it professionally, which gave me a lot of imposter syndrome early on.
So he studied web design but I was actually just as good at reading the code as he was and understanding it.
And then what made you decide to leave the bank job and become a web designer?
I actually had my little boy. Just after I had him, I was kind of struggling a bit with being stuck at home. But I knew going back to work wouldn't be very flexible.
I realized I wanted to start something that had more flexibility around family.
I initially thought I was going to become a VA but then I realized I liked the design part of it so much more, and I kind of just went from there.
Okay, so you decided you wanted to work from home, and then what steps did you take from there?
Well, I originally found an online course that I did and that then eventually led to your course, Square Secrets.
What did you feel like you wanted to learn from the courses?
As I mentioned, with my ex actually studying website design at uni, I felt like I couldn't just dive into it without some training.
Also, I had no idea about website strategy or anything like that.
When it comes to the design side of things, you can definitely just jump into Squarespace and figure out how to use the tools. I've always been a creative, so I already had a bit of background with design.
But the strategy side of it and also overcoming imposter syndrome were both things I was looking to gain through the course.
Talk to me about landing your first paid client. How exactly did you figure that out?
My first paid client was from a Facebook group.
It was just doing some edits on her website. It was actually not as easy and straightforward as I expected because I had no experience with running a design business.
So I charged nowhere near enough for the amount of work I did. My processes weren't really down pat at that time, which led to a lot more back and forth than they needed to be.
Plus she was challenging in the fact that she didn't value design. So she was very pushy around price and often said it was too expensive… even though I was only charging $25 an hour or something silly like that.
Within weeks of doing the updates for her, she went and changed it all anyway. And it looked just as equally horrendous as before!
So it wasn't the greatest experience then, but after that, I started to work with a business coach. So my next client was actually the business coach, so we traded services and she was brilliant to work with.
I was able to test the end-to-end design process and smooth things over.
And because she was doing coaching for me, she was able to give some great feedback around the processes. Her area of expertise was helping mums find clients for their business, so that helped me a lot at that point.
You’ve developed some really interesting marketing strategies.
What is the main way that you get clients at the moment?
So I get a lot of clients from referrals. But the main thing that has been working for me is participating in online bundles and summits.
I've created a couple of low-price point courses on website strategy and I give them away for free as part of the business bundle.
So anyone who has signed up for the bundle gets access to the courses for free and they are then added to my email list.
Email marketing is the one marketing thing I am actually somewhat consistent with. So I do email most weeks. I find it's a much slower process, but it fits my introvert self really well and I find the clients I've gotten from it have been really awesome because I've been nurturing them for so long. They know me, they know how I work, they understand my design style and it just makes the whole process a lot smoother.
I know people are going to be curious about this bundle thing. If someone wanted to do this, how should they start?
Sure, so the bundles are pretty much bundles of business courses. I'm in a couple of Facebook groups where people share news about their bundles that they have upcoming.
The whole point of these facebook groups is to connect people who want to participate in bundles.
But now that I've done so many, I also have people approaching me and telling me about their bundle and asking if I want to be part of it.
So the next step would be that everyone promotes a bundle. So if there's 20 people participating, those 20 people are all promoting the bundle to get people onto the main mailing list and signed up for the bundle.
And then once someone signs up for the bundle, they get access to a website page that has all the offers listed, and where they can click on your offer and purchase it (except they are not actually purchasing it because it’s a part of the free bundle offerings, so they use a coupon code), and through doing this, they are added to your email list.
Tell me about your email nurturing. You said you send out emails almost every week. What exactly are you sending in those emails?
Sometimes it's just a bit of an update as to what's going on and projects I'm working on. My next email will be showing one of my client projects that we've just launched. So it varies, week to week. Or sometimes it will just be little tips.
I don’t give too much thought to it but if I do ever get stuck, I like to use Liz Wilcox’s email marketing membership. She sends out weekly ideas for topics. I actually rarely use her emails but it's so good to be able to look at the archives and find something if I feel that creative block.
But like I said, it’s rare - I'm an ideas person so there’s almost always something there.
Once someone is on your email list, how are you converting them into bookings from there?
Sometimes in my newsletter, I'll just mention I was working on a full website design project and I'll link it so they can see it.
Or I’ll say I was working on a VIP day and I'll link to that page on my website.
So basically just naturally mentioning it as part of whatever story I'm telling.
Other times, I’ll say “hey, I have X spots available for this month or for this quarter. If you want to get in on that, here's the link to book.”
I also have a section in the footer of all my emails where it links to all of my different services as well, so people can click there.
I also like to share case studies and things like that. So I try to weave it in in different ways and keep variety - it’s important that it feels natural.
Was this always your marketing strategy? Was there something different you did at the beginning?
