Illustrators are some of the most talented people that I know. I’ve admired illustration work for years and I have dabbled in drawing since I was very, very young, but the quality of artwork that some of the top illustrators put out today is simply baffling. So, starting out as an illustrator, what can you do to get yourself noticed and slide into a top spot in the food chain? Today’s article is going to go over ten guerrilla marketing tactics that you as an illustrator can use.

Below you will find ten guerrilla marketing tactics that I have geared towards illustrators, but I am sure that even designers, writers and photographers could utilize some of them as well (for those who we haven’t covered yet, I promise you that the articles are coming).

1. Comic Strips – Why don’t you take a bit of time and build a free comic strip and release it online (daily/weekly/monthly)? You can see N.C. Winters work all over the Tuts+ network and I’m sure that he’s received a lot of additional work because of it.
2. Guerrilla Sticker Placements – Designing stickers can seem like it’s counter productive because your client base isn’t “into” stickers, but if you utilize them by placing them in off the wall places (ie: above a urinal for example), you can get recognized by more eyes than ever, as well as be featured in articles around the web that showcases guerrilla marketing examples (like, on this website for example).
3. Write illustrator tutorials – not only will you get paid (for writing articles for websites like vectuts) but you’ll also get your name out to thousands of people online.
4. Design Skateboards – Not only will doing this give you the opportunity to make some extra income, but it will also allow you to showcase your work in a lot of places (skateboards hit the town on a regular basis). Places like deck peck are great places to allow your designs to be sold on skateboards, with no effort on your end to make them (they do all of the heavy lifting).
5. Pick a niche and draw it – If you’d like more illustration work for your business and would like to grab someones attention, why not draw the top 5-10 people in a specific niche? Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Leo Babauta and others would be a good place to start. Run a series of them on your blog, and who knows who might see them and want your services.
6. Design a tattoo – This can work on your own skin, or the skin of a friend or relative. If you’ve designed an awesome tattoo, people are bound to ask questions about it when they see it – giving you the perfect opportunity to say “oh, I designed it because I’m a freelance illustrator – here’s my card”.
7. T-Shirts for Sale – This is another guerrilla marketing tactic for illustrators that also has the side benefit of making you some revenue through the actual pieces you create. Design By Humans, Threadless and many other t-shirt websites allow you to submit designs and sell your t-shirts while being noticed by an entirely new audience.
8. Color by numbers – Here’s an off the wall way to get people involved in what you do – create the line art for a color by numbers drawing that people can either digitally color, or color on paper by printing it out. Make sure your logo and website link is at the bottom of the page, and you’re sure to get people to check out your site.
9. Sell Stock Art – Why not? The more you sell, the more you make, the more people talk about you, the more work you get. It seems like a logical step, right? You could also give away free vector files on your own website, which will help send traffic in your direction.
10. Social Media Interaction – No, not twitter and facebook. I mean, places like DeviantArt, Flickr and other design related social media websites. Set up your profiles on all of them, chat with some people there and make friends, and constantly update your profiles with new illustrations you’ve done. Do not limit yourself to just your actual portfolio, generate a buzz in these places as much as possible.

What do you think?

Any of these guerrilla marketing tactics seem like something you can utilize for your business? Let us know in the comments. And make sure you keep an eye out for upcoming guerrilla marketing tactics articles for freelance writers, photographers and more.

10 guerrilla marketing tactics for illustrators is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

In todays article I am going to go over the various things I see more and more business and blog owners doing in 2010 to gain more attention, sales and fan bases. These might be things you’ve seen done in 2009, but I believe that all six of these things will become the dominant things in 2010 for the guerrilla freelancer. So without any further waiting, read the 6 guerrilla marketing trends for 2010.

Giving away your knowledge – for free

This is the #1 trend I see really gaining momentum over the next 12 months. Web designers will start writing tutorials, tips and tricks about what they do for a living and it will in turn showcase their skill levels. Marketing companies will start giving away useful tips on how to use guerrilla marketing tips to your benefit – without charging you a dime for it. Free will definitely attract more eyes, and in turn, more business.

Sample Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

• Jon from Spyre Studios does this on his blog/portfolio website where he discusses design and is also a full time freelance designer.
• Chris Brogan gives away heaps of useful information on his blog and also
• Over at Blogging Tips you can check out their e-books and high quality information on blogging, which generates them a lot of traffic to their blog.

