Hi guys,

I've secured 1 client @ $300 per month for one of my rental sites. That was a brand new client that found me on YouTube (somehow - was not aware I had any videos on there!).

Anyway, we've been working together now for around a month and the results I have been providing her clinic are very good. She's very, very happy. I told her I would be able to get around maybe 10-20 callers per month to her clinic. It seems like I am getting around 1-2 per day on average, or let's say 1.5 average, so it is coming out to look like around 30 callers per month.

I only started tracking her calls on the 7th of December though, so I don't have a full month of tracking, but extrapolating from what I have, that's what it is looking like. So, needless to say - I am happy and she is also very happy.

Now, I have 2 other rental sites that I made when I first got interested in the idea. I actually have 5 all up sitting there, but 2 of them generating a good amount of leads. Currently, they're going to my mobile and I am just counting the 'missed calls' from the dental sites. They're looking at around 10-15 callers per month coming in from each of the 2 remaining sites I have.

I really want to get those leased out, ideally at $300/month also. That is my goal, as I think the price is fair for a very professional advertising solution.

I actually don't do the whole '3 advertising spots' thing, I just put one dentist/client per site. The site looks like it is theirs, and therefore builds their brand as well as sends them customers. Some of you may have seen my dental sites previously (I shared a link at one stage) and you will know that the sites look great. I had a lot of people asking what theme I used and just generally commenting that they look great.

So, everything - on paper - looks great. I'm getting the callers, everything is working. I just don't have a client.

Several months back, when I wasn't yet tracking the calls being made from these 2 websites, I had 2 meetings. One meeting for each site (that is, one meeting in each of the suburbs, so 2 meetings total). One went bad, the other went well but in the end somehow turned cold.

I'm really trying to write a letter and reach out to the dental clinics and offer them an opportunity to work with me. I don't mind meeting them, but I would rather avoid it is possible - as I want to scale this up, and don't want to be sitting down for meetings if can be avoided to same time/costs. I am willing to offer a free month of service with tracking enabled to win them over.

Okay, so we've got all of that out of the way!

I wanted to say all of the above so that you all had a general idea of where I am at and what I have done. That way, your advice might be better suited to my specific situation.

Below is the letter that I have very briefly drafted. It is not finished, but it is late here and I will be going to bed. Instead of waiting till tomorrow to start making changes, I wanted to post it here now and see what people come up with. Like I said, I have not yet modified it at all and it is likely that I would be taking out / removing / adding a lot of stuff still - but I am interested to know your thoughts on the current piece.

I intend on updating this thread as I make changes to the letters, to hopefully get to a point where people think that it is quite good. I will be using it as a template later to send to dentists in new areas (where I don't have any sites set up) - hence the big time investment.

Anyway, without further delay:

-------------------------------------------------------------------


Dental Clinic Name,

Chris here from MY COMPANY, we’re just around the corner in TOWN. The reason for my letter today, is because we work with several dental clinics in the surrounding suburbs by advertising their clinics online. They’re all seeing new customers into their clinics every single month, and we want to do the same for your clinic in THEIR TOWN.

There is presently an opportunity for us to work with your dental clinic, as we currently do not have any dental clinic clients in THEIR TOWN. We only ever work with one dental clinic per area, and since we don’t have one in the area yet- we’re reaching out to your clinic to let you know about us.
Right now, we’re in charge of the advertising website MyDentalWebsiteInTheirTown.com.au

The above receives on average 80 visitors from the THEIR TOWN area per month, and out of those we are tracking around 15 new calls/appointments being made on a monthly basis. That’s 15 new appointments that your clinic is missing out on right now. Go ahead, check out the website for yourself.
We are offering to put your business name, logo, email, phone, address and all other details onto our advertising website. This is an exclusive ad space for one clinic only. We do not work with multiple clinics in the same area at the same time.

Our advertising is nothing like the YellowPages or other forms of ‘online advertising’. Don’t fall into the trap of blindly believing that your advertising is working. Unless you are tracking the calls being made, you have absolutely no idea how well it is working.

The good news? Our advertising works and we know it because we track every single call made from our advertising websites. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, like the YellowPages, you are able to tell exactly how many calls are being made from our efforts.

What we are offering

We work with dentists, so we know that dentists are always getting bombarded with a range of opportunities. We’re not interested in wasting our time, nor yours. It is our goal to get you on board with us, to try our service for yourself.

