If you're like a lot of creatives out there, at one point or another, you've probably thought something along these lines – "Gee, my work is a lot better than Joe Blow, Inc., yet it seems they're always packed up with projects and I'm dying over here."

The truth be told, simply having a lot of talent isn't enough to keep a business afloat. You might be the best shooter, designer or writer to come along in years, but if nobody knows about you the phone's not going to ring. Odds are, what separates your business from one like Joe Blow, Inc. is marketing. Well thought-out marketing that follows a plan.

It's important to note that marketing isn't sales. Lots of folks seem to get them confused. Marketing is about warming relationships up for the sales effort. It's about communicating your story, your value and what makes you different. Sales is about getting with the prospect and closing the deal. That's the short version, anyway.

Here are a few tips to get your marketing plan moving.

1. Do a SWOT Analysis
Sounding a bit technical? Nah. A SWOT Analysis is nothing more than writing down your strengths - what you're good at, what assets you have and such. Next comes your weakness - stuff you stink at, lack of dough, lousy local economy, etc. "O" is for opportunities - things that you can use to your advantage like a new service offering, partnering with other complementary services, a new market niche, etc. Finally, what are the things that threaten your business? This might be Joe Blow, Inc. pumping up their marketing, undercapitalization, if you're a print designer, clients moving major resources away from print and into internet activities.

Putting some time into preparing a rigorously honest SWOT Analysis can help give you a crystal clear picture of where you're at and what needs to be done.

2. Set realistic goals and write them down
Without a goal or set of goals, you can't gauge your business and you'll most likely find yourself floundering, getting nowhere fast. Where do you want to be? How much money would you like to earn? How many new clients and how much revenue must you generate to get there?

The trick with goals, and there always seems to be trick, is making them realistic. Setting a goal to make a million bucks next month probably isn't going to happen. Gaining three new clients next month just might. By setting small, reachable goals, you'll feel like you're making progress. That's often enough to get you fired up to do more. Each small goal leads to larger ones. The next thing you know, you're business is solid and growing.

It's important to write your goals down. It helps to focus them. I also recommend taping them to your monitor or wall – someplace where you can see them all the time. It will help to keep you on track.

3. Create plans for action
Just setting goals isn't worth a hill of beans if you don't make plans to reach them. Take your first goal and break it up into those steps needed to attain it.

For instance, let's take the example above of gaining three new clients next month. To reach that goal, first you'll need to identify qualified prospects. Where will you find them? Maybe the phone book, a chamber membership list, hitting the reference books at the library and searching on the web. How will you qualify them? Do they buy the kind of stuff you're selling? Can they pay for it?

Qualifying your prospects is important. It will save you lots of time by avoiding chasing after ones that aren't a good fit for your business.

Then, perhaps make some phone calls, write some letters, attend some networking events and ask your existing clients, associates, family and friends for referrals. Maybe that's follow up with a postcard campaign.

4. Be consistent
This is often one of the biggest problem areas. What typically happens is you do a few marketing activities, you get busy and then you stop marketing. When the work's all done, you're scrambling again to find more gigs. You may have heard this referred to as "feast or famine syndrome."

Etch this in stone and put it on your desk – "The most important time to aggressively market your practice is when you're the busiest. It helps to insure you stay that way." What that means is devoting a certain amount of time each day, or at least each week, to marketing and promoting your practice.

You need to become your own best client. Okay kiddies, let's repeat that again but in the first person – "I will become my own best client." There now. That wasn't so hard, was it? It helps if you click your heels together three times while you say it.

For instance, each morning go through a few business forums and make some helpful posts. Or maybe set aside an hour to make some phone calls or emails to check in with a few existing clients and prospects you've been wooing. Sure, it might be tough to get started, but after a while it becomes a habit.

Research has shown that it can take eight or more contacts with a prospect before you can convert them into paying clients. It's not unusual for the sales curve in graphic design to take six, eight months or longer. Lots of folks simply throw in the towel too soon. Hang in there and it will often pay off.

It's a good idea to translate your planning onto a marketing calendar. I set mine up so it alerts me when I need to do something. You can find lots of calendar and contact manager options out there. Leave nothing to chance. Odds are you'll forget. After you put your planning together, move it to the calendar noting daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual activities.

