274 - What's the Right Web Design Marketing Channel for you?

In the last episode , episode 273 , we had Kirby Hassam and on of Hassam and marketing . Let me talk all about target marketing . One of the things we talked about in there was marketing channels and how to market in a way that is not so dang salesy .

The beauty about nowadays is I really do feel like there's such a push towards organic , genuine marketing , in a way of connection , rather than just being like hey , hello , I'm Josh , why am I stuff ? And I want to encourage you with not only how to do that , but figuring out the right marketing channel that suits you . So that's what I want to share .

I want to share some open thoughts about this idea of finding the right web design marketing channel that works best for you , both for your energy , both for your personality , both for your interest .

This is actually some of what I'm going to share here is actually pulled from the new version of my web design business course , which is just about to drop publicly . It is live now in its entirety for early access inside of Web Designer Pro .

So if you are considering joining Web Designer Pro which is my coaching community and membership with all my courses I would highly recommend it . It's a great time to join Right now . There's so much amazing things going on in the business course is live in there for early access .

Otherwise , you'll be able to join the course just the course itself here in the next couple of weeks as I get to launch it publicly . But it's available on Web Designer Pro , which now also has a monthly option . So in my mind , pro is where to go , isn't there a nice little tagline ?

Anyway , let me share some thoughts on marketing your business as a web designer and figuring out the right marketing channel for you . I want to start with , though , the term marketing , because I think we have a bad mindset of marketing . At least I do .

If I can be real with you and transparent about how I view marketing , I find it difficult , I find it often very overwhelming and I find it sometimes icky , because I've learned over the years , whether good or bad , to put marketing in with this like sleazy salesy bucket .

But one thing I've realized is , when it comes to marketing , it is so much more than that . It's not even that . Marketing is truly connecting with people and getting in front of the right people so you can serve them . That's what marketing is .

Marketing is not even technically sales , because marketing happens before you get to the sales process and the new version of the business course . One thing I talk about is that you don't find clients , you find leads , and then there's a whole other process that I'll take you through inside the course .

That is taking them into connecting , conversing with them and then converting with them . And that's what marketing is . Marketing is that first piece . It's connecting with people and potentially conversing with them as well before you convert . So marketing is not sales necessarily when you hear about a marketer .

It's really getting in front of people and connecting with them . It's not the icky sales part , if you have to even view sales as icky , which it's not . You have amazing services as a web designer . People are looking to work with you . Make it happen . You are doing the world of service by getting out there . So just remember the term marketing .

I think we should rephrase that and refine it to mean connect . Marketing is really connecting with people and the important thing to remember about that too I'll lay her back before we dive into these different channels that you could potentially go into . And what works for you is when you connect with people . There's different types of people .

It's a lot like what I teach in the course now with leads All leads are not equal .

A few podcast episodes ago the last solo episode we had an episode 271 , I talked about how to filter out bad fit leads , and that goes back to the idea that when you connect with somebody online or in person , there are going to be people who are really good fit and may become clients .

There's going to be people who might know people who should become clients , and then there's people who are just not going to be clients at all , and that's fine . So , when it comes to marketing , just connecting with people is the biggie . You don't need like every person who follows you or connects with you . You don't need to view them like a potential client .

Quite frankly , as a web designer , you shouldn't , because everyone should not be your client as a web designer . So we have the idea now , the foundation , of reframing the term marketing as just connecting with people , that helps really help people on a business level to get that slogan on their money and that we have it on their joint .

We need to choose where we want to connect with these people and there's a little not analogy , but there's just kind of this framework that I heard recently from one of my colleagues , chris Borja , who recently came inside a pro and did a live training , a guest expert training , on one of our live monthly trainings on networking , and he shared this little analogy

of choosing your networking venture as kind of like a program in college , like academia , where you have a major , you have a minor and then you have electives . And I am not an academic , I'm not a school person , so I would love to find a better analogy for this , but I actually love this because it makes a ton of sense when it comes to marketing .

Now , you could apply this to everything .

You could apply this analogy to services , you could apply this to scaling , you could apply this to really anything in your business , but for marketing , what I recommend is that we look at this analogy having a major , having a minor or two and then having electives meaning you have one channel , one major channel where you dedicate most of your marketing efforts to

. You have a couple minor channels that you'll also spend some other time in , and then you'll have an elective channel or electives , where you might post some stuff there , but it's it's . You're not going to spend as much time there personally . So let's dive into these three in a little more detail .

One major channel , oh , and then , at the end of this , I'll give you some examples of where you can market really briefly , because the next question will be well , what actual channel is available to me to do this , other than the common stuff that you might think of with just social media or just networking ? There's actually a lot more .

So , one major channel this is where you're going to dedicate most of your time to . You are likely going to be much more engaged here with messages back and forth . You might do live trainings , you might do workshops . This is where your best people are going to be your ideal customers , and ideally , this is going to be a place that you enjoy hanging out in .

So it might be in person , it might be social media , it might be a certain social media platform , but it also might be a group . It might be a Facebook group that has a lot of your favorite people . It might be a membership you're in . This is your main channel . It might be a YouTube channel . It might be content .