We will give your clinic a month of free service. We’ll brand our above website with your business information, and send all of the callers directly to your dental clinic for a whole month.

After the month is up, we’ll provide you with a comprehensive report of all calls delivered, including dates, time of calls and durations so that you can see just how well it works.
The best part here is, that is all ready to go. We’ve already got the visitors, and we’re already getting the callers – we just need an interested dental clinic in the area to send the callers to.

After the month of free service, we’ll happily discuss further details. We are 100% confident you will work with us after you see the results we provide. Take the free month, try it for yourself because you have absolutely nothing to lose – but a whole lot of new appointments to gain, complimentary of MY COMPANY.

Attached to this is a screen capture of recently delivered calls to one of our dental clinic clients in OTHER LOCATION. This is for reference only, to indicate that we do indeed track all calls being made.
Please remember, this is an exclusive opportunity for one dental clinic in THEIR TOWN. As a result, to maintain fairness – we have sent a similar letter to the other leading clinics in THEIR TOWN and we will have to entertain interested clinics on a first-come, first-served basis.

You may reach me directly on 1300 XXX XXX or on mobile at 043X XXX XXX.

Sincerely,
Firstname Lastname
DIRECTOR - MY COMPAMY

(Will be attaching the call statistics for that new client I picked up and have been with for a month so far)

The sales letter is good and informative however it is a bit wordy IMO, I know you want to give them as much info as possible but perhaps you can lure them in with your free offer and then talk to them via phone or email

I was looking for your other thread but could not find it, could you link me to it? Also how are you tracking the calls. what service are you using?

Hi mate, i'm interested in knowing what service you are using to track your calls! Thanks in advance!

I would simplify the letter. The reader won't have that much of an attention span for a sales pitch in writing.

See this post for a good example of what your letter should look like:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackha...ml#post3281770

I wouldn't be afraid to cold call either. Give the owner a no-strings-attached 2 week trial period to test the calls. After the two weeks, send them a report of all of the call activity to show the business generated from the site. If your sites are legit, they'll be happy to pay.

Good luck!

Wordy, and has several grammatical errors.

great STORY! lol,.

no seriously, great job, but its way too long, chop the lenght of it in half and your good to go. Keep it short and sweet but make sure to list all the benefits!
that
Good luck with it.

btw. can you give us a link to your theme that ur using please?

I agree, it is a bit lengthy. You have to get their attention within the first few sentences. You did a good job sounding professional and explaining what you do though. Can you PM me with the example site you showed in your previous thread? And how are you tracking these calls? Do you purchase a call service?

I would make it short and simple.

1. if you want ongoing leads, we can help.

2. show the site that is already up and running. make a copy/print screen and send it to them.

3. send something bulky in the envelope that is related to dentist.

go to a dental forum and find out what their concerns are about getting new clients
and then speak their language in your letter.

It's a good letter, I would just turn it around a little to get the offer up-front. Something like:

Dental Clinic Name,

My name is Chris from MY COMPANY, and the reason I am writing to you is to offer your Dental Clinic a ready-made website that is already receiving on average 80 visitors from the THEIR TOWN area per month. Out of those, we are tracking around 15 new calls/appointments being made on a monthly basis. That’s 15 new appointments that your clinic is missing out on right now and I would like to give that to you for a whole month, for free.

We’re just around the corner in TOWN and the reason for my letter today, is because we work with several dental clinics in the surrounding suburbs by advertising their clinics online...

Besides my directory site I too have a rental site. It's not ranked yet so I can't contact any prospects.

Did you get your site ranked first before contacting dentists? If so, what seo services did you use?

$300/month is too little considering that a dentist can make thousands just off of one client.

The sales letter is too long and wordy. You need to keep it short and simple. Get to the point and try to grab their attention within the first two sentences.

I have given most people who replied +rep, if I felt the response was good. If I missed any of you who had put in a bit of time for a response, then let me know!

Originally Posted by Getwhatchuwant

The sales letter is good and informative however it is a bit wordy IMO, I know you want to give them as much info as possible but perhaps you can lure them in with your free offer and then talk to them via phone or email

I was looking for your other thread but could not find it, could you link me to it? Also how are you tracking the calls. what service are you using?

Thanks for your help! The other thread was actually opened on the WarriorForum a while back, and I made an identical thread there (just like this one) to try and get as much response as possible. BHW has given me a lot more of a response so far, so I'm very happy.