Email marketing has pretty much been there since the start.
The only time I paused this was when I was on maternity leave. Before that, I was blogging consistently - I did that for the first two years of my business.
I was also participating in Facebook groups early on, especially to get to know people. Then I was part of a membership that included a Facebook group and I got a lot of clients from that just because I was in there all the time. That can work really well if you have the right environment or the right group.
I'm not a very salesy person. I don't enjoy the sales part. Honestly, if I had realized before starting a business that sales would be a part of it, I probably wouldn't have done it. But I'm glad I did it, but that was a big reservation for me right from the start.
I love that you have found introvert-friendly marketing strategies that work for you. Was there any marketing strategy that you tried but felt it wasn’t a good fit?
I've gone to a couple of networking events over the years but they're really not for me. They're a bit too people-ly for me to go to all of the time.
How did you plan your maternity leave? Any tips?
I actually pretty much just disappeared and ghosted. 😅
I did it really badly because I had some challenges when I was pregnant the second time, especially since I was already juggling a kiddo who has extra needs.
So my maternity leave pretty much started three months into my pregnancy already. So I took a year off. I was still staying in touch a little bit, but nothing like before.
If I had to do it again, I would definitely use it as a marketing tool and say
“This is my availability before I'm going on maternity leave. If you want to get in before it, do so now.”
So you could actually use it to your advantage.
And you don't want to be doing projects right up to your due date. So you'll likely have that set fixed date that you want to end planned work on.
You have 2 kids now. How do you manage your working time?
So most of my work at the moment is actually in the evening once the kids have gone to bed.
Usually I'll jump into whatever project I'm working on at the time, or do some sort of marketing stuff. I have a flow throughout the week where for example, Mondays, I tend to have some emails. Then I try and do client work more on Tuesday to Thursday. Then Fridays I aim to have off or use it as a catch-up workday.
If I need to do calls, I tend to do them either in the evenings after the kids are asleep or sometimes I can get away with calls during the day.
My son is now in school, so that makes it a bit easier. But my toddler still interrupts a bit. Good thing she's cute. Everyone loves seeing her pop up on the calls. She will come and join us quite often and she'll usually just be playing in the background amongst a mess of toys.
So I'm lucky that I work mostly with women, and a lot of them have kids or know people who have kids and everything, so they're really understanding of having a toddler running around in the background.
So you're in Australia. Where are your clients located? How do you manage the timezone differences?
So I actually have very few Australian clients. I've only worked with three Australians.
Most of my clients are in either the US, UK, or Canada. The time zones can be a bit challenging sometimes, but I think it helps because I do have that flexibility that I can take calls during the day or in the evenings. So nighttime is great for all my UK clients. And then the mornings tend to work out pretty well for my US clients (so it's the evening for them).
I usually use Acuity for scheduling calls.
So basically my availability is there and they can choose what timezone they are in to manage it that way.
Or if we're manually going back and forth, I just google a timezone converter website, send it in the email and work it out from there.
But the booking calendar definitely saves a bucket load of time and back and forth, so it’s always best when people book through that.
Was getting international clients an intentional choice?
When I first started in Facebook groups, getting to know people that way myself, it was all UK based. The one membership I was part of was UK based. So a lot of my clients were from the UK based on that.
I've always kind of had this thought that a lot of Australians don't value design and creativity as much…
It's probably all in my head. I fully acknowledge that because, hey, I'm a creative person and I know lots of creative people, but a lot of business owners I know here are a lot more price conscious and a bit stingy sometimes.
So I kind of had that thought that it's not valued here. So I kind of intentionally looked overseas for a client, based on the fact that everyone else seems much more open to valuing good design. So it's not necessarily the case that people who don't value it. It's just that was my mindset going in.
A lot of people are nervous about doing calls - especially when working in different timezones. How many calls do you usually do per project?
So I usually have a sales call to start with so we can get to know each other and for me and my client to be able to see if it's a good fit.
From there, I have a strategy call before we start and that's usually an hour and a half or so.
After that second call, as we're doing the design work, I usually will send Loom videos instead of having more calls. But occasionally I have clients that are very visual and can't picture things in the same way. So I will sometimes jump on an extra call and do edits live with them, because it's a lot quicker for both of us, and it's easier to articulate sometimes.
And then at the end, I teach them how to use their website on a lesson call.
How long do you tend to have the projects go over?
So I only work with one client at a time, similar to how you had your packages set up when you started (the two-week website). If I do branding as well, I’ll add an extra week on.
How do you manage VIP days for overseas clients?
I usually just split it into two days. So it's two half-days back to back.
And it works really well because honestly, sitting there for seven hours or so in one hit is a lot for me, and it's probably a lot for my clients to respond to emails and stuff like that too.