The lower the cost, the better

Times have been rough and it’s causing people to think more strategically about where their dollars are being spent. I would not be surprised to see 5-10 dollar guerrilla marketing ideas being deployed this upcoming year, and will make the bet with you all that these types of guerrilla marketing tactics will do better than a 5,000-10,000 dollar marketing campaign.

Sample Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

• Business cards from Uprinting are $30.80 (before s&h) – get them and read our 10 guerrilla marketing tips using business cards article
• Set up portfolios on other websites free of charge like we discussed in the 10 great places to promote your designs online article
• Get creative with your street signs like the dentist company did in this post on Bootstrapping Blog

Online websites will start promoting offline

This is a trend that I believe a lot of people will start to utilize. With more and more websites being created daily that take viewers away from your website, it’s like a cock fight for traffic online. I know that a lot of niches share traffic and promote others, but lets face it – not everyone does. So what better way to get unique traffic that none of those other competitors will have than to get them offline?

Sample Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

• Are you a print designer? Why not take your flyers into a printing business and leave them there?
• If your target market as a web designer is sports enthusiasts, why not head into sports shops and chat it up with the owners?
• Dropping business cards just about everywhere is a good idea – even if you just run a blog and don’t have a service to offer.

Giving away your product/service for free

This is something I will be doing for the launch of GIANT Themes on January 1st 2010 and something I see a lot of other business owners doing as well. For instance, Subernova held a contest here recently and gave away subscriptions to their product. Doing this not only gives you word of mouth exposure but it also gets people in the door who just might very well be customers for life.

Sample Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

• Like I stated above, Subernova ran a contest here on Guerrilla Freelancing and gave away subscriptions to their awesome service.
• OBOX gave away free themes to the readers of Fuel Your Creativity in a contest which gained 75 comments and a bunch of exposure for both parties.
• Billings gave away three copies of their app to members of the Spyre Studios website in a contest

Word of mouth marketing will be front and center

Sticking with the trend above, I am going to make the assumption that in 2010, word of mouth marketing will be the big focus on small businesses. Having other people talk about you and essentially vouch for your business is a huge way to gain traction in your quest to gain new clients/customers.

Sample Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

• Offer an insider secret product that only existing customers get. Once they get it, they’ll be sure to tell friends about it.
• Run a special “essentials week” similar to the Wordress Essentials Week I am doing on WordPress Guerrilla. Any ‘special’ will do, but keep it relevant to your audience and they’ll be sure to spread the word.
• Give your clients a little something extra – 1,000 free business cards with every web design purchase, 6 months of free website edits, ect.

Up-selling to your current clients

This is one that people often think is ‘evil’ or shouldn’t be done because it’s unethical. I tend to disagree. It’s a simple process really – if you’re selling a service why not offer them the opportunity to purchase another service/product that will help benefit them and the service you just gave them.

Sample Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

• Web designers, why not find out if your client needs hosting? If they do, give them a link to a hosting company that gives you a commission on the sale.
• If you sell an e-book about marketing or blogging, why not up sell the readers in the book by telling them about your top 5 favorite books on the subject and give them your affiliate links to click?
• If you’re a copywriter and you’re working with someone who doesn’t have a great web designer, why not talk to a web design company and see if they’ll offer a share of the profits for any referrals you send – I offer a select few this option at Guerrilla and it works out well for both sides.

What do you think?

Any trends we’re missing? Let us know in the comments.

Guerrilla Marketing trends & tips for 2010 is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

Dood Computer and Stir Crazy are two hiphop artists from New York and Detroit who got together and put together a project titled Penny Dreadfuls. The beauty of the project is not the style of their music or the quality of the lyrics, but this:

They put the album out as a cassette tape with a free download coupon inside of it.

In a day where the music industry is downsizing everything and focusing on itunes records instead of putting out an album worth buying, Dood Computer and Stir Crazy took it back to the age of Cassette tapes. But why is this a good idea?

People love retro items and love the ‘old school’ feel that a cassette tape gives. The target demographic will see this as a middle finger to the music industry, the ‘big wig’ execs and the direction that music is going now and will eat it up in the process. But they make the intelligent move of not just putting the $6.00 tape up for sale – they also give a coupon inside that allows you to download the album for free.