You can search my username in the WarriorForum and see if you can dig up that thread I was talking about. The website link to my dental site is gone though. People were copying my sites apparently, and using my content word for word - I found a guy who made a similar site in one of my areas with my content word for word. While I wouldn't mind if it was copied in another town where I did not have any sites set up - I was not happy that my 'share' was already causing me competition, even though the work was my own.

I'm really trying to write up a really good appealing letter, because I've called all of these dentists before - but chatting to the receptionist is a dead end for me. I am well mannered, but as soon as they get the idea that it is an advertising related call they start blocking. It's been very hard for me to get through to them. At the same time, I do not want to 'burn the leads' as there are only around 10 dental clinics in the area. I feel a letter might get me a better intro. with them.

In terms of tracking, I am using an Aussie company MyNetFone. I get their basis plan and they give me a free DID which is a virtual number. The numbers I put onto my websites and they redirect to any number I Want. When a call is redirected and answered, it shows up in my MyNetFone logs on the back end of their system. That's how I can track all calls made

Originally Posted by jb1978

Hi mate, i'm interested in knowing what service you are using to track your calls! Thanks in advance!

Please read just above this quote, and I've given a response

Originally Posted by teeniegenie

I would simplify the letter. The reader won't have that much of an attention span for a sales pitch in writing.

See this post for a good example of what your letter should look like:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackha...ml#post3281770

I wouldn't be afraid to cold call either. Give the owner a no-strings-attached 2 week trial period to test the calls. After the two weeks, send them a report of all of the call activity to show the business generated from the site. If your sites are legit, they'll be happy to pay.

Good luck!

I think you're right. The letter is indeed likely too long to keep the attention. I'll need to really cut it down and keep it short. I will try and aim for something like 1/2 or 2/3 of a page. I will be checking out that thread you linked and seeing what I can come up with! The sites are definitely legit, so I am really trusting one of them will take it on for the free trial.

Originally Posted by 4starsoftware

Wordy, and has several grammatical errors.

Thank you. I was a little tired when I wrote it, but all grammatical errors will be eliminated before the mailing!

Originally Posted by bouli

great STORY! lol,.

no seriously, great job, but its way too long, chop the lenght of it in half and your good to go. Keep it short and sweet but make sure to list all the benefits!
that
Good luck with it.

btw. can you give us a link to your theme that ur using please?

I am using RT THEME 9 and have made it look really nice. It just works well for me. I won't show the site though, for reasons explained above (people copying). Sorry about that, but the theme has a lot of potential to look really, really nice.

Originally Posted by xinoanet

I agree, it is a bit lengthy. You have to get their attention within the first few sentences. You did a good job sounding professional and explaining what you do though. Can you PM me with the example site you showed in your previous thread? And how are you tracking these calls? Do you purchase a call service?

Hey! About the site, I gave out the template used above. However, I am unable to show the example site URL because people were copying my examples when I had given them out before. I don't mind if they copy, as long as they were not in my area - but it would be unfair to discriminate and give the link to some people, and not others.

I do purchase a call service to track the calls, you can read up above where I explained in a bit more detail

Originally Posted by jetti789

I would make it short and simple.

1. if you want ongoing leads, we can help.

2. show the site that is already up and running. make a copy/print screen and send it to them.

3. send something bulky in the envelope that is related to dentist.

go to a dental forum and find out what their concerns are about getting new clients
and then speak their language in your letter.

Thanks a lot for your contribution. I am getting the idea here that it really needs to be cut down. I am not sure what I could put in the envelope that relates to a dentist, though. I could use the whole dice thing, but I am not sure if that would work in this case. I'll have to think about it asap!

Originally Posted by Balthazshar

It's a good letter, I would just turn it around a little to get the offer up-front. Something like:

Thanks, that's very helpful! A different approach on what i've written. I will be trying to incorporate what you've given me there and updating the thread.

Originally Posted by fuzzy_corleone

Besides my directory site I too have a rental site. It's not ranked yet so I can't contact any prospects.

Did you get your site ranked first before contacting dentists? If so, what seo services did you use?

$300/month is too little considering that a dentist can make thousands just off of one client.

The sales letter is too long and wordy. You need to keep it short and simple. Get to the point and try to grab their attention within the first two sentences.

I intend on making the price higher, but for now $300 is fine for me if I am providing value. After all, for me once the work is done - I don't have to do anything other than make sure that the sites don't drop, and that they're online. I have reliable hosting, and the SEO I do is fairly strong so I don't see them dropping in the local SERPs anytime soon.

