BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Back in the day, business trips were strictly confined to work. Business travelers’ daily schedules were overflowing with long hours of meetings, conferences, and client interactions. Hence, they got increasingly burnt out, stressed, and frustrated.
However, companies are striving to improve employee travel experience these days. This has given rise to traveler-wellness-oriented trends like Bleisure. Bleisure (business+leisure) is a term used to describe business trips that combine work and leisure activities. 

Post-pandemic, business travelers are increasingly gravitating toward bleisure travel. According to a study by The American Hotel and Lodging Association, 89% of business travelers plan to add a leisure component to their business trips.

As glamorous as it may seem, managing work and leisure simultaneously can be daunting. First, you have to ensure your company is on board with the idea. If affirmative, you must plan the trip so that work and leisure don’t overlap. Moreover, you have to find ways to have fun without compromising productivity.  

To help you handle all this easily, here are a few tips on how you can manage work and leisure together: 

Check the Company’s Travel Policy

Bleisure travel is a relatively new concept in the corporate travel management world. Most companies have not figured out how to incorporate it into their travel policy. According to a GBTA poll, 88% of travel managers say their company’s travel policy does not include a bleisure component. 

There is a fair chance that, like most companies, your organization might not have any provision regarding the duration, scope, and reimbursement of bleisure in their travel policy.  

In such cases, your company will consider all the leisure-related expenses you incur during business trips as out-of-policy. Therefore, you will not receive any compensation for such claims. Moreover, you can warrant a reprimand from the HR/Travel manager if there are many out-of-policy expenses in your expense tracking software. 

Hence, you should check the company’s guidelines before planning any bleisure trip. You can skim through the policy document for bleisure-related terms and conditions. Additionally, you can double-check with your travel manager if you don’t find any relevant information in the policy document. This way, you can spend within the travel policy limits and avoid expense submission mistakes.

Ensure You are Protected

Traveling for business entails various risks. Whether visiting a domestic or international destination for work, you can find yourself facing troubles like sudden civil unrest or a mass health emergency. 

In such cases, the company’s duty of care is to ensure you escape danger unharmed. However, when you add leisure to the equation, complications can arise. Your company may not have a proper bleisure travel support system in place. 

Hence, before traveling, you should clearly understand what your company’s duty of care plan covers regarding business and leisure. You should also check whether the business travel insurance plan includes leisure activities. 

Prepare a Detailed Itinerary

Planning a bleisure trip can be quite a handful. You have to find ways to accommodate work and leisure activities. Moreover, you must do it in a way that neither work nor fun overlaps with the other.

For instance, if you are traveling to the Bahamas for a two-day business conference, you might want to enjoy the beaches. You may also want to participate in adventure activities like Kayaking and windsurfing. However, managing work and all these activities requires a precise schedule to help you divide your time. 

Therefore, instead of creating a rough list of activities, you should prepare a detailed bleisure itinerary. Your bleisure itinerary can include all the details of a corporate travel management itinerary along with leisure activities.

Preparing a detailed itinerary can be strenuous and highly time-consuming. However, once you have a plan of action, you can be confident about your trip.

Pack Carefully

Packing for a bleisure travel is very different from packing for a business trip. Business trips are shorter and are limited to getting the job done. Hence, you only need to pack formal business clothes and work essentials like your laptop and documents.      

However, bleisure trips usually last longer and include a variety of activities. Other than meetings and conferences, you might want to explore local tourist destinations. Or you may go thrill-seeking through adventure sports. Hence, you must pack more extensively while being mindful of luggage limitations. 

A pro tip for bleisure packing is to keep versatile clothes you can wear for both work and leisure activities. You can pack your clothes using packing cubes to save space.
Also, use multi-port USB chargers to avoid carrying multiple charging devices. Moreover, pack safety gear and a basic first-aid kit if you plan to indulge in adventure sports. 

If remembering all this seems daunting, create a packing checklist to ensure you carry every essential item.   

Prioritize Work 

Bleisure travel allows you to relax and work simultaneously. However, sometimes you may have to choose between leisure and business. For instance, a deadline on a significant client project might force you to work beyond official hours. Which means you have to skip a few late-night cocktail parties.