So, instead of just putting the album for free on their website (or charging the $6.00 to download it) they’re giving the buyer a piece of memorabilia that they can keep with them forever while also giving them the option to download it and put it in their ipods/mp3 players.

I did a bit of searching and found that getting 250 cassette’s printed up from a printing company can range anywhere from $250-$400 depending on the duplication process and extra items you’re after. So, if they’re spending $1.00 per cassette and selling for $5.00 profit – they’re making a killing on a product that most people would have otherwise just downloaded and forgot about.

Another piece of their marketing

Below is a video they put together with stop motion photography, which adds to their marketing campaign. The style of the video and the items inside the video are perfect (again) for their target demographic. I give these guys 2 thumbs up for the creativity they show here and wish them the utmost success. I’ve not heard of them before today, but I am a fan.

Standing out (and selling records) in a downshifting record industry is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

Below is the question that this post stems from.

I’ve got business cards printed up, but rarely find anyone to give them to. Are there places that designers can leave cards where they might get noticed, such as printers…?

Since I personally didn’t have business cards for the first year or so of freelancing, I know that this is a question I’ve often asked myself over and over again. Besides handing them directly to someone, how can we utilize our business cards to market us – even if we’re not around at the time someone gets their hands on them.

Below are some ideas I’ve put into use in the past. I sincerely hope they help you out in your freelancing business and I hope the list sparks other ideas as well – and feel free to drop a comment with your own guerrilla marketing tips using your business cards.

1. Turn them into bookmarks – You can leave your business cards inside books at the library. Make sure the books are ones that your target market will be reading. You could also get creative and design bookmarks like you would your business card. Overnight Prints has some great bookmark packages for highly cheap prices you can check out.
2. Leave them in strange places – And by strange, I do not mean the toilets in a public restroom But if you can find a unique place to put them, they’ll stand out more. Try inside magazines at the doctors office, leave one behind with your tip at a restaurant, ect. The more off the wall the place, the better.
3. Point an arrow at it – Here’s one I tried – and succeeded with. Find stores in your area with places you can tack cards/paper to – grocery stores usually have these when you first walk in. Use a thumb tack to put your card up. Now, take 15-20 thumb tacks and put them in the shape of an arrow, pointing directly to your card. It’ll instantly stand out.
4. Make a coaster out of it – Yes, realistically your business card will become wet and will eventually be of no use, but if you leave it on a table inside a starbucks or a place similar to that, with a cup sitting on it, people will notice it.
5. Send one with a bouquet of flowers – Send a potential client a bouquet of flowers (assuming the potential client is a woman) and in the spot where you place the card, place a nice written card and behind it put 2-3 of your business cards.
6. Turn your cards into magnets – I recently seen at wal-mart that they have packs of 100 business card sized magnets which you can stick your business card to. So, being the ‘outside-the-box’ thinker that I am, I took 10 of them (5 front facing, 5 back facing) and put them on street poles (the ones around here have metal boxes on them – flat surfaces). One guy emailed me already and mentioned them – he took it home with him and has it on his fridge now!
7. Business card or coupon? – For those of you who haven’t printed your business card yet, try this one out. Use the back of your card as a ‘coupon’ by designing it to look like a coupon. Get it printed in a paper stock you can write on and put a line in the design for a “referred by” spot. Let your friends/family take 10-20-100 cards and write their name on it so they get credit (or even offer them a referral bonus).
8. Gas Station Counter – This is another one I’ve personally tried and received clients from. Purchase a business card stand from Office Max or any other office supply store (I purchased the $1.00 ones) and place 10-20 cards on the counter at your gas station. You never know who will come to the gas station, see your card, call you and hire you.
9. Fish Bowl Marketing – Get a glass fish bowl and put a sign in front of it asking business card carriers to place their card in for a chance to win free design work (or copywriting, consulting, a free dinner, ect). Make sure you have a stack of your cards next to it so interested people can take one. Now, you’ve got interest and a fish bowl full of potential leads (minus the winner of course).
10. Free, take one – Here’s another one I’ve used before. People love to see the word “FREE” so by putting a small sign (even hand drawn if you’d like) next to a stack of business cards that says “FREE – take one”, peoples eyes will gravitate towards them. They’ll (hopefully) find it funny, grab a card and check your site out.