Essentially, it's residual income for no work. Of course, I will be doing very small amounts of maintenance SEO to keep it all up there. In fact, I will probably go after more and more and more KW's even when the client is signed up and happy. The more I target, the more callers they'll get and the less likely they will ever leave. On the contrary, if they do leave then my results will be even better and thus easier to lease out next time, hopefully.

I intend on renting them out before actually having a website done, to save time and money. But these ones were made a while ago, so I am just trying to rent them out because they're already showing me results.

In terms of what SEO services I use, I have used BackLinks genie and soon I will start using LinkPushing.net

For these sites, for the most part, it was BackLinksGenie that did the trick for me. I am moving to LinkPushing.net and Dripable to try out that combo and see how it works for me. The idea is to try and minimise the time required to set up campaigns. BLG is GREAT! - but it requires more time than LinkPushing.net so set up a campaign.

Even though it's only like 10 or so minutes for a 4-day campaign, I get lazy!

First off, where's their 'pain' in your letter? You are telling what you can do for them instead of offering to solve a problem that they have, even if it's one that they aren't aware of. Something along the lines of how hard it is to get new patients in this economy, or how dental care is seen as a luxury and having a site would allow them to educate the public about the associated health risks of bad dental hygiene...

And if you already have a happy client, make sure and get at least a written testimonial, even better a video one. Take the video testimonial and use as a voice over on a screen capture of the site that you are trying to rent them.

If she is willing, ask if she knows any of the dentists that you are targeting, see if she'd offer a referral - even offer her a discount on her 'rent' in exchange - which would get you past the gatekeeper. Hell, even if she won't do it, dropping her name can't hurt "Dr. A said that Dr. B should be able to help me. Can I please speak to him?"

Also, make sure and mention that they are not the only ones receiving the letter, including the other clinics that you are targeting and that it will only be available to one of the dentists on the list.

While you might be happy with $300 for the site, build in a little negotiation room (~$500/month is still reasonable) and if they aren't interested at that price, you can always back off and offer to lower it as a trial run so they can test the waters...give them the illusions of getting something from you in return for doing business with you. Plus, once the trial is over, you'll get a higher monthly residual. And don't offer the month free unless you have to...they may be happy to risk the money for the chance at 15 new clients...

Throw a toothbrush in the envelope - they can brush away the competition or a pack of Trident - 4 out of 5 dentists recommend working with your company. Anything would work, as the point is to make them want to open the mail to see what it is.

ND

Originally Posted by nesterdwarf

First off, where's their 'pain' in your letter? You are telling what you can do for them instead of offering to solve a problem that they have, even if it's one that they aren't aware of. Something along the lines of how hard it is to get new patients in this economy, or how dental care is seen as a luxury and having a site would allow them to educate the public about the associated health risks of bad dental hygiene...

And if you already have a happy client, make sure and get at least a written testimonial, even better a video one. Take the video testimonial and use as a voice over on a screen capture of the site that you are trying to rent them.

If she is willing, ask if she knows any of the dentists that you are targeting, see if she'd offer a referral - even offer her a discount on her 'rent' in exchange - which would get you past the gatekeeper. Hell, even if she won't do it, dropping her name can't hurt "Dr. A said that Dr. B should be able to help me. Can I please speak to him?"

Also, make sure and mention that they are not the only ones receiving the letter, including the other clinics that you are targeting and that it will only be available to one of the dentists on the list.

While you might be happy with $300 for the site, build in a little negotiation room (~$500/month is still reasonable) and if they aren't interested at that price, you can always back off and offer to lower it as a trial run so they can test the waters...give them the illusions of getting something from you in return for doing business with you. Plus, once the trial is over, you'll get a higher monthly residual. And don't offer the month free unless you have to...they may be happy to risk the money for the chance at 15 new clients...

Throw a toothbrush in the envelope - they can brush away the competition or a pack of Trident - 4 out of 5 dentists recommend working with your company. Anything would work, as the point is to make them want to open the mail to see what it is.

ND

You raise some very good points. +rep

With your opening paragraph: the website is there purely for advertisement purposes. They won't be in control and won't be in charge of posting content, etc on there. It will be branded in their business information though. At least, that is the idea.

