How to Earn A Stable Income as a Graphic Designer: Best Places For Selling Your Visuals In 2023 

Building Your Online Business

Are you wondering how to earn a stable income as a Graphic Designer in 2023?

Have you ever heard the phrase that people who work in a creative field are poorly paid? Well, this situation was several years ago. However, many things have changed and now creative professions bring people more money than dozens of others.

One such job is a graphic designer. Why is it so popular? Well, alongside the increase in eCommerce, the demand for quality design elements has also gone up. 

No website can function without appealing web tools. Moreover, according to the latest report on what people buy online, educational courses were in the top position. And what online studying can be without an engaging presentation or a structured guide with tables and catching visual elements? 

The thing is, most people whose work is anyhow connected with selling something online, rarely want to spend time on the visual component. That's why they are more likely to pay graphic designers for a creative and appealing solution. 

Now the question may arise in your head of where to sell your design works. It's easy to get lost in the variety of vending sites and end up with no income for your services. That's why we have gathered several places that will be great options for green and experienced designers.

 

Where To Sell Your Graphic Designs In 2023

Cooperate with bloggers

The number of bloggers is growing every year. Furthermore, each time a new social media platform appears in the modern market, influencers need to get used to it and create some content there. Almost all successful bloggers have a team of people who help with content creation and a graphic designer is an integral part of the squad.

This option will be perfect for you if you have a portfolio with case studies. Just write a direct message to any person who might need your services and tell them how you can ease their work. Then a cooperation process will start during which your daily tasks will include creating some visuals on a daily basis.

Freelance platforms

If you aren't experienced enough to write bloggers, you can go on freelance platforms and gain this precious knowledge. One of the biggest freelance platforms' advantages is that you can receive orders no matter how skillful you are. On such platforms, there are plenty of different requests. So you will be able to choose the one that suits your interests and abilities. However, oftentimes these are one-time orders after completing which you should go on looking for new ones. That might be complicated for those who don't enjoy people interaction.

Marketplaces

Several years ago there was a boost in the number of marketplaces. These are the platforms that are similar to the usual market. They work in a way that graphic designers upload their works. After that people who need a specific element will find it and buy through the platform. That's it: no communication with people, promotion, or daily base work. The only thing you should do is upload your works. 

The amount of money you can earn on those platforms also fluctuates and depends on design quality and the overall number of visuals you upload. Some people call marketplaces ‘Pro Freelance Platforms'. That's all because of their similarities at the first time. And marketplaces in reality seem to be pro freelance platforms as they offer more opportunities and are more convenient.

Once you type in the search engine the word ‘Marketplace' you will be amazed by their amount. All of them offer different terms of cooperation and opportunities to sell your works.

We want to share with you the marketplace that has been a starting point for many freelancers as it offers win-win solutions for both vendors and people who need graphic elements. 

 

MasterBundles –
A Winning Option For Graphic Designers

MasterBundles is a marketplace that during more than 5 years of existence has gained a good reputation and dozens of satisfied clients. It has powerful advantages over other marketplaces. Let's take a closer look at them.

 

The benefits you get during the process 

Easy start 

You don't need to have a portfolio with case studies to prove that you are experienced enough to provide people with design solutions. The only thing that is needed is your desire to craft visual elements. There is a high demand for all kinds of designs as both small and big pictures are needed for creative solutions. 

Choose your price

Unlike the cooperation process with bloggers here, the price you take is fully up to you. Here you can decide the amount of money you want to earn based on the time and effort you put into this work.

Quick process of adding your designs

MasterBundles offers you a great option for fast registration. In a few minutes, you will be able to earn money on graphics. Only 3 steps are needed:

  1. Fill in your personal information;
  2. Confirm registration;
  3. Use a sell your deal form for uploading your visuals. 

Voilà! You are getting a passive income through the platform. And the more visuals you upload the more probability to be noticed.

No promotion needed

MasterBundles helps vendors to promote their designs by adding their crafts to the mailing list of their clients.

Variety of works to sell

Crafting similar graphic designs daily is slightly complicated, isn't it? However, who told you that the only thing you can sell is tiny elements? The world of graphic designs is infinite and you can sell all visual elements that you find handy. For example, one of the fastest-growing options on MasterBundles is professional templates. There is no surprise in their popularity as our working life is filled with professional meetings and performances. More and more people come to the option of buying ready-made templates somewhere. So if you are interested in presentation crafting, it might be a profitable thing for you.

But if you don't want to start your cooperation with such big works, you can upload several best SVG designs that are also in demand as every big project includes such little elements as SVG.

Nevertheless, we can't say that this platform is a flawless paradise for designers. Unfortunately, there is no such place yet. And as with any platform MasterBundles also has several disadvantages.

 

Things you might dislike about MasterBundles

Moderation

Once you have uploaded your visuals, the first thing you might notice is that every single element needs to go through moderation. There is nothing to be worried about here. Just wait some time and your works will appear on the platform. However, sometimes moderation can take up to two days, and certainly, there are some occasions when designs don't pass it.

Competition

Dozens of graphic designers upload their works on MasterBundles every day as they find this platform profitable and handy. That's why if you want potential clients to notice your designs, they need to be unique. Moreover, on MasterBundles you will see plenty of professionally crafted works that people notice first and buy without even looking at other options.

However, this disadvantage can be changed into a great benefit. If we perceive skillful people, not as competitors but more as teachers and mentors, it could be a great place for self-development. For sure, there will always be some people who are better than you and the only thing you can do is continue your growth despite the difficulties.

MasterBundles supports green design crafters and has a graphic design blog where you can find useful articles that will expand your knowledge. After reading it you will also know what things are in demand right now and can focus your work on crafting them.

 

Wrapping it up

As you can see there is no perfect place for selling your graphic designs. Each way of vending has its advantages and disadvantages. So what to do now? A to-do list for you:

  1. Rethink the information that you have just read.
  2. Make a list of things that are important to you whether it's the freedom that marketplaces give to you or interesting blogging projects.
  3. Pick up the option that matches your needs. 

 

Don't worry about making the wrong choice. You can always come to another option and start selling your graphics on another platform. Whatever you choose we wish you luck and thousands of money earned on the thing you really like!

 

This article is provided courtesy of MASTERBUNDLES –
Not familiar with MasterBundles?
This creative assets marketplace offers Creators a network of 6 million members, you can set your own prices, and unlike many other similar marketplaces – you make 50% on the sale of your graphics. You will find that there is less competition because this is a graphics-only marketplace and that means that visitors to the site are looking ONLY for what you are selling!!

Five Reasons You Need to Start Planning Your Year of Promotions and Sales NOW

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Do you run regular promotions and sales events? How far in advance do you plan them out? You may start planning a promotion several weeks or even several months ahead. But have you ever considered scheduling a full year ahead?

It might seem like a strange idea but it’s a very effective way to achieve business goals through promotions. It’s also not hard to do. In fact, planning in advance saves you time later and allows you to run more strategic promotions. Here are the 5 reasons you should create an annual promo calendar.

1.          Boost Revenue

The main reason businesses hold promos is to boost revenue. If you offer your customers a great deal with fantastic value, you’ll see more sales. Promos are offered for a limited time only, creating a sense of urgency that pushes people to buy.

One effective strategy you can use is to offer promos during times of the year where you see a sales slump. Your offer will boost sales during this period, and you can make up the lost revenue. This allows you to ensure that your earnings remain stable all year long and there is no lull.

The key to earning more with promos is to offer them at times that are relevant to your customers, such as holidays they celebrate or events they attend. The other secret to success is that you must offer excellent value. It shouldn’t just be a reduced price, but something that will benefit the customer. This is why it’s important to plan the year’s promo calendar in advance.

2.          Attract and Retain Customers

You can use your promos to attract new customers and retain existing ones. Advertise your deals broadly across social media platforms and other marketing channels, and you’ll see an increase in first-time buyers. They’ll experience the value you offer firsthand, and you can then continue selling to them.

Some businesses use promos to strengthen relationships with existing customers. You can offer deals to people who have already purchased from you as a way of saying thanks and rewarding their loyalty. You can also use them to bring back customers who have not purchased in a while.

Before deciding the exact promotions and sales to run, you need to first choose your goals for each. You’ll then plan the specifics of your offers depending on its objective. If you want to attract new customers, you might run a promotion on a flagship product to bring in new business. For customer retention, you might offer exclusive content for buyers only.

 

3.          Drive Awareness of Your Brand

In addition to growing your customer base and boosting sales, your promotions can help you establish your brand in the marketplace. Brand awareness allows the public to understand who you are and what unique value you can offer them. When your market has the right idea about your business, you will see more sales and higher customer satisfaction.

There are many ways to drive brand awareness through your promotions. One example is to give something away for free. This could be free content that helps people solve a problem they’re facing. By offering this content for free, it highlights to customers that you have expertise in solving problems in your topic area.

 

4.          Increase Customer Satisfaction

Promotions can increase customer satisfaction by providing what customers with what they need exactly when they need it. For example, as the holidays roll around, everyone is looking for ways to save on products they’ve had on their wish list.  You can create a sale with the right timing around this holiday that provides just what your customers are looking for.

You’re also giving your customers more options. Your yearly promotional calendar includes a variety of offers at different price points. This provides more ways for buyers to enjoy the value of your products while also giving them the delight of knowing they’ve saved money.

If you want to keep your customers happy and coming back for more, you need to understand them so well that you know what they need and when they need it. Pay especially close attention to problems and issues they face. To gain this understanding, conduct direct and indirect research, and create opportunities for your market to give you feedback. Then use this feedback to plan your promotions and offers.

 

5.          Create the Right Promo for the Right Time

Designing your promos in advance allows you to create the most powerful, effective, and timely promotions with the least amount of pressure on you possible. With an understanding of your audience’s needs and the annual sales cycle, you have a chance to plan strategically and generate offers that are guaranteed to be profitable.

Best of all, you won’t be stuck at the last minute having to pull something together. You’ll have plenty of time, months ahead of each promo, to get ready. You will also have ongoing feedback from your market so you can make changes as needed. Your calendar will enable you to stay on top of things and offer the maximum value.

 

What Are the Best Times for Promos?

Off of the top of your head, you can probably identify some times of year when you see companies holding promos. In addition to holidays, you might see seasonal events, like spring and summer sales, or back-to-school specials. Anything whatsoever can be a good opportunity for a promo. If you can identify some yearly event that matters to your customers, you can use this for a promo.

 

However, the appropriate times of year for sales events depend on your market, your industry, and your business itself. The best way to find these opportunities is to get a deep understanding of your customers and analyze your sales data. Look over the last few years and you’ll see patterns. There are certain times of year where sales lag. These are the best times to plan promos so you can make up for any slump in revenue or cash flow. You may choose other times as well that are likely to be profitable.

If you’re just at the early stages of your business, make a good guess. Once you start doing more sales, you can monitor your results and see what’s working and what isn’t. If a promo isn’t successful the first time round, try to analyze why and learn from it. If you see success with an offer, add it to your repertoire and repeat.

 

How to Plan an Effective Promo Calendar

Planning a yearly promo calendar is not hard to do at all. It just requires a few basic steps.

Analyze the market

In addition to researching your customers and past sales data, another important factor is the competition. Follow your competitors and see what they do with their promotions so you can get ideas for your own. Look also at major brands such as Amazon and Apple to see how they run their promos. You’ll find ideas you can use and gaps in your niche that no one is serving. This is where you step in with your offer.

 

Set your objectives

Identify your goal for your promos. Is it to grow your audience and drive brand awareness?  Or is it to retain customers and strengthen relationships? It’s good to have multiple goals but choose one as your main objective to help with planning. Make your objective as specific as possible so that you can measure it and assess whether you’re reaching it or not.

 

Set your promo timing

Determine when you’ll hold your promos throughout the year. Pick holidays, events, seasons, and other times that your analysis shows are important to your audience and profitable for you. Remember that you can always invent an occasion for a promo if there isn’t a holiday or event there already.

 

Choose promo types

There are many types of promos you can hold throughout the year. This includes:

  • Flash sales
  • Product bundles
  • Buy-one-get-one-free offers
  • Loyalty programs,
  • and so on…

 

Use your customer feedback data to choose the type of offers they will love.

 

Craft your offers

The last step is to create you’re the offers you’ve decided on. Choose the products and services you’ll include in each promo and create your marketing materials so that you emphasize the benefits to the user.

 

Once your offer is live, monitor your results and you can then refine your strategy to make it even more effective next time.

 

 

Want to Provide the Best Service Possible? Ask the Experts – Your Customers!

Want to Provide the Best Service Possible? Ask the Experts – Your Customers!

Building Your Online Business

Want to Provide the Best Service Possible? Ask the Experts – Your Customers!

How do you improve customer service? You can read epic blog posts, test out new technology, or implement proven tactics, but you’ll never be 100% sure if you’re tackling the core issue until you go to the source.

The most reliable way to improve customer service is to ask the experts – your customers.  

Why Ask Your Customers?

The whole point of customer service is to provide a positive experience throughout the entire customer journey – from research, to purchase, to delivery, and beyond. This limits the number of issues that can arise and increases the likelihood that customers will become loyal brand advocates. 

There’s no better authority on customer service than your customers themselves. Here are some ways you can elicit direct feedback from them. 

Ask Your Customers

There are several ways to get direct feedback. Use an email autoresponder to reach out to customers post-purchase and ask about their experience. Make it part of your sales process. 

You can also create surveys. Ask key questions that will reveal the information you need to know. Keep it short so it’s easy to fill out. Offer it through email or social media. 

If you have the resources, consider holding focus groups. These are sessions where customers get together and talk about their experience with a brand. It takes more work but can yield deeper insights. 

Learning from Customer Complaints

No business enjoys dealing with difficult customers, but if you listen carefully, they can provide you with valuable insight. In fact, if you view customer complaints as opportunities for feedback and growth, you’ll integrate what you’ve learned and upgrade your customer service. 

Remember, a vocal customer may be telling you things that others are thinking, but are too afraid to say.  

Create a system for handling customer complaints. Use active listening, paying close attention to what they’ve said, and then repeating it back to them in your own words. Work on a solution together. 

Monitoring Customer Conversations

You can get indirect information by monitoring discussions online. Use keywords or hashtags to find conversations, or set up alerts so you can tune in when people are talking about you. Check out social media, online forums, and review sites and gather feedback that your customers are hesitant to share with you directly. 

Create More Touchpoints

Touchpoints are all the places where you can connect with customers. This includes your website or social media during the research and sales stages, email inquiries, offline at events, or anywhere else where customers can interact with you or your brand. 

How many touchpoints do you have? Communication, interaction, and engagement can generate helpful feedback, so add as many touchpoints as possible to your sales process. 

How to Use This Feedback

Gather feedback, assess it, and incorporate it into your customer service strategy. Your customers will be happier and your business will reap the benefits and grow. 

Want to learn more? Check out my new course – [COURSE NAME]. It’s a comprehensive and powerful system that will help boost customer satisfaction, turning casual shoppers into your biggest brand advocates.

 [YOUR SALES PAGE URL and CTA]

How to Deliver Automated Customer Service (Without Losing the Personal Touch)

Building Your Online Business

How to Deliver Automated Customer Service (Without Losing the Personal Touch)

It’s essential to offer the best customer service possible, but it’s nearly impossible to do this if you run a small business and you’re trying to grow. As you gain more customers, you’ll need to broaden your customer service capabilities. Automation offers a way to do this while you scale. It’s not just labor-saving for you, but it also ensures that every customer gets their needs met. 

Hire a Chatbot

One option is to add a 24/7 chatbot to your website. You might have seen this before. You visit a website and an avatar appears, asking, “Can I help you with anything?”

Your chatbot is available 24/7 to reply to your customers in real time. It’s loaded with data about your company, so it can offer reliable and accurate information related to most customer inquiries. And if someone wants to talk to a human being, they can contact you through the regular channels.  

Site Help with Widgets

Another automation option is to install widgets on your website that personalize the experience for each visitor. These programs can analyze visitor behavior and offer customized content suggestions. This is especially useful for an ecommerce site, where customers can receive helpful product suggestions based on their preferences and shopping history. 

Cut Down Reply Time with Templates

One way to save time and improve consistency is to use templates for common communications and replies. For example, if you have a follow-up email you send to customers post-purchase, you can automate this so you don’t have to send manually each time. Personalization options help make the recipient feel special, even though you’re using a template and email software program to communicate.

Manage Your Customer Relations

A customer relationship management (CRM) program can help you manage customer data through automation. It can also help with things like autocompleting webforms. It saves information about your customers, such as address and email. This saves users the trouble of entering this information manually each time it’s required. 

Automate Ticket Assignment

Automated ticket assignment is a program that directs customer inquiries by topic area. Rather than contacting you and then having to be routed to the appropriate representative, ticket assignment uses keywords and other triggers to send customers to the right person or department. This cuts down on response time and improves customer service by eliminating one step. 

Best Practices for Customer Service Automation

Automation can vastly improve your customer service, but you don’t want to lose the personal touch. To do it well, here are some best practices to follow:

  • Augment, don’t replace. Keep your focus on improving customer service, not solely on reducing your workload.
  • Test everything you’re considering using before you implement. Make sure it’s a seamless experience and an improvement.
  • Choose simple solutions first so that it’s easier for you and your customers. 

Do you want to know more about improving customer service to grow your business? Check out my course, [COURSE NAME], which teaches you the essentials.

[YOUR SALES PAGE URL and CTA]

The Top 5 Reasons You Need to Up Your Customer Service Game

Building Your Online Business

The Top 5 Reasons You Need to Up Your Customer Service Game

How is your customer service? If you haven’t assessed it recently, it’s time to start. Customer service can have a major effect on your business. If it’s good, you’ll sell more and retain customers. If it’s lacking, it will be hard to grow your business and achieve your goals. Here are the top 5 reasons you should periodically review and improve your customer service. 

People Talk Online

Happy customers will sing your praises far and wide on review sites and social media. People base their purchasing decisions on what their friends say, so this has a huge impact. 

Negative comments and reviews can have an even bigger effect on your business. No amount of marketing or helpful content will save you if people are telling others that your customer service is terrible.

Overdeliver and exceed expectations and you’ll get people talking about your exceptional customer service.  

Improve Customer Retention

It costs much less to keep your customers than acquire new ones. Good customer service increases retention rates, which is good for both your bottom line and your brand. If you are responsive, helpful, and solve problems, people will keep coming back. 

Establish Your Credibility

When you have a large base of happy customers, it shows others that you’re a legit business. People can see that you offer value and go above and beyond. This will establish your credibility and bring you even more customers. Strong customer service also generates trust, which is helpful when you’re trying to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. 

Build Great Relationships

When you offer great customer service, you’ll build stronger relationships with your customers. This offers a whole range of benefits. When you meet their needs, they engage with you more and provide even more feedback, which you can use to improve your business. This is how brands become an essential part of their customers’ lives. 

A Happier Team

Good customer service creates happy customers. Happy customers are much more pleasant to deal with than unhappy ones. When your customers love you, this is great for you and your team’s morale. It creates a positive environment where you’ll be excited to talk to your customers each time. 

Your Customer Will Be More Forgiving

If you offer great customer service, you’ll reduce complaints overall. But if there ever is an issue, your customers will be easier to deal with. They know you take care of them, so on the rare occasion when their expectations aren’t met, they’ll be more forgiving and willing to collaborate on a solution. 

It’s Not Hard to Do

You may be surprised to discover that upping your customer service game is incredibly easy. There are many simple things you can do that will have a huge impact. 

If you want to learn more ways to offer excellent customer service, then head over to my program, [COURSE NAME], where you’ll find everything you need to meet and exceed their expectations.

[YOUR SALES PAGE URL and CTA]

An Honest Look at Customer Service – How Does Your Business Measure Up?

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An Honest Look at Customer Service – How Does Your Business Measure Up?

What kind of customer service experience do you deliver? Exceptional, functional, or dismal? Improving your customer service can offer a whole range of benefits that will increase customer satisfaction and help you boost sales. But it’s hard to tell how you’re doing by intuition or estimation alone. Here are some ways to assess your customer service and see how you measure up.  

Business Touchpoints

Where do you interact with your customers? On social media, in weekly emails, in person, on your podcast, or on your YouTube channel? Every touchpoint presents opportunities to connect with customers and learn more about their needs. 

If you have limited points of contact with your customers, consider adding more. For example, use Instagram Stories to post a poll, schedule a Facebook Live and open it up to questions, or post a quick video on YouTube with a ‘hot take’ and ask viewers for their feedback.  

Can Customers Contact You Easily?

Is it easy for customers to contact you? How can they reach you? How soon can you respond? 

Provide people with different ways to contact your business, to suit all preferences and needs. 

Consider adding a 24/7 chatbot to answer questions when you’re not available and upgrading your FAQs to cover as many topics as possible.  

‘Time to Resolution’

How many of your customer service issues are resolved in one contact? If your answer was, “all or most,” you’re doing well. If it takes a series of follow-ups to resolve an issue, consider tightening up your responses. 

Track an interaction from first contact to resolution and see how long it takes. Identify the problem that is causing delays and solve it.  

Customer Complaints

If you’re experiencing a high number of customer complaints, you need to discover the cause. Customer complaints should be very rare, and generally easy to resolve. If you receive many complaints about the same thing, this tells you that the issue is on your end, not the customers’.  

Seek Feedback Directly

A great way to assess your service is to contact customers directly. Create a short survey that asks key questions about their experience with your business. If you have the resources, arrange one-on-one interviews or focus groups as they can provide more detailed insights. 

How to Improve Your Customer Service

Are you ready to make improvements and learn new skills that will take your customer service to a whole new level? Now that you have identified potential weak points, you’re ready to make some changes.  

Is your customer service falling short? Check out my program, [COURSE NAME]. It teaches you proven methods to improve interactions, increase customer satisfaction, and ultimately boost sales! 

[YOUR SALES PAGE URL and CTA]