Best Practices

Early in the life of this blog (and my freelance business) I made a post advocating the idea of reselling hosting to your design clients. I came across this post old again as I was scanning the archives. The truth is I don’t host the vast majority of the sites that I’ve designed, even when my clients probably would have been all too happy to host with me. I still agree with all of the points that I made in that early post about the advantages of handling hosting needs. So what gives?

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If you stay in business for very long, there’s going to come a time when you outgrow some of your previous customers. As your business develops, you will begin to notice that certain types of work and certain clients are more profitable, rewarding, or in some other way more desirable. When your days begin filling up with more of these ideal projects, you’ll reach a point where you have to let some old customers go.

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I came across a post in my RSS feeds today that talked about saving money on Christmas cards for your clients by doing a custom design. That got me thinking. I wouldn’t normally use an e-card as communication with a customer. Because they require so little effort and are somewhat generic, they don’t convey that you’re-important-to-me message that I look for out of a holiday card to my customers.

What is an e-card, though? It’s just an email - or usually an email with a link to a web page. Why not create a new page on your web site that is a custom holiday card for your clients? It doesn’t take much programming for each of your clients to see a personalized message. This works for Christmas, birthdays, or any other day that’s worth celebrating. Since it is “home made” it has some of the charm and thought that a generic e-card lacks.

1. You save on postage and printing costs
2. You bring customers back to your web site to see what’s new.
3. You provide a sample of a project that customers could use on their own sites.

If you’re just starting out in the world of freelance web design, it may be hard to imagine that you would ever want to turn down a paying client. I’ll admit it is certainly easier to do when the coffers are full, but there are some times when you should at least consider turning down a project, even if you are a little short on cash. Still can’t picture it? Maybe these scenarios will help.

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