A Niche Design Business Branding Podcasts

Ian Paget: Most people listening, if they're already aware of you, they'll be aware of the Resourceful Designer podcast, but if they do listen to that, they'll also be aware that you run your own business called Podcast Branding. And that was something I really wanted to talk about, because on the podcast we've spoken a couple of times about niching down, and I've seen a handful of people in the design space do it really well and this is one of the better examples that I've seen because you really honed it down.

So as an opening question for this, why did you choose to go down the route of podcast branding and create podcastbranding.co, which is your company website?

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, well, thanks for having me on the podcast, Ian. In all honesty, I didn't choose that niche, it chose me. As you're aware, I've been podcasting since 2013. Resourceful Designer, my graphic design-related podcast, where I help people run and operate a graphic design business, I've been running that one since 2015 and part of being a podcaster, I attended podcast conferences.

I wanted to grow as a podcaster, learn more, so I started attending these conferences and just generically through that, when people would find out, "Oh, you're a designer? Could you maybe help me out with this?" So I started here and there doing podcast artwork for people or helping them with their website because my background is both graphic and web design.

I've been doing this for 30 years and just for a couple of years I was doing some artwork for people and helping with their websites, and it just started picking up a little bit. But I was always known as, "Oh, you need a designer? Well, there's this person, this person, this person, and Mark Des Cotes. They're all graphic designers who can help you."

And I didn't like being grouped with all these people like that, because a lot of people were just saying that they had a designer they knew or a friend that can help and I wanted to be known more than that, so I do have another graphic design business that I run. I've been running it for 15 years now, but I decided to make that part, the podcast branding part, official, and I bought the domain.

I set out to create an identity for myself in the podcast space so when I used to go to the podcast conferences representing Resourceful Designer, my podcast, now when I go to a podcast conference, I go there representing Podcast Branding. It just so happens that I also have a podcast, and that really helped me to gain a foothold. It allowed me to gain traction on all these other designers, because now all it took was creating the brand, Podcast Branding, and now all of a sudden, people view me as a specialist in podcast branding.

And I thought that was amazing because now, when people share my name, they're not sharing my name along with a bunch of other people, they're just sharing me alone, and that has given me a lot of traction to grow. And Podcast Branding has only been around for just a little bit over a year officially, even though I've been designing in the podcast space for going on five years now.

Creating a Niche Design Business as an Identity for Yourself

Ian Paget: I'm really into the whole niching thing, and I'm surprised I haven't yet taken it further. I know that I am specialising in logo design, but I think even that is quite broad. Ironically, I was having a conversation about this with a group of people only a couple of days ago, and there was someone within the group that was just starting out, and I suggested to them to pick a niche and really focus on that.

There was someone in the group that did actually say, "Ian, do you not think that branding in itself is niche enough?" And I was thinking, if you're already bringing in enough work as more of a generalist, I think you'll probably be okay, but if you're just starting out, I think niching down is so important now because the landscape for graphic designers, there's so many of us out there, all competing for the same things, but choosing a niche, or allowing a niche to find you in the way that you did, I think that's definitely the right way to go.

Mark Des Cotes: Well, it helps create an identity for yourself. As I mentioned earlier, now when people talk about me, they don't just say, "Mark's a graphic designer that can help you," they say "Mark is a graphic designer who specialises in podcast branding." Nothing special about me, I didn't do anything different than I was doing for the past five years, except I created that brand around myself, saying that this is my niche.

It's just like our mutual friend, Craig Burton, who has School Branding Matters. He's an amazing graphic designer who specialises in branding schools, so if somebody out there in the education system is looking for something, automatically they're going to be drawn towards Craig because that's what he does. He brands schools, as opposed to a general graphic designer, who may be equally, maybe even more qualified than Craig.

The person is still going to go towards Craig because that's his specialty, and that's the power of niching. It's something, as I said, this niche found me. I have a passion for podcasting. I've been doing it for quite a few years now. I love podcasting and it just evolved naturally, and that's the one thing about niching is, you have to have a passion for that niche because otherwise you're going to get very tired of always working on the same thing.

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative) yeah, very true and Craig is always an example that I use because like I said, in the graphic design space there are actually not that many graphic designers that have specialised on a very specific niche. That's why I wanted to talk about it with you, because I think this is a really good case study that you built. Craig is another really good case study, because even if I get an inquiry about a school, sometimes I think, "I should just send this over to Craig."

Mark Des Cotes: Exactly.

Ian Paget: I'm giving work away, but that is the power of being known for a specific niche even amongst your potential competitors.

Podcast Branding: A Product, Not a Service

Ian Paget: I want to go into your website, because I think again, this is a really good case study of how to do it right. So I went on your website and it's really simple, easy to understand. You've got clearly-defined services, you've got a section for advice and an order page and that's it, just pretty much three sections on the entire website.

Would you mind sharing with us why you chose to structure the website in that way, because I think it's a nice example for people to look at?