The one dental client I do have is certainly happy. But they have a brand new clinic, literally. She is very busy and replies to emails perhaps once every 2-3 days when she has some time. I am not sure if she would be the best source of a testimonial just yet. She did tell me she will refer me to some friends though, so I am just waiting on that. For the time being, I will attempt to send these letters even without her written testimonial - as I really want to get it going. However, that does not mean I am ignoring your thoughts on the referrals and the video, etc. I am just trying to make do with what I have immediately in front of me.

With the price, I am trying to avoid it at all if possible for now. I really want them to try out the service first, and then from there see how it goes. I know you say not to give out the service for free, but I am a little stuck. I have around 10 leads in the area. If I send the letter to them all, asking for the first months payment just to 'try it out' and all of them turn me down - then i've sorted of ruined my chances. I don't mind if all 10 try and jump on the 'free month' deal - I will only hand it out to one of the clinics, and when the results are shown I am sure they will want to still use me.

Do you feel giving the month away is really that bad? I am just really trying to get my chances of getting someone to 'give it a go' as high as possible, a I think the value will be clear after the month is up.

Toothbrush - seriously, great idea. It costs $0.60 to send a letter here locally, or $1.20 for 'bulky' letters - so that makes it a little more expensive. I wonder if there is something else for me to try that might increase my chances. Maybe I should make all the letters and deliver it to their mail box myself after hours, that way I can be sure all of them get it on the same day, etc?

I actually work in house for one of the largest dental marketing / web design companies out there (about 100 employees big) so feel free to ask me any questions through PM if you would like!

I agree with everyone that the letter is tiny bit too long, these doctors and their staff are crazy busy people. But it is highly well written and very informative.

It's a hard niche to get into with internet marketing you are competing with a lot of huge companies offering the same thing. Not to mention a boring niche with very little traffic even with the best rankings with "local" "dentist"

The good news is 1 client found through your website pretty much paid for everything you did. I would recommend you stress things like this when talking with them

the even better news is these dentists are rich, and are willing to spend tons of money for marketing since there is so many of them. They tend to try to out due each other. I just had a dentist tell me the other day he spends over 100k a year on marketing alone.


Sounds like your on the right path, good luck! Let me know if you need any help.

MeetTheVirus,

Wow, $100K a year on marketing and here I am chasing $3.6K a year contracts! Gotta start somewhere, right?

May I ask, how do you guys approach businesses? I am assuming the company is so big that you don't need to cold call, or do you guys still do some sort of cold-approach to getting new clients?

I don't think 3.6k a year isn't too shabby at all considering they don't actually "own" the website

yeah our sales reps definitely do cold calling as well as email marketing, mail letters, discount, free gifts. Pretty much anything they can do to get them on board.

A couple tips I could recommend would be:

to include optimizing local business listings like google places with your package

Make a "start up fee" then charge monthly

I am not sure which country / city your from, but there are a lot of dental trade shows that go on throughout the year. You can make a killing at these ADA sponsored type trade shows.

Get a professional company website with a 1800 number to show that your legit.

again let me know if you have any more questions man!

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

With your opening paragraph: the website is there purely for advertisement purposes. They won't be in control and won't be in charge of posting content, etc on there. It will be branded in their business information though. At least, that is the idea.

What I was trying to get at is that whatever content you have on there is a selling point for potential new clients, and you can demonstrate that by the number of leads that you are generating. Also, you are going to have to add content to keep the site on top, so you can offer to add the dentist(s) name to the articles so that they are getting more than 'just' advertising...people love seeing their names on stuff

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

The one dental client I do have is certainly happy. But they have a brand new clinic, literally. She is very busy and replies to emails perhaps once every 2-3 days when she has some time. I am not sure if she would be the best source of a testimonial just yet. She did tell me she will refer me to some friends though, so I am just waiting on that. For the time being, I will attempt to send these letters even without her written testimonial - as I really want to get it going. However, that does not mean I am ignoring your thoughts on the referrals and the video, etc. I am just trying to make do with what I have immediately in front of me.

Her testimonial would be better than the one you have right now You could always write it for her or at least provide an outline to save her time. Offer to take her to lunch (everybody has to eat ) in exchange for 30 seconds of video. Plus, you can spin it the other way and use the fact that she's super-busy because of your service. Something along the lines of 'My service is benefiting a practice that is just starting out and getting her tons of new clients, imagine what it could do for an established practice like yours?' Everybody likes to be complimented

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

With the price, I am trying to avoid it at all if possible for now. I really want them to try out the service first, and then from there see how it goes. I know you say not to give out the service for free, but I am a little stuck. I have around 10 leads in the area. If I send the letter to them all, asking for the first months payment just to 'try it out' and all of them turn me down - then i've sorted of ruined my chances. I don't mind if all 10 try and jump on the 'free month' deal - I will only hand it out to one of the clinics, and when the results are shown I am sure they will want to still use me.

