I’ve been doing Web development and design, in conjunction with digital imaging, for several years. Lately most of my customers have been other designer/ developer types. Not that I’m so good that I’ve got people beating my door down to “ghost” for them, but because I have a product that they use.

As the months pass by, I’ve been noticing some things about these developers who do business with me. I think my observations could be salient to other developers both new and experienced.

First, the developers who do business with me are always successful in their field. They’re not shy about buying a product that will make their job easier, provide greater functionality to their customers, and simply make them “better” than their competition.

Second, they’re NOT the greatest designers who’ve ever lived, nor are they programming geniuses. There have been a few who break this “rule,” but they’re few and far between.

So what is it that sets them apart from the competition and puts them at the top of the pile in their local sphere of influence?

MARKETING! That’s the first, last, and biggest difference that separates the successful from the not so successful. Don’t get me wrong, if you’ve got no aesthetic “touch” or don’t know a damn thing about the Internet, your marketing efforts won’t get you as far as they would if you did, but believe it or not, a good solid marketing system can bring success to virtually anyone.

As I transition my software product into V2, I intend to survey all the previous purchasers (in conjunction with hooking them up with their free upgrade).

Expect some case specific tricks that these successful designer/developers use to garner themselves a bigger slice of the pie. I think the specifics would be helpful to you the reader, and dare I say it, to me personally. I’m not a marketing guy by any stretch; about the only thing I do that’s even remotely “salesmanly” is to provide a toll free number for people to contact me and, when they do, I treat them very well. Other than that I’m as devoid of marketing as you can be.

In closing, if business isn’t what is was, or isn’t what it ought to be, there’s an eight-letter word that’ll solve it: MARKETING.

I’m going to enable this article “feedback” mechanism in order to get some of your marketing tips and tricks which I will compile, along with my client survey results, into another article that everyone can benefit from.

Chris Leeds, MVP, WPD
Chris Leeds is a longtime digital photographer and Web enthusiast.

Chris has recently developed and released a software product that allows Webmasters to create Web sites that can be edited by their clients with just a browser.

Chris also maintains and operates Northeast Digital Photo.

Chris has additionally had “Tips and Tricks” and numerous articles published, on Microsoft’s site and other locations, regarding various facets of FrontPage and recently served as a technical reviewer for the O’Reilly Press “FrontPage 2003 the Missing Manual.”

[tags]chris leeds,marketing,designers,developers[/tags]