Mark Des Cotes: Well, one of the reasons I decided to structure it like this, Ian, is I decided, and I know this is going to be a little bit controversial when it comes into the whole design space, I specifically built podcastbranding.co as a product and not a service, so I wanted it to be simple. I wanted people to go there, decide if they wanted it and if they did, buy it. I didn't want there to be a whole back and forth process like normally, like with my other design business, which is Marksman Design is the name of my other business.

With Marksman Design, when a client contacts me, there is the whole discovery, there's going back and forth, there's the pitch, there's trying to come up with a proper quote for the project. I didn't want any of that. Podcast Branding was going to be my side business. Now, little did I know that I'm now busier with Podcast Branding than I am with Marksman Design, but it started off as a side business, so I created it as if it's a product where people can just go to the site, see what they want to buy, click order, place the order, and very little interaction with me.

All the information they need is on the site and I usually get notified after they've already paid me, and that was one of the things I love about setting this up and so far it's working out really well for me.

Understand the Customer: Podcasters

Ian Paget: I did want to ask you about the ability to order and pay via the website, because again, that's something that I've very rarely seen on a graphic designer's website, so just so that people can understand, like I said, there's basically two sections on the website, a section for services, a section for information and advice, and then basically this order page.

And that order page, it's not like what you would expect, like some kind of inquiry form or standard inquiry form. In this case, you actually tick what you want and pay for it on the website. There is no back and forth sales process in all the usual stuff that you would expect with a stereotypical graphic design service because you have positioned it as product.

Like you said, it's just quick and easy and effortless so the ability to pay online, you kind of answered that question already, but why did you do that rather than the usual thing, because I know you can create a product, but why have you chosen to do fixed prices and the ability to order online?

Mark Des Cotes: Well, one of the reasons was, and I'm going to get a little stereotypical of podcasters, most podcasters don't have a lot of money to invest in podcasting. A lot of podcasters start off a podcast as a hobby and that's, I'm again stereotyping here or pigeonholing some people here. A lot of businesses do start podcasting. A lot of my clients are businesses, but I looked out at other services.

I'm not the only one who creates podcast artwork. As far as I know, I'm one of the more expensive ones, so there's a lot of people out there that are offering artwork for $50, $60 for podcast artwork. I'm charging $300 for podcast artwork and a lot of designers would think, "Well, wow! That's really cheap" and in essence it is, but I've been doing it long enough that it doesn't take a lot of time.

I could usually crank out a good podcast artwork for somebody in an hour or two, and if I'm getting paid $300, that's a good return. The odd one that takes a lot more time, I might lose a little bit of money, but for the ones that I create one design, they absolutely love it, that's it, we're done, it all balances out. But the other reason I did this is, this again started off as a side gig, and I didn't want to have to devote all the back and forth and stuff to it.

I wanted people, if they wanted to hire me, they needed to know right away and they went to the website. If they liked what they saw on the website, and that's what most people... I always ask people whenever I talk to them, because that's one of the selling features that I offer is, I insist on getting on a video chat with every client I work for. I'm not like a Fiverr designer or some of these other ones where you just, "Give me the name of your podcast, tell me what you want, and I'll do it."

No, these are people coming to me because they're looking for a designer, they're looking for a "specialist" and they're trying to come up with something that represents themselves, but they don't often know what that is, so that's where the whole designer part comes in, so I insist on getting on a chat with them. I also offer multiple options, unlike different platforms where you tell them what you want as podcast artwork.

They will give you one design and that's it. "You paid me $50. Here's your artwork, there you go." No, I will offer two or three different designs to them and if they want revisions, I don't limit the number of revisions I do, but even with all of that, and I know a lot of people in the design space will go, "Ooh, unlimited revisions! Oh, no! Oh, no!" In all the time I've been doing podcast artwork, I've had very, very few people that have come back with multiple revisions.

Usually it's one or two minor things and then we're done, so the whole purpose behind the way I built Podcast Branding was, I wanted to build, call it a funnel, get these different places that would recommend me, and I didn't want to have to deal with all these people, answer questions on a regular basis so they go to the website, they see what they want. If they decide to purchase, if they decide that they can afford my price, then they make the purchase. If they can't, then I never hear from them, and that's fine with me as well.

Creating Productised Systems

Ian Paget: What it sounds like is that you've basically built a productised, systematised business, and I've spoken on the podcast a couple of times about this, and this is another thing I really like and try to push with the podcast, because I've found, especially since working myself full-time, anywhere where you can repeat the same system, process, use, template, emails, template documents, anything like that, to speed up the process, the more efficient you can be when it comes to work.

And this sounds obvious, but I've really noticed that, as an independent graphic designer, the only time you actually make money, and that's ultimately the thing that most people kind of want to aim for, to make some kind of income from this, I make it at the start of a project, and then once the project's complete.