Do you feel giving the month away is really that bad? I am just really trying to get my chances of getting someone to 'give it a go' as high as possible, a I think the value will be clear after the month is up.

I'm just saying that giving it away for free sets the perceived value pretty low. As MeetTheVirus mentions, dentists are used to paying for exposure so if you go in saying 'Hey, try this for free and see if it works for you', they will not really value it as much. And even if you send it to all 10 and none of them take you up on it, you can always go back again and say that the previous buyer backed out and you are now offering it at a lower price...

Look at it this way, assuming your stats are correct and you are sending them 15 leads per month. That will be 180 leads per year...if they convert just 10%, that's 18 new patients...they'll cover the cost of renting your site on just the normal 2 yearly cleaning visits (assuming $100/visit).

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

Toothbrush - seriously, great idea. It costs $0.60 to send a letter here locally, or $1.20 for 'bulky' letters - so that makes it a little more expensive. I wonder if there is something else for me to try that might increase my chances. Maybe I should make all the letters and deliver it to their mail box myself after hours, that way I can be sure all of them get it on the same day, etc?

If you are going to mail it, send it in a bigger envelope so that you don't have to fold anything and it will have the added benefit of standing out. From those prices, I don't think you're in the US, but use whatever large envelope that your postal service has.

And if you are going to go to the trouble of hand-delivering it, do it when someone is there...ask the person that takes it for their name and then follow up in a couple of days if you haven't heard back. By being able to mention whoever accepted the package by name, you should be able to 'warm up' the call a little...

ND

Originally Posted by MeetTheVirus

I don't think 3.6k a year isn't too shabby at all considering they don't actually "own" the website

yeah our sales reps definitely do cold calling as well as email marketing, mail letters, discount, free gifts. Pretty much anything they can do to get them on board.

A couple tips I could recommend would be:

to include optimizing local business listings like google places with your package

Make a "start up fee" then charge monthly

I am not sure which country / city your from, but there are a lot of dental trade shows that go on throughout the year. You can make a killing at these ADA sponsored type trade shows.

Get a professional company website with a 1800 number to show that your legit.

again let me know if you have any more questions man!

The tip about ADA tradeshows is good. I have not gone to any of those yet. I will get some clients here first so that I have the 'confidence' behind me, before going to tradeshows. But it is a brilliant idea that I do intend on chasing.

I have a website set up that looks quite good (for my business) with a 1300 number. Not quite as good as a 1800, but it does the job!

Thanks for answering my question!

Originally Posted by nesterdwarf

What I was trying to get at is that whatever content you have on there is a selling point for potential new clients, and you can demonstrate that by the number of leads that you are generating. Also, you are going to have to add content to keep the site on top, so you can offer to add the dentist(s) name to the articles so that they are getting more than 'just' advertising...people love seeing their names on stuff



Her testimonial would be better than the one you have right now You could always write it for her or at least provide an outline to save her time. Offer to take her to lunch (everybody has to eat ) in exchange for 30 seconds of video. Plus, you can spin it the other way and use the fact that she's super-busy because of your service. Something along the lines of 'My service is benefiting a practice that is just starting out and getting her tons of new clients, imagine what it could do for an established practice like yours?' Everybody likes to be complimented



I'm just saying that giving it away for free sets the perceived value pretty low. As MeetTheVirus mentions, dentists are used to paying for exposure so if you go in saying 'Hey, try this for free and see if it works for you', they will not really value it as much. And even if you send it to all 10 and none of them take you up on it, you can always go back again and say that the previous buyer backed out and you are now offering it at a lower price...

Look at it this way, assuming your stats are correct and you are sending them 15 leads per month. That will be 180 leads per year...if they convert just 10%, that's 18 new patients...they'll cover the cost of renting your site on just the normal 2 yearly cleaning visits (assuming $100/visit).


If you are going to mail it, send it in a bigger envelope so that you don't have to fold anything and it will have the added benefit of standing out. From those prices, I don't think you're in the US, but use whatever large envelope that your postal service has.

And if you are going to go to the trouble of hand-delivering it, do it when someone is there...ask the person that takes it for their name and then follow up in a couple of days if you haven't heard back. By being able to mention whoever accepted the package by name, you should be able to 'warm up' the call a little...