5. Create multiple points of contact
Marketing is sort of synergistic. Several tasks work together to create an effect that's greater than the sum individual parts. Sending out a bunch of postcards once isn't as effective as sending the postcards, making follow up calls, whipping up some press releases for relevant media and joining (and getting involved in) a trade organization that matches your target market.

Ideally, you'll want to engage in marketing tasks that will put your name in front of the audience often. Every time they turn around, you want your name popping up.

6. Specialize
Yeah, yeah ... I know. Specialization freaks you out because you don't want to be pigeonholed and lose potential gigs. Guess what? Too late. Your clients have already put you in a little box stamped, "Print designer," "Web guy," or "Executive Portrait Photographer." Why not use that to your advantage?

You simply can't be all things to all people, nor should you try. It's better to be a master at one or two things than utterly mediocre at several. Beyond that, telling a client you can do everything is likely to put up a red flag in their mind. "How the heck can they do all that and be good at it?"

7. Define what business you're really in
You might think of yourself as a graphic designer or writer, but is that what you're really selling? Odds are what you're really selling is a solution to a problem – a way for your client to enter a new market, generate more inquiries, etc. Design or writing is the way that solution is expressed. Maybe you do web programming. Are you selling code? Or are you selling a better way for your client and their customers to hook up via the net?

The point here is to think about what value you bring to the table. What's your offer? Defining and clearly communicating that message will help to separate you from the pack.

8. Be descriptive about what you do
When somebody asks you what you do, what's your answer? "I'm a graphic designer," or "I'm a photographer," are typical. You can do better and help to differentiate yourself from every other designer, shooter or writer out there.

The thing is, prospects want to know what's in it for them. I usually say something like, "I help small businesses and nonprofit organizations communicate better with their audience." Whoever I'm talking to will usually responds with, "Really? So, how do you do that?" Bingo! I'm in. Now I can engage the person in a conversation about the value of my graphic design and marketing services.

9. Do a survey
This is an easy way to keep in touch with your current and past clients and maybe generate some testimonials to boot. Whip up some multiple choice questions about their views on your business. For example, here are some from the survey I do:

• I feel the quality of Tortorella Design’s work is:
  o exceptional & utterly brilliant
  o good
  o average
  o below average
  o lousy. This guy stinks.
  
• I feel Tortorella Design fees are:
  o way out there in the stratosphere
  o on the high side
  o just right
  o low
  o I think it’s a nonprofit organization
  
• I feel Tortorella Design’s billing method is:
  o great
  o typical
  o lousy
  
• I feel Tortorella Design invoices are:
  o crystal clear
  o typical
  o clear as mud
  
• My projects are completed:
  o like greased lightening
  o faster than I expect
  o in an average time frame
  o slow
  o at a snail’s pace

I try to add in a bit of humor and I also include an instant lottery ticket in with the survey. I've had a couple of clients win some dough which is always good for the relationship. Clients either fax them back or mail them in the self-addressed, stamped envelope I provide.

Survey results can be used as marketing ammo in the form of testimonials. Be sure to call the client first to ask if you can use the their comments. You can usually pick up a few more during that conversation.

Results can also be used to give credence to your services. Things like, "9 out of 10 Tortorella Design clients believe working with Neil is more fun than going to the dentist." You get the idea.

10. Become a resource for your clients
Becoming a resource means keeping a lookout for things that will help your clients and prospects do their job better and/or make them look good to their boss. Come across an online article about best practices in one of your client's industries? Shoot them off a link. Perhaps you read an article that would be helpful. Tear it out of the magazine and mail it to them. Maybe one of your clients could benefit from the product or service another one of your clients offers. Hook them up.

This is a really simple activity and can position you at the forefront of your client or prospect's mind when the next project comes along.

In the end, marketing is all about having a well-thought out plan and being consistent with your message and implementation. Your marketing doesn't need to dig deep into your pockets, but it does require creatively, savvy and a solid way to differentiate you from everybody else out there. It also requires you to be utterly honest with yourself in where you're at and where you can realistically be in a few months and a few years.

So, now it's time to sharpen up your pencil, whip out the 'ole legal pad and start making some plans. You'll be glad you did.