Everything else in between doesn't make any money as such. I know that's the product, but the faster and more efficient I can do that whilst keeping the quality high, the better, and I've seen the most effective way of doing that is to pretty much systematise it in a way that you have done. And I think that's why it's working so well for you in comparison to those cases where if, say, and I'm going to give an example of something that I worked from this year. One of my main products is logo design service and that's all very much systematised.

I've got templates of everything, so working through a project is relatively easy. I know how long it's going to take, I can predict my income over a length of time, but there's been a couple of projects this year that I've taken on. One was with a client creating this map and that was an awesome project and the client paid well, but everything throughout the entire process from working out initially what it was that they needed, scoping it out, putting proposal documents together, everything was all new and none of that I can use again.

I know putting a contract together is kind of... You need that, but I can never use that again, but any time I offer a repeatable service, which you are with this, all of that you can use again. I'm sure you could easily document this and if you ever even wanted to sell the company, it's easy to lift all of that documentation process and give it to someone else and they can continue what you built.

I think, as graphic designers, we should almost aim to build assets for ourselves in the way that you have done, so that we can quickly and easily offer a service but then at a later date, if you got to a point where you wanted to retire or you wanted to do something else or whatever situation happens, it's a very sellable business as well.

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, now I don't want people to think that the whole thing... First of all, I agree with you, Ian, but first of all when you're talking templates, my podcast artworks are not templates. They're all custom designed. I don't base everything on a template there, but yes, I do have systems in place for everything, and I love the other part that you were talking about.

As I said, in my other business, Marksman Design, I do that on a regular basis where I go in, I have the four-hour discovery meetings with clients and coming up with pitches and figuring out the quote based on value and that sort of stuff, and I love going into a client and saying, "Here, we complete this project it's going to cost you $20,000." That's an amazing feeling, especially when the client says yes, but this part of it, again, it's more systematised.

We've talked about podcast artwork, I offer websites for podcasters. Well, the website is a template, I have the entire website prebuilt. All I need to do is, "What's the name of your podcast?" I look at your colour palette, you provide me the copy, you provide me the images, but the website itself is already pre-built, so I've created it in a way, but if somebody hires me to do a website, and that's why I charge $1,200 for a website as opposed to doing a custom website for $5,000.

I charge $1,200 because I can take that website, take the content you give me, and I can have a website up and running in four hours because I've got everything prebuilt. If somebody orders a website from me, I just take the prebuilt website, upload it to the web host, populate it with your content, change the colours, change the fonts, and within four hours, you've got an operating website, so that's part of the whole systems that you're talking about.

And that works out really, really well for me, because people get to... They know what they're going to get beforehand. We do talk about the whole process and how it's going to be customisable, so even though I'm building it on a template, it's all built in WordPress. Even though it's built on a template, one person's website will not look like the other person, will not look like the person's before that.

It might have the same overall bones and structure to it, but the websites will look completely different because I'm customising each one to the individual, but again, it's all systems. It's all templates that help me do this very proficiently and it's almost like a production line whenever they come in, but they still get that designer feel to the whole thing as opposed to somebody who just put a website together that didn't know what they were doing.

Understand Your Customer with a Niche Design Service

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and I think you unintentionally went on something there that is one of the real benefits to niching down, is that what you do when you solve a very specific problem for very specific person, is that you can work out what they need. So in this case, because they are podcasters, you know the type of website that they will need and the type of content that they would want to put on there.

What you can do, you can work out the most effective way to present all of that information, so I mean, it's easy to imagine, if a podcaster doesn't have a website, what do they want on their website? That is so easy to work out and you can create a number of templates that, as you said, once you've built it, it's just a case of styling it, adding in images, but you can charge a decent amount of money to do that and the client is probably getting a good deal still because you've created a very effective solution that's specific to them.

And I'm going to use this sentence again, that "you're solving one problem for one person". I heard this mentioned at an event I went to last year and it was one of my key takeaways from that event, that if you think of solving one problem for one person, you can write books, you can write courses, you can create product solutions, businesses. It's a fantastic mentality, and this is exactly what you're doing here.

You understand exactly who needs this, what they need, and you provided a solution for them that you know that they need that's of value to them, and that's why I feel that this is working so well.

Mark Des Cotes: And that's the power of having a niche. I chose to do podcast artwork and help podcasters, but think about it, if you're a designer and you design stuff for auto mechanics, you will know what an auto mechanic needs on their website, so if you specialise in that or dentistry or I don't know, the construction industry. If you specialise in it, then the next time that a client contacts you because, "Hey, wow! Here I can go to Designer A, or I can go to Designer B, who specialises in my field," whilst designer B, who is you, will know exactly what they want, because a lot of times clients come to you and they have no idea what they want.

Especially when it comes to websites, they just know they want a website, but they have no idea what they want on the website. And if you're doing just general design for anybody, yes, you can figure out the stuff and you can often help out a client on a web project figure out exactly what they need and come up with ideas that they wouldn't have thought of, but when you're niching, that stuff just comes naturally.