While missing out on such events can induce major Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), you must prioritize work. Always remember that the trip’s primary purpose is to accomplish organizational goals. So, if you can’t naturally accommodate leisure activities without disrupting the work schedule, don’t do it.      

Get Proper Sleep

While traveling for work, your day is jam-packed with activities. You have to prepare presentations, attend conferences and meet multiple clients. Additionally, the schedule becomes even more hectic when you factor in leisure activities like sightseeing. Due to this, you may become sleep deprived. 

Sleep deprivation is a bigger problem than it seems on the surface. It can adversely affect your mind and body, resulting in nausea, irritability, forgetfulness, and many other issues. 

Hence, you should take all the necessary steps to get 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep to ensure physical and mental wellness. Only when you are healthy will you be able to function properly. 

 Here are some things you can do to get good sleep:

• Follow a sleep schedule 
• Reduce blue light exposure 3 hours before bedtime 
• Eat a hearty dinner
• Create a relaxing environment with soft music, dim lights, and essential oils.
  
  

Switch Hotels 

If you plan to combine work and leisure, staying at a single hotel is not the best idea. The reason is that the hotel you choose in the workplace may not offer access to significant local attractions. Moreover, if you are traveling to Europe, where various countries are just a short train ride away, you should not limit your reach by staying in one place. 

Therefore, once you are done with the business part of your bleisure trip, shift to a hotel best suited for fun. You can use the company-provided travel and expense tracking software to find policy-compliant hotels according to various locations in your itinerary.

Utilize Weekends 

While traveling for work, you are responsible for achieving the company’s goals. There is a fair chance that business projects may occupy most of your trip, leaving you with no time to enjoy leisure activities. In such cases, smart scheduling can help you out. 

If you get to plan your business travel, make sure you take advantage of the weekends. You can do that by scheduling the trip to begin on a Monday so you can arrive on the previous Saturday. Or you can ensure that it ends on Friday so you can have two extra days to enjoy before returning to the office. 

Bleisure Travel is the Norm. 

Incorporating leisure in your business trips can help you relax and avoid burnout. So you should take full advantage of the extra resting time and enjoy the adventure activities thoroughly. However, you must manage it so that fun activities do not interfere with work. The tips mentioned above can help you juggle work and leisure seamlessly. 

Above all, remember that a bleisure trip is your company’s incentive for you. So work hard and play hard.       

The post How Business Travelers Can Manage Work and Leisure Together appeared first on noupe.

Performance marketing includes any paid online marketing campaigns that businesses pay for based on the action taken by ad viewers. It’s a highly targeted marketing strategy that ensures a performance-based return on investment. 

Both performance marketing and traditional marketing work for the same desired outcome, but the key difference is that you only pay if your campaign achieves a specified result. As a B2B company, it is important to use a results-driven marketing approach such as performance marketing. 

What are the benefits of B2B Performance Marketing?

• Performance-based spend: With measurable user action, you know exactly what you are paying for and you only pay when the desired result is achieved.
• Measurable performance: You can measure the effectiveness and success of your campaign during its entire duration of it. It allows you to adapt and amend it at any time depending on the performance.
• Lower Risks: Compared to other approaches, performance marketing involves less financial risk. Your decisions are data-driven, allowing you to increase your chances of running successful campaigns.

What are the B2B Performance Marketing goals?

Establishing clear goals is the key to any successful marketing campaign. Before allocating a budget to performance marketing, it is important to identify the goals and understand the results you can expect from them. The basic goals of performance marketing campaigns are:

• Generate brand awareness;
• Drive more traffic to your website;
• Generate quality leads and convert them.

What are the different types of Performance marketing channels for B2B?

• Social Media Advertising: Businesses often use social media to create brand awareness, increase website traffic, and generate leads. B2B businesses commonly use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook/Instagram to target the most diverse user base for specific objectives. 

These platforms ensure that the impressions and engagement come from the audience that is most likely to be interested in your business and convert. Along with metrics like engagement metric likes, comments, and shares you should also track CPM – Cost Per Mille or Cost Per Thousand impressions.