So splitting it up gives them a chance to give feedback while I sleep. And then when I dive back into it the next shift, I've got all the notes there ready to go. So it's worked so well.
Tell me about your offers and also your price points. What are the different ways that people can work with you?
So I have a full website design package and that's currently priced at $5000 USD (that's the two-week website).
And if we add branding on that, it’s an additional $2500 USD (that makes it a 3-week project).
Then I do VIP days, which start at $1,800 USD. So that includes 7 hours of design time plus the strategy call and one month post-email support where I answer questions about things or sometimes I'll send little training videos and things like that.
So you have these lower ticket items which people are typically purchasing through the bundles which then leads to some of them eventually becoming your clients.
You definitely have your web design pricing set towards the higher end.
Some people might think that people who purchase a super low price bundle won’t be the same people who would invest in these higher price website packages. Have you found that to be the case?
So I find some of the people who purchase through the bundles do want to go the DIY route.
But quite often they realize there's a lot of stuff in those bundles for them to go through, and there's a lot of courses they don't want to spend the time on.
So if you're then nurturing the person over time and they realize, “hey, my website is one of those things that I don't want to spend the time on. I'm not going to actually go in and do this course,” then I'm the person they're going to think of because I've been showing up consistently in their inboxes, sharing value, giving them lots of tips, and being there to support them in whatever they need along the way.
So I’ve found that you can nurture them into that sort of relationship over time. There are always going to be a lot of people who sign up for the bundles who never look at the courses, because, let's be real:
Imagine there are 20 courses in a bundle and you sign up for everything. There's no way you're ever going to do them all!
But I find there is that small percentage who don't want to do it themselves and do want that extra support. And I need just a small percentage. Not all of them have to buy.
At this point, I have almost 2000 people across various courses I offer. There's no way I could work with 2000 people! Especially if I'm only working with one client at a time. So I definitely don't want everyone to turn into clients from that.
How does web design compare to your previous job in terms of hours worked and earnings?
So I currently work around 20 to 25 hours a week and my income is actually pretty similar to what it was where I used to work.
I did actually briefly go back to being employed after the first maternity leave, and I'm earning the same as that now but with probably fewer hours, to be honest.
Plus I don't have to commute four hours a day, I don't have to follow everyone's rules, and I don’t have to deal with all the office drama.
So there is just so much more flexibility within that time. So even though I'm working slightly fewer hours, I’m able to earn just as much. And having that flexibility for our family, like if we want to go do something - for example, tomorrow, we're going out for the day - I'm pulling my son out of school so we can do something together.
Having that flexibility is just so much better than going to work for someone else.
What does it feel like to be self-employed vs. working for someone else?
In one word? Awesome. I love it.
It's not necessarily for everyone. As I mentioned, the whole sales thing can be a bit off-putting, but if you're willing to work past that and work on those areas that may not come naturally, then the results are worth it.
So be open to working on the mindset side of things. If you're willing to put yourself out there and do that work, then definitely the payoff is so great.
The flexibility and the fact that anything you earn and the better you do it is going to you is just so much better than going into someone else's pocket.
You have a Facebook group. Can you tell me a bit about why you decided to start it and what purpose it serves in your business?
So I started it when I was working with the business coach. Starting a Facebook group for clients was one of her strategies that worked really well for her.
I've had it for years now, and I don't use it as much now as I used to, to be honest.
Basically, it's a group that people can come into if they have website design questions, especially around Squarespace or WordPress, because they're the systems that I know and can help with. It's just a way to be able to nurture people in a different way.
So I invite all of my students into the groups as well. So if they have questions about the courses that they sign up for, then I can help with them in there.
And it can actually be good for marketing sometimes because if they're asking questions, you can mention, “hey, the answer to this is from this course” and things like that for anyone else who's interested.
Also being able to go live in there so people can see my face and get to know me that way, being able to share tips and things like that, it just gives that extra platform if people aren't checking their emails regularly, which not everyone does, especially if you get a lot of emails. So, it's just that extra touch point.
Tell me about your clients. Do they tend to be in a specific industry or niche?
I mostly work with coaches and consultants.
There's been some counsellors, there's been a lot of coaches, and an email marketing consultant. So it's kind of very much ended up being in the coaching and consultants niche.
I think going into it, I knew I wanted to work with other online businesses because that was what I was creating so it was what I understood and could best support.
It wasn’t partially intentional, but then it kind of just happened. Those were also the people who were in all the groups that I was in when I was first building those relationships.
I noticed there is a lot of strategy included in your packages. Is this what allows you to price your services near the higher end?
Yes, so at the start of projects, I'll usually send out a design questionnaire, and that goes through all the typical questions around like, who you work with, who your competitors are, what you like design-wise, and what you don't like.