"Oh, you're in this field? Well, you're going to need this, this and this on your website," and all of a sudden they'll look at you and they'll go, "Wow! This guy really knows what he's talking about. That's why I'm willing to pay him possibly even more than a general designer, because this guy gets me," and that's the whole power of niching. People, when they talk to me, they know. I'm a podcaster, I understand where they're coming from, so they will trust me more than somebody who isn't.

Case in point, just recently by fluke, I did a presentation. Podfest Expo put on a virtual summit because of this whole COVID thing. They did a virtual summit and I was a speaker there, and I talked about podcast websites. And after that a bunch of people emailed me and said, "Mark, do you offer consulting?" which is actually a service... It's not listed on the website, it wasn't something I had thought about, but I had five people reach out to me and say "Do you offer consulting?"

So quickly I added an order page that's actually not on the site yet. If you check the site in the future you'll see a consulting page there, but I got these consulting calls for people. And what's funny is, these were people that had websites and they wanted to consult with me because whoever built their website was not a podcaster, and they wanted me to look over their website to make sure that it had everything a podcaster needed.

Being Seen as a Podcast Branding Specialist

Mark Des Cotes: And they did that because they looked at me and said, "This guy is a designer, he's a specialist in podcasting. That's his niche, I trust him to know what he's doing." Even though they didn't know me, they'd never met me before my presentation, they trusted me because that's my niche, so they hired me to look over, review their website, and give them pointers that they can then hand over to their designer and say, "Here, can you do these things?"

Mark Des Cotes: And that's the power of niching, just being viewed as the "expert" even though I'm not any better a designer than the next person who can design something. It's just the way the client views you when you're niching.

Ian Paget: I've heard people like Chris Do say this, that clients would choose the 'least risky option' for them so when they need their podcast graphics they'll be looking at, I don't know, say five different graphic designers. If four of them are generalists and they're a talented graphic designer, they can design in print, they can design logos, they can design identities.

You could have four people that are superb graphic designers that will probably create incredible work, but you can have someone and they don't have to be the best graphic designer in the world, but if they are presenting themselves as the solution for podcasters in this case, and showing them exactly what they expect, they want the podcast artwork, they want an identity, they want a website for that, you're able to show exactly that and multiple variables of that, only that, so when you compare all those people, who are you going to pick?

It's just an absolute no-brainer, even if they are the most expensive option because you know that they're going to get the job done right. They are the least risky option.

Mark Des Cotes: Now, with that said Ian, even niching though doesn't guarantee things because you still have to, as a designer, you still have to present yourself, you still have to look good, you still have to prove yourself. Case in point, there's a popular podcast hosting platform called Buzzsprout, and Buzzsprout wrote an article on how to create great podcast cover artwork, and it's an amazing article.

The person who wrote it really did good research and covered all the points on what makes good podcast cover artwork, and at the end of the article he included, "If you can't do this yourself..." because the whole article was, "This is how you do stuff" or what you should do. But he said, "If you can't do it yourself, here are five people that you can hire to do your podcast artwork," and I was one of those five people.

When I looked at the list, I am the most expensive person on that list and yet when that article published, within a week or two, my orders just skyrocketed and I asked everybody, "How did you hear about Podcast Branding?" And when they told me, "Oh, it was an article on Buzzsprout," I asked them whenever I got on the video chat, I says, "Why did you choose me, out of curiosity, because I happen to know that I'm the most expensive one."

And all these services, none of them were general designers, every one of them said they specialised in podcast artwork, so I said, "Why did you choose me being I'm the most expensive one?" And they said, "When I looked at everything, all the other websites, you seemed the one that was the most professional. You seemed the one that knew what you were talking about compared to the others," even though every one of them talked about just podcast artwork.

That's all they did is just, I came across as the more professional option and that's why they were willing to pay more to use me, so just being in a niche doesn't necessarily guarantee because those other four people are all in the same niche as I am, but as a designer we have the ability to promote ourselves and make ourselves look good as we're selling our services.

Ian Paget: That's a really good point as well and you've made it quite clear that even when you do choose a very specific niche, or niche, based on where you're from, that you will still have competitors and it's important to, like you said, still present yourself in the right way and everything like that. But I mean, in general, regardless of that, I still think that niching down in comparison to just being a generalist does result in more successes in certain instances.

Mark Des Cotes: It does, plus, as you alluded to earlier, you can charge more for it. Now, in my case I'm selling it as a product, not a service, so I'm not charging what most people in a niche would, again, because I started this as a side gig just to pick up a little bit of extra. But most people, whenever you niche in a particular area, being viewed as the expert means you can charge more, so if the normal person is charging $2-$3,000 for a website, but you specialised in that industry, you can easily charge double that, $5-$6,000 for a website and the people won't hesitate to pay it because of your specialty.