• Native Advertising: Native advertising is sponsored content that blends into the platform in which it appears and doesn’t appear as paid advertising. It seamlessly imitates the content and function of the site it is placed in. Native ads are ads that appear in the same format as the content on the site or platform where they are shown.

It can be used to inform the top of the sales funnel customers since native ads are shown to users based on their interests and viewing history. Due to its nature of imitating the rest of the content on the site, native ads get more clicks than traditional advertising. 

• Affiliate Marketing: With affiliate marketing, a business rewards or pays an affiliate for certain specific actions such as – traffic, leads, free trial users, or sales. Here’s how it works:
  • An affiliate shares your product or service on their blog or a social media platform. 
  • Once any purchase or any other desired action happens via the platform, the affiliate earns a commission.

Here are a few KPIs to help you track the performance of your affiliate marketing campaigns – Click-Through Rate (CTR), Conversion Rate, Cost Per Action (CPA), Average Order Value (AOV)

• Search Engine Marketing: Search engine marketing involves paid advertising on search engine result pages (SERPs) to improve your business’s online visibility. It helps you to reach users on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. An SEM manager can help you plan and implement your company’s overall SEO strategy.

Target specific keywords your target users might use and pay to appear as search results for those keywords. Search advertising platforms charge you only if a user clicks on your ad.

• Search Engine Optimisation: Along with performance-based ads, marketers with the help of their SEO consultant rely on the search engine’s algorithm to gain organic clicks. While SEO isn’t considered a part of the performance marketing model, proper attribution allows you to differentiate organic traffic from other paid channels.

How to track and measure the success of B2B Performance Marketing?

Here are a few KPIs for you can track to measure the success of your performance marketing campaign:

• Cost per click (CPC): Tracking CPC helps marketers understand how efficiently their ads are performing and which channels are performing better. 
• Cost per thousand (CPM): One of the most common payment models is CPM where you calculate the cost per 1,000 impressions. Instead of paying for someone clicking on an ad, you pay every time the ad is shown to the target audience. It’s an important metric to track if the campaign goal is to increase brand awareness. While paying for views, it’s important to use advanced targeting so that the impressions are from relevant audiences.
• Lifetime Value (LTV): You can analyze a customer’s lifetime value using predictive analytics and estimate how much revenue you will get from them based on their ongoing activity. Use that data to plan strategies and boost your ROI.
• Conversions or Pay Per Lead (PPL): PPL is a pricing model where a business pays for a specified action such as submitting a form submit and converting a visit into a qualified lead.
• Revenue: The ultimate aim of any marketing campaign is to earn revenue. Measure the performance of your campaigns based on the revenue you earn from them. Be sure to use an advanced attribution model to track revenue from various performance marketing channels. Otherwise, you cannot accurately measure the results of your marketing strategy.

How to set up a B2B Performance Marketing campaign?

Create your B2B performance marketing campaign in 5 simple steps:

• Define clear and measurable goals: Set business goals, a plan, and a timeline for your campaign. Knowing the results you can expect helps you create a well-rounded marketing plan. 
• Pick the right channels: Consider an omnichannel approach to increase the chances of reaching your target audience. Identify where your audience is spending their time, and the websites they frequent, and pick those channels to place your ads. Be sure to align your choice of channels with the kind of conversions you’re seeking. conversions.
• Create relevant content: Create tailored content that resonates with your audience’s needs and expectations. Find out their pain points and conduct keyword research. Draft personalized ads that will appeal to your audience.
• Monitor performance: Track your metrics and monitor results, to identify your campaign’s strengths and weaknesses. Compare ads that are not performing to those that are succeeding, and decide what can be changed to improve performance. 

Summary

With any digital advertising campaign, businesses are looking to get the most bang for their buck. Performance marketing ensures that you only pay when you receive some value – such as an impression or a click. It’s a better and optimal use of your marketing budget because you don’t pay for ad campaigns unless it generates engagement.

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Do you offer any online courses? Are you concerned that someone might steal your content? Did you know that $50 million is lost annually to piracy by the developers of online courses?

Protecting your content online doesn’t involve any mysterious science. You always run the risk of having something you post online stolen. Most of the time, it would just be a matter of copying and pasting, recording the screen with a program, or downloading a PDF.