This is your main channel that you want to put most of your marketing slash connection emphasis on .

Now I'll be happy to share with you that when I was running and scaling my web design business , let me throw it to you , if you've known me pretty well and maybe this is your first time listening , in which case you're probably not going to know this and that's fine , but you will soon .

Can you guess , if you've been listening for a while , what my number one marketing channel was when I was scaling my web design business ? You may have guessed it it was my networking group . My networking group was the number one source for all my referrals and all my best clients , and the way I spent most time with them was a weekly meeting .

But then I was , as I thought about it more recently , wow , did I do a lot of additional work with follow-ups , with emails , with connecting people , with DMing . We were doing additional meetups outside of that . A lot of them became clients . A lot of their colleagues became clients .

So my major channel as a web designer was far and away my networking group , my local networking group . I was not active online , barely at all . Then it was purely in person . And then , when my business started to grow , then I started getting SEO value and started getting into a little of the SEO world and I started getting referrals from out of state .

But it really came from the start of the networking group because that's where I built my client base . All I had was a Facebook at that time and I really wasn't terribly active with that , never did ads , never did anything else . It was all my networking group . That was my major channel . Now the next thing is to have a minor channel .

You could have one , or you could have potentially two or three , but I would be wary , if you're doing a lot in your business , of how much time you're spending marketing your business . The age old adage is that you should spend 50% of your time in your business and 50% of your time marketing your business .

I'm not going to say whether I agree with that , and there's seasons for marketing and seasons for getting shit done , basically , but that goes to say like , if you are doing all of the work in your business , one major channel , I mean maybe one minor channel is probably are gonna have time for now .

If you're scaling and you are the CEO of your business and You're focused on working in the business or , excuse me , on the business working on your business Then you could have more channels . But I still recommend having one major channel . Just like you're picking a college degree , you have one major and then you'll have minors .

So for your minor , minor channel or channels , these are the places that you're gonna have a pretty active presence on , but you're not gonna be as active as you would in your main channel . You'll still be there . In this case , like for me , the Facebook was a minor channel for me .

I was active there , but not super active , but I the reason I chose Facebook Was because I was getting a lot of DMs and referrals on Facebook . People would say oh yeah , josh and his business , they do websites , when anyone would say does anyone know a website designer ? So Facebook , naturally for me , became a minor channel .

Now , I did not do any other social media to that point , so that was my only other minor channel .

And if you're having trouble Allocating time for your channels , what I would say is just make it a project , make it like a Weekly project where maybe once or twice a week in certain days , you have it in your calendar that you hop on to Facebook , for example , or LinkedIn or whatever your channel is . That's a minor channel .

Your major channel You'll likely spend daily time , or maybe every other day , depending , but you can do it that way . One to two minor channels we're gonna cover these channel ideas to help you firm up which channels work for you . And then finally electives .

So your elective channels , again , I would say one to two , because it's similar to minor , minor channels , except with electives . These are the channels where you you may have a presence of some sort , but it's likely that you're not going to be active .

Now , if you are fortunate to have somebody doing your social media or having a team of any sort or Hiring a social media person , you can hire them to just post content on your elective channels . Now , when somebody DMs or comments , you just may not be there , but you at least have a presence .

I will say caveat here if you're gonna have a profile that's active and you're not gonna DM and you're not gonna personally be active , I would not just do the post-and-ghost thing as a service provider that works for , like celebrities and comedians and stuff , just because it's getting their brand out there .

But for you , if you have actual clients that are inquiring about your services , I would have an auto responder . That's what I have for my Facebook right now , and if you go to my Josh Hall co Twitter or my LinkedIn where I'm not active , I just say hey , I'm not active here , connect with me here and I point them to my website .

So that would be my recommendation on your electives . So that's it . That is how to funnel these different channels for your marketing one major and I'm about to cover some options for you to help you determine what is best for you one minor or two minor channels and then one to two electives .

That way you cover potentially up to five or six places Online or in person , and that's your marketing , but your emphasis you know so clearly where to put your emphasis .

Again , for me personally , I did my marketing channel as a web designer was my networking group , then my Facebook group or my Facebook , excuse me was a minor channel , and Then my electives were eventually doing YouTube tutorials , which actually , in a weird way , brought clients to me , and then , like my Chamber of Commerce .

I was a part of a local Chamber of Commerce where I didn't spend too much time there , didn't really push it , but it was a place that got me some leads . So that that was my setup now for me personally . Now I'll be happy to share what works for me and then we'll decide what works for you .

Right now , my Marketing setup and my channels are number one right here . My podcast . This is my number one channel .

This is what I spend the majority of my time when it comes to Marketing , because not only is it , I found , pretty good for discoverability for me not as good as YouTube or some others , but it is really a relationship builder and because I'm getting Anywhere between three and four thousand weekly downloads now .

That means and I don't need that many people to join pro or to join my courses to to build the business size that I want and have the lifestyle and freedom I want . That's plenty , and that's why I want to make the podcast better and better and serve you better as a listener and hopefully see a here and pro where I can coach you directly .

