If you are a pattern designer and you are wondering how you can promote your designs, be it to sell them or to get better job offers. Here are 10 ways to promote your pattern designs online.
Do the research and ask questions
In order to successfully promote your designs, you have to ask questions and figure out why you are promoting yourself, and why other people should care. What benefit can you provide them? In the end, you most likely want to earn money, yet, is that a good enough reason to convince people to buy from you? Unlikely. Reverse the question and ask, what does my audience want?
One of the first questions you have to ask yourself is why are you going to put a lot of energy into promoting yourself or your designs online. The second most important thing is to set a goal. What do you want to accomplish with these promotions?
Do you want traffic to your site to sell your products? Do you promote an online course about pattern design? Do you want to find a full-time job? Or are you a freelancer looking for new clients?
It’s important to make it clear for yourself why you do the things you do, so you can also make it more clear for the people that you advertise to. Besides asking a lot of questions, you also have to look at your “competition” copy their behavior, and learn from them. How can you do something better than they do?
Here follow 10 ways to promote your pattern designs online:
Start a Youtube Channel
I’m sure you have already watched a few design videos on YouTube before. So you already know that video is a good way to promote your designs. YouTube, and video content in general, are very popular, especially if you are doing something visual, like creating pattern designs.
You can create a wide range of different kinds of videos, from how-to tutorials, and design progress videos to interviews and tips-and-tricks videos. It really depends on what you like to show. In the end, you have to find something that is interesting for a large group of people to watch.
Then, all you have to do is add links in the description and ask people to click on them if they are interested. You could also offer them free content, like printables or cheat sheets. This helps to make people more curious, who doesn’t like free things right?
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Promote your pattern designs and skills on Instagram
Social media is a great way to promote your designs, especially Instagram. Instagram is a visual social media platform that lets you upload videos, images, and short stories, perfect for designers to showcase their designs but also to show behind-the-scenes or progress videos.
Make sure you always ask people to check out the link in your bio. Using a call to action will increase your chance of getting clicks.
Start your own Blog
If you know a thing or two about creating your own website. Then blogging might be another great way to promote your work. You can also create a portfolio site and mix it with blog posts. If the blog posts rank on Google, you can get free traffic and thus promote your work.
Keep in mind that you have to understand how SEO works in order to rank on Google. Besides that, you have to regularly publish awesome content on your blog. This could be similar to Youtube content. You could even create a video and blog post at the same time and embed the video in the blog post.
Live stream
Who said you only have to show your finished designs? Although it’s advised to have a portfolio that showcases only your best designs. For a lot of people, it’s interesting to see how you create designs. Often they want to learn how to create designs themselves, so they will look for live streams that offer that.
Besides that, you could also give tips or talk about other design-related stuff. The more people follow you the more money you can earn through donations. Besides that, you can also use live streaming to showcase your products.
Promote your skills on TikTok
By now you should have heard of TikTok, maybe you love it, maybe you don’t understand the hype. Either way, TikTok is a great place to promote yourself. The short-form video content is great for showing off your skills and pattern designs.
TikTok has millions of users, and because the videos are so short, you can get views rather quickly. Make sure to create videos that are trendy and always include a call to action to your website or product.
Facebook Groups
On Facebook, you can not just create pages, but also so-called groups. You can either create them yourself or you can join other groups. Not all groups are the same and will generate the same results. So I suggest you take the time to find a few good ones. And in many cases, a smaller group, with just a few 100 or a few 1000 members, is the best choice.
Make sure the group is active and that the people are not just advertising their products or shady businesses. As soon as you find a good group and joined it, don’t just go and post advertisements. But instead contribute, post useful content, links, videos, show how you create your pattern designs, etc. This will give you more credibility and more chances of finding new opportunities.
Promote your skills on Fiverr
Although Fiverr is a place for freelancers to get jobs, it is also a place to show off your skills and meet new people. On Fiverr, you can create a profile and a semi-portfolio. The difference with other portfolio sites is that people can actually hire you for specific jobs. This could be to create a pattern design, logo, or anything else you are skilled in.
And the great thing is that some people might be so impressed by your skills that they will become regular customers. So, don’t just see Fiverr as a place to work and find jobs, it’s also a place to promote your skills and designs, and to find new clients and job opportunities.
Do interviews or write guest posts
Blogging is a great way to get more exposure to your designs. But it can be hard to grow your blog, especially if you have no idea where to start. So I totally understand if you do not want to create a blog yourself. Yet you can still write articles, tutorials, or do interviews and get featured on other blogs.
Popular blogs are always looking for new content. And often they ask others to write content for them. It’s a win-win situation, the blogs get free content, and you get free exposure. This way you can gain more attention to your pattern design business and increase the chances of being seen.
For example, you could create awesome tutorials, then send them to Dribbble and hope they will feature them on their blog. Besides Dribbble, there are a ton of other design-related blogs and websites. Just start writing and creating, then all you have to do is contact relevant blogs and ask if they want to post your articles or tutorials. Make sure they mention your name and a link to your website or portfolio.
Promote your skills with Paid ads
If you want to get targeted traffic as quickly as possible, you might consider paying for ads. Now, paying for ads isn’t always as simple as it sounds, yes the results will be faster. But of course, you don’t want to spend 1000s of dollars, just to barely get any results. So understanding how to advertise correctly and how to reduce costs, yet increase results become very important.
First, you have to know exactly who your targeted audience is, then you have to create ads that have a good call to action A.K.A. CTA, that actually makes people want to click. It can take a while before you create an ad that is performing as desired.
One way to create a well-performing ad is by testing different versions. Facebook for example lets you split test different headlines, copy, and images to find the optimal combination. Besides that, make sure your ad stands out and makes people stop scrolling and curious.
Video performs great for advertisements, if you don’t know how to create a great video ad yourself, I advise you to find a pro on Fiverr.
Be active
This method is more or less a mixture of various websites and activities you can do online to promote yourself. The internet is full of great places with great communities, be it on well-known social media platforms like Youtube or lesser-known places like Artstation.
Regardless, if you want to make sales you have to be actively promoting your pattern designs. My tip, try to be active on as many platforms as you can. Create as many portfolios as you can, but also post your designs on design forums, or websites like DeviantArt, Behance, Pinterest, and Dribbble.
The more active you are in promoting yourself, the more chances you get to land a job or make a sale. Understanding this alone can make the difference between success and failure.
Conclusion
I gave you 10 ways to promote your pattern designs online, now it’s up to you to come up with clever and creative ways to promote yourself. The more unique, funny and attention-grabbing your promotion is, the more engagement you can expect. In the end, learning to master one way is often better than sucking at all.
Anyways, good luck!
Ron.
Ron Hoekstra is the founder of The Hiive Newsletter. He is a graphic designer, self-taught entrepreneur, writer, and Illustrator. He will give you professional insights and tips in the world of A.I., This includes new tools, business, automation and much more.