So, how would you safeguard your online content? Here are some suggestions for safeguarding your online course.

Challenges with Copyright for Online Courses

This is a significant issue that affects not only the online course market but also much bigger markets like the movie and music industries. Even the biggest video streaming services from the biggest corporations in the world are not immune to this issue, despite the billions they spend on research and development. Once you have logged in and have access to the content, it is still easy to download it from services like Netflix, Disney+, or Amazon Prime. If you are able to view the content, it must no longer be encrypted, at least not on your computer. The content has to be decrypted before it can be shown on a monitor. And that’s when the content is most at risk of being stolen.

More or less sophisticated technology, such as easily installable software, can be used to commit theft. It might be as easy as taking a screenshot of what is displayed. Because it is an unsolved issue, no company in the world can do anything about it. But it doesn’t mean you have no options.

Here are some easy methods to test out.

Use the safe course hosting platform from Heights

An online course management system called Learnyst Platform offers a secure setting for your videos and content. Learnyst automatically protects videos you upload inside of lessons so they can’t be embedded or played outside of your program. This means that only students who registered for your online course created accounts, and made payments will have access to it. Additionally, videos that you upload to the Learnsyt Platform can only be viewed; they cannot be downloaded.

In order to prevent students from sharing a link for downloading with others, Learnsyt Platform also protects your digital downloads by not displaying any public or private URL for the download file. Additionally, you can view the IP addresses that downloaded a product from a specific account. These are just a few of the measures we take to protect your intellectual property.

Each Learnyst participant in your course receives a special ID and password. They won’t need to remember numerous usernames and passwords because they can use this to access the course from both desktop and mobile devices. Your courses will have an additional layer of security because each URL connected to them will only be accessible for a brief period of time.

The most recent encryption method, L1 DRM, safeguards all of your content. Videos, PDFs, and other file types fall under this category. Learnyst completely restricts access and usage by unauthorized parties. Like any other secure website, Learnyst uses OTP to identify any suspicious behavior, like frequent logins. Any mobile device cannot be used to share your content in the form of screenshots or screencasts to a secondary screen. You only use HTTPS links, which are more secure and encrypted than HTTP links.

Increase the level of interaction in your course

Making your course interactive is a great way to safeguard your online course while also giving your legitimate students an excellent learning experience.

Providing more than just content—such as text, PDFs, video lessons, etc.—as well as more one-on-one interactions with your students is necessary to achieve this. Your students will have a distinctive learning experience if your course is highly interactive.

More valuable than any video or other content you upload is your course. Someone who watched a screen-recorded video of your content would not have access to a community, projects, one-on-one support, assignments, or gamification tools like points and badges (as an example).

The term “copyright” is used in law to refer to a person’s ownership of intellectual property. In other words, copyright gives you legal ownership of and protection for your creative work while enabling you to earn money only from it. You can use this to prevent piracy of your videos, images, texts, logos, or entire courses if you are an online course creator.

Unlike trademarks or other legal protections, copyrighting is much simpler and easier to set up, and it provides unmistakable evidence of ownership of the materials in your online course.

In the event of piracy or theft, this will be useful as it will spare you a lot of time and hassle demonstrating that you are the content’s legitimate owner.

Branding

There is no better way to safeguard your content than by including a watermark that includes your name, logo, or website address. While it is simple to claim your content in this way, it also implies that others must get your permission before using or sharing it, and adds a level of possession. Even if dishonest individuals choose to share your content illegally, it is still obvious that you are the author and you might even get traffic from those actions. Also, keep in mind that nobody can ever be you!

Talking Head Videos

Making talking head videos is another method for preventing piracy of your online course. If you’re not familiar, talking head videos are recordings in which you appear on the screen and address your audience directly. Because anyone who views the video will be able to clearly see that it belongs to you, doing this may deter people from stealing your content in the first place. This could also be a useful method for preventing online theft.

At the beginning or end of your course videos, you can even go so far as to mention your name, your company’s name, or any other pertinent information about yourself.

