083: How to find direct clients using LinkedIn w/ Marc Lawrence
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Release Date: 03/02/2021
101: How to niche down as a motion designer w/ Giuseppe Forestieri
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Should you niche down as a designer? We’ve all heard this advice! So, does niching down help you to win more clients or empower you to be seen as an expert? In this podcast, Hayley speaks with one of our students, Giuseppe about how he niched down his animation studio to work on projects he loves. About Giuseppe Forestieri Giuseppe Forestieri is the Animation Director of his own studio, and has a background in visual communication, specialising in animation and Illustration. Motion Aptitude is the fusion of two of Giuseppe’s biggest passions in life: creativity, and the great outdoors....
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100: Lessons learnt from making 100 podcast episodes w/ Hayley Akins
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Hayley Akins is a motion designer, animator and the founder of Motion Hatch. Hayley launched this podcast in November 2017! In this episode, Hayley explains how and why she started this motion design podcast and what she’s learnt along the way. She hopes these
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99: How to create motion design side projects that complement your day job w/ Charli Marie
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
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98: How Giant Ant became a leading motion design studio w/ Jay Grandin
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Jay is Co-Founder of Giant Ant, an animation studio in Vancouver. As Creative Director, Jay oversees nearly every project in the studio—leading the concept development and script writing processes as well as being actively involved in design and animation. In this episode, Jay unpacks how Giant Ant became a leading motion design studio.
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097: How to make six figures as a motion designer w/ John Filipkowski
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
John Filipkowski is a freelance motion designer from Chicagoland, with over ten years of experience. He’s worked with some huge brands on projects such as Dr Strange and Ant Man! In this episode we discuss how to earn six figures as a motion designer, the importance of outreach and how to build trust with clients.
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096: How to scale your income through productized services w/ Brad Hussey
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Brad Hussey is a web designer, online educator and digital marketing consultant based out of Canada. Brad has taught more than 600,000 indie designers, developers and professionals how to get better at their craft and make a living doing work they love. In this episode we explore how you can use a productized service model to scale your motion design business.
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095: How to make passive income as a motion designer w/ Justin Archer
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Justin Archer is a freelance motion designer who also makes passive income selling templates for final cut pro editors. He has almost 22k sales from Envato alone! In this episode we explore how he started making money through After Effects templates and how you can still be successful even if a market is saturated.
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094: How to get signed by a motion graphic design agent w/ Drew Melton
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
For some people, the idea of having an agent seems like a dream come true. But how do you actually get signed by a motion graphic design agent? What are the benefits? And once you’ve been signed, how do you make sure you get the most out of the relationship? Find out in our latest episode!
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093: How to work effectively with difficult clients w/ Ryan Koral
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Ryan Koral has spent the past 13 years telling brand stories through video storytelling. In that time, he’s learned a thing or two about working with all different kinds of clients. Join us as he shares his top takeaways on how to build a great working relationship, no matter the brief or project.
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092: How to use brand strategy to grow your motion design business w/ Melinda Livsey
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Melinda Livsey is a former graphic designer turned brand strategist. In this episode, she’ll teach you how you can use brand strategy to grow your motion design business and how to price your projects based on the value they’ll provide.
info_outlineDo you use LinkedIn as a way to get direct clients?
If you haven’t previously considered using this awesome platform, then this week’s guest might just persuade you.
About Marc Lawrence
Marc Lawrence spent 20 years working in the corporate world - starting out as a motion designer and moving upwards to eventually have a leadership position in his company.
But ultimately, Marc found himself at a crossroads when he faced redundancy in his job.
The commute to work was becoming increasingly difficult and despite loving his job and the company he worked for, he felt that a change was well overdue.
How to make the transition between being employed and going freelance
Marc decided that he would like to specialise in creating motion graphics specifically for social media.
Despite having no experience running a business, no professional network and very few peers in the industry, Marc was determined to make freelancing a success.
He started his freelance career by becoming a Motion Hatch Mastermind student.
This helped him instrumentally with branding himself, setting up a website and figuring out the practical steps for attracting the kinds of clients he really wanted to be working with - which in his case was working with direct clients.
How to utilise Linkedin to get direct clients
Marc soon found that LinkedIn was a brilliant platform to form real connections with people. Though Instagram is also a great platform for motion designers, he believes it’s better suited to those seeking work with agencies than work with end clients like himself.
He started connecting with established creatives in different fields - motion design, graphic design, copywriting and more - and asking if they would be willing to have a quick, 30-minute Zoom call with him.
Much to his surprise and delight, almost everyone he contacted said yes.
Marc says that consistently engaging with people on LinkedIn - liking and commenting on their posts and being genuine in your comments - is one of the key ways to ensure success on the platform.
He also says that the best piece of advice he was given in regard to how to craft posts on LinkedIn was “write as though you’re talking to someone in a pub.”
He says that the minute he took a step away from the dry, corporate posts he’d been writing before and became more personable, people started to respond and engage.
How do I make sure my posts perform well on LinkedIn?
Marc has experimented with posting at different times but he finds that posting first thing before 9am seems to give his posts more traction.
Similarly, many experts recommend trialling posts that are published around lunchtime at 12-2pm and dinner time after 5pm.
Ultimately, how well your posts perform depends on your audience and what time they are online. You should spend some time trying different times and seeing which consistently perform well with your audience.
Other ways to drive engagement on LinkedIn include asking questions in your posts, posting external links in the comments of your post rather than in the main body of text (LinkedIn doesn’t like links that take people away from their platform), tagging relevant people in your posts, and creating a poll to find out your audience’s thoughts on a topic.
How do I make my posts stand out on LinkedIn?
As amazing as your animations may be, Marc says that there is a window of opportunity that motion designers are not taking advantage of.
One of his most popular services is creating animated written testimonials for clients - something that historically has only really been done in static, image form.
This is something that you can easily create from your own testimonials as well. Pick out the best bits of the text, make them kinetic, pick out a nice background and you have a quick, easy way to display the testimonials that are attention-grabbing and unique to you.
Case studies are also a valuable form of content. Take your audience down a journey from when the client initially got in touch with you, to the end result animation. If you can include tangible results and data as well as the actual animation, this puts you in an even more favourable position for potential clients.
Marc decided to offer one of his first-ever clients a discount on the package in exchange for 12 weeks of analytics data from the Instagram images. With this, he was able to show potential clients that what he produces gets brilliant results.
After 12 weeks of posting animated content on Instagram, the client’s revenue increased by 198% and their engagement by 500%.
Also don’t forget to put your contact details in your LinkedIn bio and make your headline stand out.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - Lao Izu
As nerve-wracking as it can be starting on a new platform, or one that you have but rarely use, the first thing to do is gather the confidence to post something (our Social Media Guide can help with this!)
It can be hard putting yourself out there - but the more you do it, the easier it will become.
Marc says that the worst thing that can happen is that people aren’t interested in your post - and to bear this in mind whenever nerves, anxiety or imposter syndrome get the better of you.
Do you have a LinkedIn account? Do you remember to post on it regularly? If not, you could be missing out on an awesome platform to grow an audience, engage with people in the industry and attract exciting end clients.
Leave a comment on the episode page and let us know!
Links & resources
Download the free Social Media Guide for Motion Designers.
Find out more about our Mograph Mastermind program.
Find out more about our Client Quest course.
Find Marc on his website and LinkedIn account.
Podcast music licensed by Big Waves
Podcast production by the team at BE MORE Media