Managing Projects When Allowing Online Orders

Ian Paget: I wouldn't mind going back to your way of ordering via your website, so I don't work in this way. I have people come on my website, they make an inquiry, I have a telephone call with them, and then I can give them a rough time scale of when I'll be able to have the work in. If I'm too busy, I can give them an estimate of when I'll get back to them. In some cases it means turning away the work, but because people are ordering by your website and there's no communication, how do you handle it in the event like when you get a nice article that happens to have your details on the bottom?

How would you handle it when, say, you get a ridiculous amount of orders in one day? How are you dealing with that?

Mark Des Cotes: A little bit of sleepless nights, but no, really my process is they place the order. Once the order is placed, then they schedule a chat with me, a video chat, so I have it automated that once they place their order, then they get put through to my calendar app and they get to pick a time. Now, my calendar app is set that in order to book a time, it's always two days hence, so you can't book a time today or you can't book a time with me tomorrow.

It has to be at least two days ahead of time, so right off the bat they know that, "Oh, well, if I'm only booking the call two days from now, then it's not going to be a super big rush." And some people, when given that option, they'll say "Well that day is not good for me. I'll book it three or four," and I've had people book like, "Oh, I placed an order but I'm only going to book it a week and a half from now," so that helps spread things out.

And then a lot of times, once I get on the call with them, and these video chats usually last about 15 minutes, once I talk to them, then we'll get an idea of when they're going to launch their podcast, and that's usually what the key is here. And if they say "I'm getting ready to launch next week," sometimes I will tell them that, "Well, I won't have it ready for you by next week."

And with a podcast launch, a lot of people, they have an idea in their head of when they want to launch, but unless there's some sort of special event going on, does it really matter if you launch on Monday or you launch on Friday? Not really, so in some cases I will tell them that "That's unrealistic, what you're expecting, and I can have it done for this certain time."

Now, in some cases, I do have some contractors that can help me out. I am not an illustrator, so if somebody wants to do an illustrative style cover art work, I will farm that out to an illustrator to do most of the work. I'll usually put everything together as a final piece so there's all sorts of little things in there that will help me out and as I said, some of them is really simple.

Somebody just wants "I've got a good head shot of myself. I just want my photo and the name of my podcast" and some of those you can do in 20 minutes and the artwork's done, especially if it's a good photo, so there's always ways to make it work. Now, there is a contact form if somebody wants to contact me before placing an order and that happens enough. People ask me questions and I'll gladly answer them and go back and forth.

I've even, on a few cases, agreed to get on one of these video chats with them for 15 minutes before they place an order. Most of them turn into an order. A few have not, and that's fine. 15 minutes isn't a big waste of my time. I love talking to people about podcasting, so it's not a big deal, but for the most part they place the order up front without... I do explain a little bit on the website how the whole process works, but even if they don't read that, once they place the order the immediate email they get will explain what the whole process is going to be like.

And I've never had anybody ask for a refund or say that this wouldn't work. I have had people place orders for certain things because on the form there's a checkbox. You check off all the different things you want. I have had people order stuff and then once we talk I said, "You don't really need that" and I'll refund them that part of the purchase, but it's never gotten to the point where I'm overwhelmed with anything because of the scheduling system that allows people to book their time as they see fit and then setting out a timetable afterward.

And I use a good system to keep track of all the jobs that I'm working on, so I know what has to be put out when and what sort of time frames and deadlines I have to meet.

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative), it sounds very organised and I think, as we've already mentioned, because it's a very linear system and you know exactly what's coming in and what needs to be done and so on, you're able to create these internal systems within your business so that you do know exactly when things need to be done and so on, so that all makes a lot of sense and, I think, for whatever anyone does if someone wants to do something similar to this, they could replicate the system based on what we said then.

Working With Contractors

Can I just ask about contractors? You mentioned that. It's not something that I've done much of. I've done a little bit whenever I needed copyrighting, but how are you going about bringing these people in, because you've sold the project for, I guess it can be seen as a relatively small amount of money, so when you do bring in a contractor are you still able to make an income from that? Would you mind sharing a little bit more about how that system works when you're working with contractors?

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah. In most cases I do the stuff myself. Now, the times that I have a contractor is usually when it comes to illustrative work, in which case there's times where I don't make any money, but then again, I'm not really spending any time designing anything so it's not that big a deal. And depending on the style, people like different styles of artwork, like I had somebody that wanted their artwork done like an anime or... Anime's the animated. I forget the print version of it, but they wanted that style of art.

I had somebody else that wanted a more realistic style of art, so it's a matter of going out and finding illustrators. A lot of times it's artwork of themselves, so they'll supply me a photo of themselves. If they just want, say, caricatures, I get a lot of people that say, "Can I use the Bitmoji of myself on my artwork?" And I'll tell them, "No, you cannot. Bitmoji specifically says in the terms of service that you cannot use them for that sort of thing, but I can get an illustrator to do something very similar."