So there is a little part about your preferences design-wise, but a lot of it is around what your goals are, and what you're working towards in the next X period of time.
Then I'll go and do research around the competitors before we jump on our strategy call. I'll look at the different types of publications and things that their ideal clients would be looking at to get an idea of visually what they might be drawn to and what might be off-putting it.
If all their competitors use one particular color or one particular design, how can we make things different so my clients stand out from that?
So we’re really focusing in on what their goals are and talking through that.
We also talk a bit about blogging or content creation overall. So if they're showing up everywhere online, but don’t have anything on their website, we talk about how we can bring it all into that online home base so that they can be found on Google.
So we'll have that strategy call at the start. And then when I'm designing, I think back to everything we've gone through. So the notes from a design brief tend to be like ten pages of printed notes in the end. Then I go and add my 18 through research. So they're quite detailed. So by the end, I have a lot of paper floating around my desk from it all.
But I know that I've designed something that's going to suit the purpose of the goals that the client is working towards.
I love that! I can imagine you didn't have all this together at the very beginning but that it's more been developed over time because that is very thorough.
Totally - even now I’ll go into questions in the design brief every so often and make changes. For example, if I'm in a Facebook group or something and I see someone has a problem with a design process and I'm like,
“oh, that could actually be a good question to weave in.”
Or if there's a question that isn't really getting good information, then I'll delete it. So even now, almost six years in, I'm still tweaking it. It's definitely evolved over time.
Would you say there are fewer projects now than there were six years ago? Is the web design market too saturated?
I don't think so because there are a lot of bad websites out there and a lot of people that need support. I'm not able to do it all! And neither can all the other designers I know.
With the amount of bad websites out there and the number of new people starting businesses, there's always going to be demand for it.
Sure there might be a few fewer inquiries now compared to a couple of years ago because of the economy everywhere - people are struggling with the cost of living and everything, but you just evolve your packages to suit that and what you offer. VIP days are great for that because it's quick, it's more cost-effective than full design projects.
So you can work with that. It just takes being a bit creative and open to changing things up and trying new things.
Can you tell me about what you typically do in a VIP day and how is that different than a full design package?
Typically it will be whatever my client needs.
So a lot of the time, I'll be refreshing an existing website. So I might be changing up branding colors or changing the layout of different things.
Other days it might be creating a full basic website. So there are a couple of projects I've done where it's been 2 or 3 pages so it's a pretty simple site to bring together, and I'll get that done in a day.
Sometimes it's creating a really long sales page and going really in-depth for one particular goal like that.
Other times it's working on more of the SEO stuff and some of the behind-the-scenes sort of things. So you don't see very much visual transformation on the website, but it's much better on the back end, SEO wise, and making sure everything's set up.
It’s always something different which is what makes it fun!
What advice would you give someone starting out with web design?
I think the biggest thing is to think of your strengths and what you enjoy doing and make your business work around what you're good at. Because otherwise, it's just another job you're creating.
You really want it to work for where you are and what you enjoy so that you show up and, you market the way you want to do. It should really suit your introvert or extrovert-ness because that just makes it so much more fun.
For someone who's on the fence about taking one of my courses, what would you say?
I've done both of your courses: Square Secrets and Square Secrets Business and honestly, starting out, they were the best investments I made in myself and my business. Y
ou go really in-depth overall with a lot of different information. First around Squarespace and how to design a successful website but then in Square's Secret Business you learn about actually running the business side of things and it just helps set you up for success with all the templates and resources in there.
You basically get to streamline that learning process. You're not having to figure it all out on your own.
And when you can cut that time down and just learn things a lot quicker, you can go do the thing a lot quicker so you can just get out there and do the thing you love a lot quicker and easier.
I hope my past student Jessica's story gives you a little bit of the feeling that you can do this too.
Now, Jessica has clearly got down an incredible marketing strategy to find web design clients, but do you have one of those strategies yet?
If not, I have the perfect quiz for you.
In just a few short minutes, it will tell you the exact tailor-made marketing strategy that you will actually enjoy doing - even if you're an introvert like Jessica.
And then after you pick that marketing strategy, however, you're not quite done yet.
You'll also need to figure out your pricing, how to improve your design skills, and a few more things in order to build a successful business.
So watch this video next and I'll break down for you how to build a successful web design business in just three months.
You’ll Also Love...
$10/hr on Upwork to $100k Years as a web designer - Emily’s Story
Youtube vs Instagram vs Blog for Creative Entrepreneurs in 2024
Work-Life-Balance Advice from a 7 Figure Online Entrepreneur
How Web Design Became the Perfect Side Hustle to Support Emi’s Dream Career
How to start an online business in 2024: Complete step-by-step guide