Watermarks

Using watermarks is one of the most popular and efficient ways to prevent piracy of your online course. Any digital content can have a watermark added as a security measure in the form of a mark or lettering. To prevent distorting the visual content, it is typically transparent. You can use this as a course creator on any of your course materials, such as pictures, videos, downloads, and so forth. More intriguingly, you can make a custom watermark with your name, your brand’s logo, learner information, your website URL, or a combination of these to add flair to this. This gives your content personality and a sense of ownership, which may discourage piracy or theft.

Even if your content is shared illegally, the watermark makes it obvious that it belongs to you, which may increase traffic to your website and be advantageous to you. The watermark will most importantly make it very simple to prove to a third-party platform or authority that the video is actually yours.

Conclusion

The online course market is expanding at the same time as digital piracy.

The vast majority of people will not attempt to steal or obtain your content for free, despite the possibility of one or two bad actors that creators should be aware of. Those who do are unlikely to have initially paid for your content.

There are many steps you can take to protect your intellectual property, and they don’t have to be complicated. A few of them include making talking head videos in which you display your face, incorporating your branding wherever possible, and making your course incomparable by adding interactive components like projects, assignments, a community, one-on-one time, gamification, and more.
Hosting your course on Learnyst Platform and benefiting from secure video hosting, IP inspection, and features that make your online course secure and impossible to replicate is one of the simplest ways to secure and protect your online course content from digital piracy.

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Website backgrounds are similar to breathing. They are a part of our daily lives, yet we rarely pay attention to them unless something is wrong. And, like every breath you take, website background designs are essential to the success and longevity of your website; they improve the performance of every other aspect of your site.

While there are several methods to employ textures in web design, if you adopt a contemporary approach and follow a few easy guidelines, you’ll get a lot more mileage out of those backgrounds.

Backgrounds are the foundation of good design. This is why:

• Backgrounds are the building blocks of a great composition.
• Background textures and colors add depth and contrast to visuals, helping them to stand out and be seen.
• Well-composed background photos can assist generate room for you to overlay text.
• Backgrounds may add context to a design by offering supporting visual components.
• Because beginning with an empty page might be intimidating. 

What Exactly are Background Textures in Web design?

Structures exist in the realm of web design as texture background pictures. These graphics appear to be a three-dimensional surface, with relief visible through the screen. They provide the eyeballs with a tactile sense. 

As a result, web textures provide dimension to design and draw attention. Furthermore, the resemblance of the texture of the background pictures to real-world items provides the virtual area with a sense of reality.  Along with this naturalism, there are linkages with what is outside the screen. 

Effective Tips For Using Background Textures For A Website

Here are seven pointers to help you use background textures for a website effectively all of which are in line with the latest and greatest design patterns and trends.

1. Keep it Simple and Understated

Many people may need to notice a fantastic background texture. It should be an almost invisible feature that adds depth or visual appeal while contributing to general readability and usefulness.

Background textures that are simple and subtle are ideal for this. Simple background textures can be practically any color and contain tiny or tight repeating patterns. 

The concept is that these background textures aren’t intended to be a focal point, but rather to assist in drawing attention to the rest of the design.

2. Obtain a Gradient

Gradients are fashionable and visually appealing. You may use a gradient as a background texture either alone or in conjunction with a photo. Almost any color combination is acceptable, so utilizing a gradient to create texture and depth is simple. 

The animated animations in the forefront virtually jump off the gradients, and the dark-colored call to action is clear. The gradient texture’s lighter and darker sections aid the user in moving around the design at a glance.

3. Take It Out If It Serves No Purpose

Before you use your strategy on a client’s website, fine-tune it. As with any website you develop, always make sure that your usage of texture is based on a solid plan. If you can’t defend what you’ve done as an improvement, get rid of it.

Overdoing texturing is pointless. The Web’s sole goal is to spread information. How will you do this if your material is unreadable? Furthermore, subtlety and nuance are more effective ways to demonstrate knowledge of a subject.

4. It Should Be Animated

While many of the recommendations have concentrated on static background components, no law states that a background cannot be dynamic.

To get the most out of this style of background texture, keep the movement minimal so it doesn’t distract from the primary picture or statement, including a subdued or delicate color palette.

This animation may incorporate moving, twisting, turning, or video components. Users’ attention may be captured by using motion. Make the most of a moving background texture by ensuring that it does not overpower the design’s foreground.

5. Make Use of an Image

A website background texture does not have to be a repeating pattern downloaded from the internet, instead takes help from a professional website designer. Images that relate to the brand or core theme are some of the most incredible background textures to offer another degree of visual intrigue and engagement.

Tip: 11 Questions to Ask a Web Designer Before You Hire Them

The idea is to fade the image into the background successfully. When you fade a picture, it fades out of the primary visual area and into the distance.

6. Incorporate a Trending Texture

A trending background texture may make your design feel ultra-modern and new. With geometric forms being so popular right now, 

The pattern produces a beautiful texture and depth with a combination of bright-colored geometry on a dark backdrop, which helps the user focus on the huge text and call to action because these components contrast with the background. 

In basic sans serif script, the text appears to float over the green forms. Texture layering also helps the overall impression. Color distinguishes two levels of backgrounds, with darker portions behind lighter areas.

Keep a watch on analytics and user behaviors after adjusting to ensure that your bigger background texture is effective. A significant drop in traffic or conversions indicates that your graphics and users are not connecting.

7. Select Logical Textures

Finally, and arguably as crucial as preserving readability, select textures that are logical for your design. If you’re creating a website for a furniture company, rusty textures aren’t going to work. 

Textures, regardless of whether they appear excellent, are supposed to establish identity rather than mislead visitors. Usability should always come first.

How to Get Your Dream Website Background?

Choosing the proper background texture for your website may transform it from ordinary to amazing. Remember that user experience is vital, so use colors and pictures that appeal to your visitors and make sure that you can read content over a website background image clearly and effortlessly.

To keep contemporary and trendy, use solid background colors, avoid cluttering photos at all costs, and consider introducing a trend like a gradient or geometric form. If you truly want to stand out, try your hand at animation, and always use a background that adapts well to tiny displays.

Most essential, keep in mind that there are no hard and fast rules in design. The finest ideas frequently defy the norms entirely. What is most important is your user’s experience. Use these suggestions as a starting point, and don’t be afraid to trust your artistic instincts.

Conclusion

An excellent background texture may add depth and visual appeal to the overall appearance of your website with the help of professional web designers. While the usage of texture in web design isn’t as prevalent as it once was, there are still some useful techniques for incorporating texture into your designs. 

Instead of employing a large, aggressive, grunge backdrop that would age your design, you may use texture gradually.

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At first glance, the profession of a graphic designer seems to be the most attractive for creative people. However, the freelancer’s path brings specific challenges you must be prepared for. Today we will discuss the main hardships of freelance graphic designers’ careers.

Graphic designers are among the top most in-demand professions in the internet industry. Designers work with many objects, such as advertisements, websites, apps, book designs, storefronts, press, etc. In addition, graphic designers engage when clients need to design a brand style, logo, and visual concept.

More than talent is needed to build a successful career as a graphic designer. Professional skills and soft skills are equally important. 

Anyone with creative ability can start such a career. However, there are some challenges to overcome and find solutions. 

The path of a designer is winding and thorny, full of uncertainty. Every year the requirements for professionals are increasing. They need to be able to do a lot, understand the product they are creating from beginning to end, and at the same time, have time to find projects for themselves. 

Freelance Graphic Designers’ Operational Challenges 

Time Management

A flexible work schedule is undoubtedly convenient, but only if people can manage their time. Unfortunately, the creative nature of graphic designers can cause them to lose track of time, extending an entire day on tasks that could have taken one hour to complete.

Being creative and passionate about a task is fine, but the clients always want their orders on time. Meeting deadlines is a vital part of a freelancer’s job in any field. Irrational use of time becomes a stumbling block. 

Improper organization of one’s work time results in sacrificing personal needs, boundaries, and physical and mental health. Or on the contrary, the other extreme – is not being able to fulfill the client’s contract in a quality and timely manner. Both options harm their careers.

Tip: Use time management software, and create time limits for your work-time to keep your life and work balanced. Use tools to manage projects and communicate with clients.