And it's just a matter of finding somebody that's able to do it, and if I have to pay an illustrator $200-$250, even the full $300 in order to do a good caricature of the person, then I'll do that. And to me it's worth it, because even if I don't make money on one particular cover artwork, that person is usually very, very happy and then they will start spreading the word.

That's the whole thing again about niching, is when you work in a particular industry such as podcasting, whenever I have a satisfied client and then some other person is getting into podcasting they say, "I need cover artwork," that person's not going to recommend any other designer but me, and that's how word spreads and that's how my business is growing, mostly through word of mouth. Like any design business, word of mouth is usually the number one growth factor, so I'm willing to lose a little bit of money on one podcast cover artwork in order to get that goodwill from the person and hopefully a referral down the road.

Now with that said, it doesn't happen very often. In all the artworks I've done, and I've created several hundred cover artworks for people, there's probably only three or four that I ended up doing where I didn't make at least a little bit of money on it. Most of them as I said, a lot of artwork, when it's just somebody's photo and the name of their podcast on it, I can whip that up in less than 30 minutes so if they're charging me $300 and I get it done in 30 minutes, I'm making good money on that one.

Getting Clients As Niche Designer

Ian Paget: So you mentioned in terms of getting clients, you've gotten them primarily through word of mouth and pre-COVID you also mentioned about these events where you're wearing your T-shirt with the Podcast Branding on it. Have there been any other methods that you've used to attract clients that are somewhat niche-specific?

Mark Des Cotes: One of the biggest things I've done is, I've got a Google Search or Google Alert, I should say, set up for the term podcast artwork so any time that I get that, that says "Somebody published an article on podcast artwork" I will reach out to the author and usually the Google Alert will tell me that same day or the following day, so I'll reach out to the author if I can track him down and say, "Hey, can you add Podcast Branding to your article?"

I won't just say that. I mean, I go into a little bit of detail of... I talk about their article. I customise it, so I don't have these forms. Anybody who has a website, I'm sure you've gotten these canned emails before where...

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. I get them all the time.

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, I know, I get them every day. But, I will reach out to somebody and say, "Look, I really liked this article, I liked the point you made here." Sometimes I'll even tell them that "I thought this point was funny but I don't necessarily agree with it," and then I'll ask them, I say, "You mentioned that you can hire people. Can you list Podcast Branding as one of the people you hire?"

And it's amazing how many people have agreed. They've gone back and edited their article to add Podcast Branding because in most cases, the people who write these articles don't really know of anybody. They'll often mention Fiverr or 99designs, but they'll gladly add somebody who specialises in it, so that's been a huge help. Not only does it create a backlink to my website, which is great for Google Search, but people that come across the articles are clicking through so I'm getting a lot of traffic.

If I look at my analytics, I'm getting a lot of traffic from backlinks from these places that I've reached out to. Social media is helping a lot. Whenever I create a new podcast artwork I put it out to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and Twitter, so I've gotten some traction where people have placed an order and say, "Oh, I found you on LinkedIn" or "I found you on Instagram."

But I found in those platforms, just posting the cover artwork is not enough. I have to give a very, very short case study on the artwork, which a lot of people appreciate, and also just connecting with podcasters. That's the great thing about having a niche, is I know exactly who to connect with. If I was a general graphic designer, which I am for my other business, it's pretty hard to connect with your clients, because your clients could be anybody.

Well, with Podcast Branding I know that I have to go where the podcasters are, which means on Facebook there are several communities dedicated to podcasters. I make sure I'm in there and any time somebody mentions a website or podcast artwork, I will make sure to comment or make sure to offer my services and that doesn't always amount to anything. I mean, actually in most cases it doesn't amount to much, except for getting my name out there.

People will see my name over and over and over and all of a sudden, the next time they need something, they need podcast artwork, my name might pop into their head, so I do a lot of that. I'm just, just starting with online advertising to grow the business, so Facebook ads, Instagram ads and Google ads. I'm about to get that launched so hopefully that'll help out, but generally, a lot of word of mouth.

Once you've designed for hundreds of people the word of mouth starts to really kick in, so that's pretty well it for sponsors, and as you've said, talking. I've talked at a few virtual summits and in-person summits and that's just helping to build my name. When somebody sees that you're up on stage presenting, again the whole "expert" thing. If you're on a stage, you must know what you're talking about when it comes to this particular topic.

When it comes to Podcast Branding and they see me up on a stage or in a virtual presentation at some summit or whatever and it automatically creates that impression in their mind that if they need somebody or somebody they know needs somebody, well, this Mark guy must know what he's talking about, so I'll pass his name along so all of that is just organic, and just being out there.