ND

I get your idea on hand delivering to the clinic when it is open. Makes sense. Feels more personal anyway, that way. Might just be a bit hard to make it around town during business hours, due to parking etc. But if I do hand deliver it, I will do it when they are open. May as well, right.

I have nothing to put into the envelopes unfortunately, for the moment. I looked at toothbrushes, but they're too expensive to be honest. I will stick with the dice for now, I think. The idea is to get them to open the envelope, in which case the dice will do the trick. I will be hand writing the address, manual signature, real stamp put on the envelope, etc. So hopefully the open rate and 'personal feel' will all be there.

Respectfully, I am still undecided on the free month or not. I can definitely see your idea about not lowering the perceived value, which is not what I want to do. It's just a tough one, given my circumstances. The site is already made, already sitting there and generating visitors - I just want to make it as simple and easy for myself in terms of renting it out. The work has all been done, so if I need to go without payment for just one more month - I'll don't mind.

But I know that your point wasn't about me going without payment, but rather about the value of the service. Maybe I will try to give it away for free for a month, but at the same time make it clear that this is not a *normal* thing that we *ever* do, to still try and keep the value there as much as possible.


Thanks a lot to both of you guys, but I can't give out any more rep. to you guys for now! Haha!

Great work on getting a client setup, I personally believe that is the hardest thing to do. I have a quick question as renting out a site is something i am looking to do. Do you try and buy the exact domain name e.g dentistintown.com or would you find an aged domain? Could you just briefly explain how you go about selecting the domain name.

Originally Posted by dumbleweed

Great work on getting a client setup, I personally believe that is the hardest thing to do. I have a quick question as renting out a site is something i am looking to do. Do you try and buy the exact domain name e.g dentistintown.com or would you find an aged domain? Could you just briefly explain how you go about selecting the domain name.

When it comes to small suburbs/localities, it is hard to find an exact match domain that is suitable. Especially since the whole 'rent a site' model is relatively new among the masses, the chances that a marketer bought a domain and has already given it up (meaning you can buy it) are slim.

I always go for an EMD where possible - and it's always possible to have the keywords in the domain name. I use a .com.au, if you are in the US I would use a .com and nothing else. Even if it is just from a presentation point of view.

I didn't read anywhere above about ranking the site, although you did mention another thread about this.

I do a similar thing with a couple of sites, renting out 5 spaces, one of which is "featured". The spaces go for $50/$80, for that they get a front page listing, a menu listing and a page about them. All their competitors are listed on the page ( BUSINESS NAME - SUBURB) as the site is marketed as a directory of their industry in my city. My city is 160,000 population, and this method works well here. These sites also make a good varied addition to my link network as well.

I do all my initial contact via email, sending them a link to the google results page and a screengrab of some stats. I follow up with snail mail if needed and a printout of the google result, as well as a print of where they are.
To get my lists I use the yellowpages and generally only need to contact about 10-12 potentials, so I start at the lowest ranked in google because they need it most.
I have learned to avoid face to face meetings as I've had a potentially violent one. He was a rather large manual labourer, who took offence to my business model.

Originally Posted by partymarty4870

I didn't read anywhere above about ranking the site, although you did mention another thread about this.

I do a similar thing with a couple of sites, renting out 5 spaces, one of which is "featured". The spaces go for $50/$80, for that they get a front page listing, a menu listing and a page about them. All their competitors are listed on the page ( BUSINESS NAME - SUBURB) as the site is marketed as a directory of their industry in my city. My city is 160,000 population, and this method works well here. These sites also make a good varied addition to my link network as well.

I do all my initial contact via email, sending them a link to the google results page and a screengrab of some stats. I follow up with snail mail if needed and a printout of the google result, as well as a print of where they are.
To get my lists I use the yellowpages and generally only need to contact about 10-12 potentials, so I start at the lowest ranked in google because they need it most.
I have learned to avoid face to face meetings as I've had a potentially violent one. He was a rather large manual labourer, who took offence to my business model.

Wow, he took offence? That's crazy. Leave him some bad reviews or something, lol. Did you perhaps let a few things slip (criticizing his business, etc)? Doesn't sound too good to be honest.

I think you will find that your occurrence was a once-off. I don't think that stuff happens too often. I try to avoid face to face, purely on a time basis.

EDIT: Is that monthly?

Update

Here is the updated version of what I have so far. What are your thoughts guys?