Obviously these are just some of the ways you can turn your business cards into a great guerrilla marketing tool for your freelance business. As I said above, if you’ve got more ideas, feel free to leave a comment so others (as well as myself) can benefit from your knowledge. I know I’ve got some amazing readers here, so I expect some creative ideas in the comments section

Also, I am planning on doing a series of articles from questions I get from you guys, so don’t hesitate to contact me with questions.

10 guerrilla marketing tips using your business cards is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)

The answer to this might be a bit more simple than you think. You may not have the big budgets to run 1,000 television commercials at the 6-8pm slots on channel 2, 4, or 7, but I bet you’ve got the creative mind to come up with a simple solution to generating more buzz for your company. And if all else fails, read the 10 guerrilla marketing tactics below and try to branch out off of them and generate your own list as well. The ideas are infinite as long as you apply your creativity to them.

10 Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Designers

1. Offer free hosting for every 1st time client meeting – The main goal is to get time with the prospect and sell them your services right? A 2-3 minute conversation might not get them to buy, but a 30-60 minute meeting with them could definitely persuade them into hiring you. So offer every prospective client free hosting (3 months, 6 months, your choice) just for having the meeting.
2. Give something else away for free – Do you create custom wordpress designs? Why not create a free theme and give it away? The publicitity from it, the link backs and the traffic are sure to land you some new leads/sales. The same can be true for texture packs, brush sets, free fonts, ect.
3. Cover your car in vinyl – You’ve got the design skills right? You’re a designer afterall, so why not create the design for a kick ass vinyl piece to cover the back half, side or entire car! It’s inexpensive and will be advertisement for you wherever you go.
4. Business Cards in Library Books – Find the beginner xhtml/css or web design for dummies books and put your business cards inside them in every library you can get to. This way, anyone looking for them books to do their own website will instantly be met with a way to get out of reading the book and trying to do it themselves.
5. T-Shirts for the homeless – Take your design skills and create a design for some t-shirts, get them printed and then go pass them out to the homeless. If you’re able to do 100 or so t-shirts you could probably even get media coverage for doing it.
6. Stickers EVERYWHERE – Bands and record companies use stickers a lot – and for good reason. They’re relatively cheap, easy to place and can be everywhere you want them to be. Pass some out to your friends/family and have them put them up as well. Have family in a different state? Send them some in the mail and have them place the stickers around town.
7. Customer of the Month vouchers – Design some nice coupons you can print out (use a business card printer as they’re perfect size for people to carry around) and allow them to use it for a discount or pass them out to others so their friends/family can get the discount.
8. Display your toolbox – Taking a tool box (a real one for hammers, screw drivers, ect) and placing it open in an area your target market will frequently come with different tools of your trade (ie: business cards so they can contact you, pencils & paper, computer mouse, ect). This will work especially well if a toolbox is something not found normally where you have it (ie: coffee shop). Inside the top of the toolbox thats open and facing the people coming up to it, you can have a note similar to “The tools of my trade – Custom Web Designs”.
9. Show off your package – No, not that package For those of us who design packaging for clients (ie: boxes for products, ect), why not create a mock up box and get a bunch of them printed up and place them inside different grocery stores or places where your target market will frequently visit.
10. Free web consulting – Allow potential customers to have 30-60 minutes of your time for free. Absolutely free, no questions asked. Do not push your services on them at all. Leave them with a business card and notes from the conversation and be on your way. This selfless giving will leave an impression on the potential client and will also showcase your knowledge of the web and what you COULD be doing for them – if they were to hire you. They’ll most likely feel so happy with the conversation that they almost feel obligated to hire you for their web design as a way to pay you back for your time you gave them.

Illustrators, Coders, Writers & more are coming soon

This will be a series of posts geared towards guerrilla marketing ideas for all kinds of freelancers. Off the wall, out of the box thinking will be applied to each freelance niche and posted soon. You can request a freelance profession to be covered in the comments and I’ll do my best to get it covered as well, so don’t be shy

10 guerrilla marketing tactics for designers is a post from Guerrilla Freelancing For our regular subscribers, we've got a relaunch in order in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled :)