People market ideas, food, movies, clothing, and even websites. Why not market yourself? As a creative professional, you've got skills, abilities, strengths, personality, and plenty of upsides. Make sure they’re known.
In this post, I'll dive into how to market yourself as a creative professional.
But what does “marketing yourself" mean?
Marketing is about strategically getting the word out on a product or service and highlighting how it can solve problems or create an improvement. The same thing goes for marketing yourself as a creative professional. This is about putting your best face forward and letting people know about it.
Show the world what you're about with Envato Elements! It's a one-stop shop for creative professionals like you. For a low monthly fee, get access to millions of high-quality digital assets (logos, templates, presets, add-ons, and more!) to put yourself out there.
Let's continue to figure out what you should and shouldn't do to market yourself successfully.
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Why You Need to Learn How to Market Yourself as a Creative Professional
By now, you may be wondering why you should bother learning how to market yourself as a creative professional. Still, if you've got any ambition to build your brand or start your own business, marketing yourself can propel you into reaching those goals.
As a matter of fact, learning how to market yourself can benefit you in a bunch of different ways. For example, it can help you with:
- Becoming Identifiable. Brand awareness is one of the main reasons marketing even exists. People need to know who you are if they're going to work with you. Not only that, but marketing yourself allows you to control how you're perceived.
- Building Trust. It's hard to trust something or someone you know nothing about. When you market yourself, you share your achievements, skills, and experience, which helps people trust you and turn to you.
- Creating Community. If you're going to work as a creative professional, you need a community of peers, mentors, and coworkers. By marketing yourself, you'll start to create a network that can teach you, support your projects, and lead to new opportunities.
- Reaching Professional Goals. If you've always dreamt about being a renowned photographer, knowing how to sell your skills will get you closer to it. This means you can advance your career, live off your creative projects, and succeed in your area.
- Self-realization. Marketing yourself as a creative professional can be a stepping stone towards self-realization. Reaching your professional goals can boost confidence and touch other areas of your life.
The Do’s and Don’ts for How to Market Yourself in 2024
Now, you may have some preconceived notions of marketing, the strategies experts use, and how to adapt them to yourself. In any case, in this section, we'll guide you through the righteous path. We'll discuss what not to do and what to do regarding marketing yourself.
1. Don't: Be All Over the Place
If you're a designer, you've got a range of areas to specialize in. There's graphic design, industrial design, interior design, web design, fashion design, and more. Even if you wanted to do it all, you can't and shouldn't. Opening up your scope that much will confuse you and any potential partners/clients. Avoid trying to encompass it all.
Do: Define an Area of Expertise and Audience
Think long and hard about what you're good at, what you like to do, and what you can offer. Narrowing down your options and areas of expertise will help you sharpen your skills and focus your mind. Little by little, you'll grow in your area until you master it completely.
Once you know what area to get into, you can turn to defining who you're targeting and what you can do to reach them. Get the guidance you need to do just that with this awesome post:
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2. Don't: Neglect Branding
You may think that you don't need a brand. After all, you're not a big company, product, or service. Still, if you don't have coherent branding that represents you as a creative professional, you'll lose business. People won't feel connected to you or recognize you or your work.
Do: Create a Distinctive Identity and Stick to It
Your brand showcases who you are and differentiates you from others. People will begin to relate your brand to your work and will begin to trust it. For this reason, creating a distinctive identity and sticking to it is a major ingredient in the recipe to cook your self-marketing strategy.
Need more help? Here you go! Read this post to understand what to do to build your personal brand:
3. Don't: Be Erratic
It can be tempting to simply throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. However, more often than not, erratic and isolated actions can lead to a waste of time and resources.
Do: Create a Strategy
All the marketing pros out there will tell you that you need to be smart about how you approach this endeavor. Strategizing, setting goals, having a plan, readjusting, and seeing the process through is far more likely to lead to the success you've been aiming for.
Take a deep dive into popular marketing strategies and take what you can. For example, benchmarking is a tool to become more strategic with your marketing efforts. Learn how through this post:
4. Don't: Use the Same Message Across All Platforms
Writing up a message and sharing it across all different platforms with little-to-no changes seems like a no-brainer. Still, people don't use Instagram the same way they use LinkedIn or TikTok.
Using the exact same message with the exact same format can hurt your chances more than helping them. Learn how to market yourself on social media to do it effectively.
Do: Learn How to Market Yourself on Social Media (Platform-Specific)
While you should be consistent with your brand and message, the way you share that information should adapt to the media you're using. A 20-minute YouTube video won't translate well into TikTok. Understand the options available and use them to your advantage if you want to know how to market yourself on social media.
Not only that, but consider if it makes sense to have a presence on every social media platform out there. While using more platforms widens your reach, keep your focus on the spaces where you'll find your target audience.
Additionally, make sure you can manage your social media presence effectively with help from this post:
5. Don't: Isolate Yourself
In a post-pandemic world, where remote work is commonplace, staying on your own is the path of least resistance. Yet, being so independent robs you of networking opportunities.
Even more so, it strips you of all the perks that come with networking. You miss out on learning, forging relationships, increasing your chances, etc.
Do: Build a Network with Other Creative Professionals
Find ways to network and build relationships, even if you're working remotely or on your own. This can include joining online forums and staying active in them, and forging an online presence. You can also attend industry events, leverage existing connections, and engage with others.
Needless to say, mastering the art of networking can seem daunting. Learn to do it with this post:
6. Don't: Rest on Your Laurels
Growing and improving your brand requires hard work. This is why staying in the comfort zone is so appealing. The thing is that everything is changing: technology is constantly evolving, and competition is becoming more fierce every day. Resting on your laurels may mean that you're left behind.
Do: Be Proactive and Seek Opportunities
Staying on top of your game, learning new skills, refreshing your knowledge, and seeking new opportunities are more important than ever. It'll give you an edge and let your partners know you're an authority in the subject.
Luckily, we live in a time where accessing new information is relatively easy. There are courses you can take and topics you can research to continue evolving.
Speaking of which, check out this post on how you can break out of your comfort zone to keep learning:
Market Yourself as a Creative Professional with Envato Elements!
To market yourself accurately, you need tools and digital assets. Enter, Envato Elements.
This subscription-based marketplace has anything and everything you need to share yourself with the world. From logo stings to resume templates and YouTube banners, you can find any premium item you could need.
Plus, you can now play with its AI-powered search feature! This makes finding what you need to market yourself as a creative professional even easier and more fun! You only have to write a brief description of what you're looking for, and it'll pull up the top matches for it.
The best part? With Envato Elements, you get unlimited downloads of millions of premium digital assets for a low monthly fee.
5 Marketing Digital Assets for Creative Professionals
Just check out a few examples of the top-quality options you'll get access to with Envato Elements!
1. Elegant, Minimal Resume for Personal Marketing
You're going to need a resume if you're going to promote yourself to others. If you're into that classic, elegant look, this is the template you need. It's a feature-rich option that's sure to delight:
- InDesign, Photoshop and Affinity Publisher, Designer, and Photo files
- 2-page template set
- A4 paper size (210×297 mm + 3 mm bleed)
- free fonts used
Tweak this cool resume template however you like to fit your personal marketing brand.
2. Clean Logos for Personal Marketing
An animated logo is sure to increase interest in whatever you're presenting. If you want to do it in a clean and straightforward way, download this premium logo sting template. The features in this asset will help you capture the attention of your audience and promote yourself:
- Apple Motion file
- 1920x1080 HD resolution
- 910KB file size
- no plugins required
3. Creative Agency - Instagram Stories to Promote Yourself
Above, we saw how important it is for you to understand the different social media platforms available and why you should fit your message to them. This social media banner bundle is one way to do it. Check out its features:
- AI and PSD files
- 6 Instagram Stories templates
- 1080x1920 HD resolution
- fully and easily editable elements
You can use this as you're figuring out how to market yourself on social media.
4. Anime Explosion Logo Opener for Personal Marketing
If you want to start with a bang, here's this explosively fun logo sting from Envato Elements. Colors and shapes move across the screen to create a dynamic intro your audience will love. As far as its specs, this download comes with:
- Premiere Pro file
- 10.9MB file size
- customizable to fit your brand
- no plugins required
With this logo template, you'll let other people know what marketing yourself is about.
5. The Resume – Brochures and Flyers to Promote Yourself
Lastly, if you want to share your resume to promote yourself and have people immediately know what you're about, this example may be for you. It's a brochure/resume template that can add a creative spark to your information. Take full advantage of its features:
- Photoshop, InDesign, Affinity Publisher, and Affinity Photo files
- A4, US Letter, A3, US Tabloid and other size formats
- 7-in-1 bundle (resumes, brochures, flyers, and business card templates)
- unlimited color options
Even More Personal Marketing Resources from Tuts+!
Were you left wanting more? Fear not! Here are even more awesome marketing resources from Envato Tuts+:
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What Is a Marketing Campaign? + How to Manage Them Like a Pro
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12 Hottest Creative Resume Trends for 2024
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What Is a Portfolio? How to Show Your Photographs Professionally
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How to Highlight Freelance Work on Your Resume
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What is Video Marketing? Beginner QuickStart Guide for 2024
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How to Define, Analyze, & Seize a Market Opportunity
Learn How to Market Yourself and Succeed as a Creative Professional!
Marketing yourself is about learning about yourself. It's about putting your skills and abilities in the spotlight to bring in new opportunities. Above, we saw a few strategies that can help you succeed as a creative professional. All you've got to do now is put those ideas to good use and head out into the creative world, ready to make a splash!
Remember that you can count on Envato Elements to have your back! Subscribe to find the tools that'll allow you to market yourself effectively as a creative professional!