The website, the website's just a little bit over a year old and I'm already ranking just because of the way I built it, ranking for a lot of keywords. As you mentioned, I have the advice section, which is basically just a blog. There's not a whole lot on there, but even those articles are ranking for stuff just because of the way I structured them. All of it put together, each one of them contributes a little bit but when you look at all the effort, it's bringing in some pretty good traffic and I'm getting a steady flow of clients coming in.

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and I think that in itself is another good reason why I got you on this particular podcast because it's a nice example of how, when you do choose to target a very specific audience, you know exactly what to do to get clients from that, so you are going exactly where they will be, you're providing information that will help those people so when they're searching for answers to certain things, you provide the answer on your website, you're in the right groups.

Any time invested in marketing and promotion for your business is very targeted right away so if you are just starting out, you're quite early on in your journey, if say, you were just a generic graphic designer, you don't really know where you will start because there are potential customers literally everywhere, and you're shooting in the dark a little bit when it comes round to promoting your services.

But with all the examples that you gave there, they're all hyper-focused and I actually think this is probably one of the best examples of niching down that I've come across, because this is actually really quite easy to work out exactly what you need to do in order to have success from it.

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, I've got, as I mentioned, two design businesses, Marksman Design and Podcast Branding, and Marksman Design, if I'm going to post on social media, I have no idea what to post because anybody can be my client, so generally what most designers end up posting is stuff about design. And a lot of stuff, if you're trying to post to clients, I find most designers when they post to social media, they're posting to attract other designers as opposed to other clients and it doesn't really help, they don't get a lot of traction.

Well with Podcast Branding, I've got a wealth of information that I can put out there, to the point where I don't want to flood my social media with information because I got to hold onto it and kind of put it out there gradually over time, but I could easily... Like right now, if you were to say "You have to post something on social media in 10 minutes," I could easily come up with many, many different options that I can do that would help to attract podcasters, where with the general design business that's a little bit tougher to do because again, you don't know who you're targeting.

Are you targeting a Mom and Pop shop doing this? Are you targeting a big corporation? Are you targeting a government entity? Every social media post would have to be geared differently, where when you're niching you know that whether that person is a Mom and Pop, a big corporation or a government, that niche part of it, in my case podcasting, ties them all together, so I can send out a message that will be equally valuable to any of them, and that helps when you're niching down.

So whether you're in the podcast space or whatever you decide to niche on, it is so much easier to get the word out and your traction, especially on things like social media.

Founding the Resourceful Designer Podcast

Ian Paget: Now we've got about 10 minutes left of this interview and I think it would be a shame not to talk about your Resourceful Designer podcast. That's how I primarily know you, how we eventually got connected properly, so through that podcast you've been releasing an episode, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you've released an episode every single week since September the 30th, 2015. I had a look back to see how long you've been doing it for and you're coming up to five years.

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, my fifth anniversary comes up in just a couple of weeks. Now no, I usually put out, yes, it's every Monday I have an episode come out, but I usually do about 49 to 50 episodes per year, like last year I think I took Christmas off. This year there was some holidays. Just a couple of months ago we decided to go on holidays and I was going to prepare some episodes to put out while I was on holidays and just, you know when you're working for yourself from home, clients, when they find out you're going on holidays, all of a sudden they need stuff real quick, so I didn't have the time.

And I thought, "I could record something quick, but it wouldn't be really good," and I said, "That's just doing a disservice to my audience. I'm better off taking a week off, not publishing anything that week, and coming back the next week with something that's valuable to them," so I've been doing it for five years but I have missed a few weeks here and there.

Ian Paget: Well, I mean, I can try and time this episode so it almost comes out on your 5th anniversary, so happy birthday to the Resourceful Designer podcast. That's awesome news. Congratulations.

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, and I love it. I mean, I've been going for five years. It's a passion, I love doing that podcast. I do that during my workday so it started off as a hobby, but it's actually part of my business even though it doesn't do anything for my business. It's just a passion of mine and so some days where I'm looking, it's like, "Uh, I got client work but I have to do the podcast," and it never fails. It's like, "You know what? This client work, the deadline's not today. I can do the podcast." It's just a passion.

I love helping other designers, especially those who are in a similar situation. The whole point of the podcast is to help people run their business. I don't talk about graphic design or web design. I don't talk very much about it. I talk all about the business side, specifically geared towards running a home-based business, because I've been doing it for 15 years now. I've learnt a lot plus I have my experience. I worked for 15 years working for a commercial printer before that in their design department, so I have 30 years experience to share with people and sometimes it's just a new perspective.

People like to learn. I might not be the best person at running a business. I might not be the best graphic designer. My advice might not always be the best or might not always be pertinent to everybody listening, but it gives people an option if they want to learn what it takes, and I'm not afraid to share my failures, which is one of the things people love about the podcast. I've been told that, that whenever something goes wrong, I share that too, because it's a learning experience. Resourceful Designer's a passion of mine and I'm, whatever, 230-some episodes out now and I've got no intention of stopping any time soon.