Organizing Work

Designers working on their own must understand that they must deal with more than just creative tasks. Freelancers have to advertise and offer themselves, especially in the initial stages. To build a serious career, they must be able to draw up contracts, and documents, make payments, and conduct business activities legally. 

Projects are created in different ways, so every time, freelance designers need to organize and negotiate the time to complete, the cost of services, and the terms of cooperation in detail.

Tip: Study legal business practices in your country, carefully draft specifications and contractor agreements, and study convenient payment and invoicing methods.

Organizing Finance

Designers don’t have to be accountants, but they must understand how payments for services are made and conducted, how to pay taxes, etc. Another challenge in finance is the difficulty in estimating the cost of designing services. How not to inflate the price and scare away the client, but at the same time not to work for a cookie?

First, the salary depends on the graphic designer’s market – the USA, EU, Asia, or CIS countries. Also, the salary level increases in proportion to experience.

Tip: Carefully study the pricing policy of the market and the cost of competitors, exchanges, and stocks. From your experience, compare how much time it takes to complete UI/UX design tasks and how much you can spend on them in the future. Study the models of cooperation “pay per hour,” “pay per result,” etc.

Competition

The competition among graphic designers working from home is very high indeed. The availability of technology for remote work has allowed many professionals to move away from office work to free-floating. In addition, the demand for designers in the traditional industry has decreased. It is much cheaper for companies to hire a designer for a project than to keep him on the staff.

The growth of competition is also conditioned by the appeal of the occupation for young people. On the one hand, they can work creatively without submitting to the strict conventions of the offices, and on the other hand, they can earn decent money. However, as we know, high competition leads to lower fees.

Tip: Work hard to create the best portfolio that shows off your talent and makes you stand out from the competition.

Graphic Designers Career Challenges

Service Promoting

Like any product, graphic designers must promote their services. Often there are difficulties with this since it involves more than just the design of their website, business cards, or contextual advertising. In addition, designers must learn how to communicate with potential clients or collaborate with platforms.

Lifetime Learning

A designer’s career always has room for development and learning. Moreover, keeping up with trends and new technologies is not a privilege but a necessity amidst fierce competition and ever-increasing demand. A designer’s growth can be linear: beginner-experienced-virtuoso, etc. Interestingly, many years of practice do not automatically mean experience growth because one can draw icons for five years or pass from icons to branding. Transitioning to every new level requires increased complexity, knowledge growth, and evolution toward new directions.

Career Uncertainty

Uncertainty follows freelancers along until they establish their permanent client base. Graphic designers often need more stable orders and consistent income. In addition to the lack of stability, career growth is also in question. How to measure it? How to make it move forward? 

To grow professionally as a freelancer, designers need to get a lot of experience, build a steep portfolio, post their work on websites like Behance and Dribbble, follow trends and innovations, learn new tools and software, and jump over the top.

Soft skills should be taught more. And this is almost half of the necessary knowledge. So first, it is important to get the technical background, theory, and observation, then a lot of practice, and then to supplement this luggage with “flexible skills”: plan the work, present a solution, and so on.

Difficulties When Working With Freelance Designers

Low-quality Design

Anyone who has mastered a graphic editor can become a designer. Unfortunately, the conditionally low threshold of entry into the profession leads to many “professionals” on the market not having the best creative, professional, and personal qualities. 

Before choosing a particular designer, research the market thoroughly, review the candidate’s portfolio, and ask for feedback from previous clients.

Unfixed Price Tag

A lousy expert doesn’t know the actual cost of the job because he needs help understanding and estimating the tasks and scope of the job. As a result, he can name one price that seems adequate, but the price tag can increase significantly during the work.

Write the cost and scope of work in the contract, stipulating all the requirements and deadlines.

Lack of Communication

Often freelance designers choose the “take-order-give-order” position. And this can lead to unsatisfactory results. Ideally, the client should seek a system of communication and interim reporting from the performer to ensure the result is consistent with the goal.

Use collaboration tools where you can track the project’s progress and make adjustments in time.

As a designer or as a client of a designer, what problems have you encountered? What solutions have you found? Please share in the comments.

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