So that's what works for me , as my major right now is my podcast . My miners now are my youtube channel , which was my major and it'll kind of flip flop . I might really put some emphasis here soon on YouTube for discoverability and more tutorials , which is in the works and Once the business course goes live . And then my Instagram and Facebook .

So my Instagram and Facebook I'm actually counting kind of together , even though I spend more time on Instagram , just because we control those with meta in the business suite . So when we post something , well , we have a connection issue right now . Has anyone else had connection issues with that ?

If you have Email me , josh at Josh Hall co , let me know if you found a fix , because Kevin and I , my social media guy , we're still trying to figure out how the heck to figure out this connection issue we're having .

But anyway , Instagram and Facebook and YouTube , those are my miners and then my electives , the things that are still marketing , but I'm not doing as much our summits that I join and I'm a part of , and then content marketing On my blog and on my website . So those are my biggies and those are about to change here .

When I Launched my newsletter here soon , which I'm excited about , so I'll keep you up to date on that . You can go to Josh Hall co slash weekly if you'd like to sign up for that now , just to get early access to once I start doing my weekly newsletter , which I'm excited about .

So for you , I would like to have you think about what is your major , what is your minor , or having one to two minor marketing channels , and what are your electives . There are different types of marketing .

In person , you can have your personal network , which you could really make a main marketing channel , and personally reaching out to people , a Professional network . You're a part of networking groups . There are referral groups that are similar to networking , except they are strictly business to business . There are business meetups .

You go to meetupsorg chambers of commerce and then you can do industry style meetups like word camps or People who use your tools . They could be more partnerships . Those are some ideas for in-person marketing channels . Virtual marketing channels can be online groups , like social media forums . They're specific to certain industries .

Like if you're in a group of entrepreneurs that have a lot of business owners , that might be your number one marketing channel . You just show up there every day . Your social media which one of all the social media , if you choose to go social media , which one's your favorite ? Which one do you enjoy ? Which one do you feel comfortable in ?

I feel comfortable with Facebook and Instagram , so those are where I'm active . I'm not a Twitter guy . As of now , I'm experimenting with threads , which is kind of fun . We'll see if it sticks . And I don't have I only have one tie , so I can't show up on LinkedIn anymore . I'm just kidding .

I'll probably get on LinkedIn eventually , but those are my options for social media . What about content marketing and SEO ? Another way you could spend a lot of time Investing in a place like your blog and really capitalizing on SEO to bring leads to you and connecting with your SEO to bring leads to you and connecting with them from there .

There's marketplace sites , there's directories . There's so much that you can apply to be a part of . You could start a podcast or be Featured on podcast to connect with people , and you could really make that your number one marketing strategy . What about YouTube ?

You could , yes , as a web designer , have a very basic YouTube channel where you share industry tips , trends , secrets , etc . And get clients that way . I can tell you that confidently , because it worked for me when I started this brand , still as a web designer . And then , something I've talked about a lot that most people don't do because it's a lot of work .

But if you do it'll pay off in extreme Folds . And that is an interview series Interviewing business owners and being a connector and watch how that will grow your business . Those are some ideas that you could do virtually and in person to that end what works for you . Choose a major , dedicate most of your time to that .

Choose one to two minors and then one to two electives . Those will always flip flop . By the way , too , they're never going to be forever . You can kind of flip flop them and go from there . I hope this has helped friends . This is again a lesson .

This is kind of the highlights in a framework pulled from what is module seven in my business course , all about how to grow your business . So this is the lesson on marketing and , just again , high level idea of having one channel . To me , this made marketing feel a lot easier More recently that I kind of flushed this out .

I'm like , oh my gosh , this just yes , this makes sense to me . I hope it makes sense to you and helps . So leave me a comment , let me know . I honestly want to know what one you're choosing . Let me know your major , let me know your minors and let me know your electives . Go to joshallco 274 . Leave me a comment . I will personally check those comments .

I would love to connect with you , not market to you connect with you and I really would like to hear what's working for you and again , I hope to see you in my business course . You can get early access to that right now . If you're listening to this , when it comes out inside of Web Designer Pro , you can go to joshallco slash pro to join us there .

You can always hit me up joshallco with any questions on that . If you send me a question on Web Designer Pro , I might even send you a personal loom video with what I would recommend for you in the way of the resources that would help you as quickly as possible . So do that .

That is my personal guarantee to you that I will get back with you personally and send you a little loom on what I would recommend to work for you , particularly as the business course is now live , so you can get early access to that before we release it to the masses here and we can look at your marketing and make sure what's working for you .

So hope you enjoyed this one , and I'll see you on the next episode because we have a lot more goodness coming up on the podcast over the next gosh two months . I'm looking at the schedule right now . We're going to dive into getting more clients , boosting proposal conversions . We're going to get into how to estimate projects . We're going to get into pricing .

We're going to get into focusing on each stage of growth that you're in . Lots of awesome stuff ahead . So see you in the future as you subscribe to the podcast and again hope to see you in pro where we can together figure out the marketing strategy for you . All right , friends , till next time .