Ian Paget: Well, like you said, you share your advice through it and even though based on what you said, that sometimes you fail and it might not be the best, I've always found it very relatable, realistic, actionable. And I can't think of a specific example, but I know that there have been a number of times where that advice has helped me in some way, so I think sharing your approach and your journey and your experience, it's bound to help somebody out there and I think it's good that you've been sharing that for so long.

So if there's any listeners that haven't already listened to your show, they need to go and check it out, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's primarily a solo show, so it's primarily you talking through a specific topic but from time to time you do get a special guest on to talk about a very specific topic.

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, exactly. I've done, as I said, right now I'm up to 230, I believe is the one I just released, and out of 230 episodes I think I've had six guests on the show, and each time it was because I decided there was a topic I wanted to talk about that I didn't consider myself the expert in. We mentioned Craig Burton on earlier.

He was on because I wanted to do an episode on niching and even though I do, as you're having me on here to talk about niching, that was at the point where Podcast Branding was still fairly new and I didn't feel comfortable talking about it because I was too new at it, so I wanted to talk to somebody who had been doing it for many years, so I had Craig on the show to talk about his School Branding Matters and the whole power of niching.

You've had Tom Ross on the show. I've had Tom Ross talk on the show because I wanted to specifically ask questions about designing for these marketplaces, which is something I've never done before. But I thought, "My listeners might be interested in this so I'm not going to talk about it, since I've never actually done it" so I had Tom Ross on, who's the owner of Design Cuts. He came on the show just to talk about that whole aspect of designing for creative markets.

Ian Paget:  I would say both Craig and Tom are individuals within the industry that are being very open and very helpful for so many people, so if you don't already know of Tom, Craig in particular, Craig doesn't necessarily get out there as much as Tom possibly does. Tom's on the podcast and so on, but within the Logo Geek Community Craig is the only moderator on the group based in New Zealand, and he always offers such amazing advice to people and he's very genuine and helpful and generous with his time.

So Craig, if you're listening, thank you for doing that. I think you're inspiring a lot of people from afar through your approach to helping and supporting people.

Mark Des Cotes: I can tell you, Craig was one of the inspirations for me to start Podcast Branding, to actually create a business out of it as opposed to just continuing the way I had been doing, just being Mark Des Cotes, a graphic designer who can design podcast artwork. I looked at Craig and what he was doing with his school branding and he was one of the reasons why I decided, "Why don't I create an actual branded niche to do this?" And I'm glad I did.

Ian Paget: And hopefully this episode will inspire someone else to focus on a niche because like I said, it's a topic that's spoken about so much, but it's actually sometimes hard to imagine what you could potentially do. And I think both yourself through Podcast Branding and Craig with... I think it's School Branding Matters?

Mark Des Cotes: Correct.

Ian Paget: They're the both superb examples of how you can focus on a niche and become quite successful, and the interesting thing is both examples are really quite different, but it's two very good examples for how I feel it can be done very, very well.

Mark Des Cotes: Just one more point I want to make, Ian, one of the big things I hear, especially through my podcast because I've done several episodes talking about niching, and one of the big things that I hear back is, "But if I niche, I'm going to lose all these other clients." Well, whenever you niche, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to give up everything else.

I've already mentioned, I have Podcast Branding, which is my niche, but I still run Marksman Design. Podcast Branding is actually a division of Marksman Design so I still have my general, if you want to call it that, graphic design business, so just because we say that you should be niching down doesn't mean you have to give up everything else, because that's one of the fears or one of the pushbacks I get any time I talk about niching with that.

People will say, "But I've got all these other clients, I don't want to give them up," or "I'm going to be limiting myself if I niche." No, that doesn't have to be the case. You can niche along with whatever you're doing normally. It just means that to those people in that industry or sector or whatever, you will be viewed as an expert when it comes to them, and then for everybody else you're just a regular, general graphic designer.

Ian Paget: And I feel we stressed throughout this that your messaging can by hyper-focused, your process, system, products, marketing approach, everything can be so hyper-focused that if you are starting out, it's just so much easier to have success than it is just trying to target everybody while speak to nobody.

Mark Des Cotes: Yeah, it is. As you said, it's so focused. Podcast Branding has only been around for, as I said, just a little bit over a year and already I could probably make a living if I wasn't doing Marksman Design. I could make a living just off Podcast Branding and there's not a lot of general designers out there that start a business from scratch and within a year can say that they can earn a good living off of it.

Ian Paget: Well, I think that's a really good point to wrap up this interview so Mark, thank you so much for coming on. I've been listening to your podcast for years whilst walking to work, so it's very odd speaking to a voice I'm so familiar with, even though we've had conversations separately, but it's still, it's a little bit like listening to a live interactive version. It's been really good to have you on. Thank you for sharing so much advice and wisdom, and hopefully the audience would have got some inspiration from this episode, so thank you.

Mark Des Cotes: Thank you, Ian, for having me on.