December 29, 2011
Firstname Lastname
My Company
14 MyStreet Road,
Suburb VIC 3000

Dear {Dental Clinic Name},

I’m going to get straight to the point because I know you’re busy; we do advertising for dentists and attached is a log of calls that we have just recently delivered for a dentist in {Another Town}, VIC.

My name is Chris, and I’m an online advertising specialist right here in {My Town}. I provide advertising to dental clinics that generates callers from the local area, who are looking to book appointments.

Here’s the Deal:

I’m already working with other dental clinics around the area with great success. You can see my most recent results on the attached call log. I am writing to you because the website DentistIn{Their Town}.com.au sees a huge 80 visitors per month, of which on average 15 call in every month to make an appointment. That number isn’t made up either, we track every single call.

That’s on average 15 appointments that your clinic could have, but is missing out on. These results are consistent every single month. How much are 15 new appointments worth to you? These patients are worth potentially thousands of dollars in revenue.

I welcome you to get in touch with me. I guarantee that you will not be disappointed, when the calls start coming in – our clients are always happy. If legitimate interest is established, we may offer a month free of charge with full call reporting for you to ‘trial’.

In fairness, I have sent a similar letter to other leading dentists in {Their Town}. This opportunity is open to all clinics in the area, but ultimately it is an exclusive opportunity and I will only be able to work with one dentist. If you are interested in this opportunity, please contact me at your soonest convenience.

Call me now on 1300 XXX XXX or on mobile 043X XXX XXX.

Sincerely,
{Signature}
Firstname Lastname

I use the use it or lose it method in letters by saying something like...

"It is important a to note that I have sent this offer to 9 other clinics in "City/Market area" and will promote the business of whoever gets back with me first."

You can try to slap that into the paragraph talking about the exclusive offer.

Also, I know burning leads is a huge concern. You can send your letter to a test market that you are not actually selling and see if you get any response. This will also allow you to split test the letters to increase conversions, all without burning through your leads. However, you won't be able to put a URL in the letter, but I doubt many dentists will actually take the time to visit the site prior to call you.

If you do receive a call from a test market dentist, just inform him/her that the spot has been filled in his/her market, but you will contact them if the position ever opens up. This allows you to dodge the fact that you don't actually have a website to promote their business, but it also gives you very qualified leads in a given market that you can target in the future.

Maybe you answered this already but are you using a single-page lead generation website or a full website (5-6 pages). Personally I'd go with a single page since it's less stress on my end.

Originally Posted by Rookie999

I use the use it or lose it method in letters by saying something like...

"It is important a to note that I have sent this offer to 9 other clinics in "City/Market area" and will promote the business of whoever gets back with me first."

You can try to slap that into the paragraph talking about the exclusive offer.

Also, I know burning leads is a huge concern. You can send your letter to a test market that you are not actually selling and see if you get any response. This will also allow you to split test the letters to increase conversions, all without burning through your leads. However, you won't be able to put a URL in the letter, but I doubt many dentists will actually take the time to visit the site prior to call you.

If you do receive a call from a test market dentist, just inform him/her that the spot has been filled in his/her market, but you will contact them if the position ever opens up. This allows you to dodge the fact that you don't actually have a website to promote their business, but it also gives you very qualified leads in a given market that you can target in the future.

Thanks a lot for that idea. Makes a lot of sense actually. Not sure if I will use it in this case, but it has sparked some other useful thoughts for me as well. Very good, thank you. +rep

Originally Posted by fuzzy_corleone

Maybe you answered this already but are you using a single-page lead generation website or a full website (5-6 pages). Personally I'd go with a single page since it's less stress on my end.

I am making a full site, I think my sites are 5 or 6 pages. Home, About, General, Cosmetic, Orthodontics, Contact us + Blog.

Making just a home page / one page site is good if you can make it work. My sites are good too. Doesn't matter as long as they produce results. In my opinion, a normal looking site would seem more legit to my visitors - so in my opinion the conversions would be better than a 1 page site.

Maybe with other niche's I could imagine a single page lead gen site to work well. But for a dentist, people don't want to just enter their details or call the number without looking around. Granted, most visitors on my site just see the home page and call the number without exploring - but if it was just the home page with nothing else, I am not sure if I would be getting as many callers as I do now.

Also, more pages is better for SEO because it allows me to do some good internal SEO and pretty much telling Google which keywords I want my home page to rank from, by using anchor texts from inner pages pointing to the home page. That's just my take on it.

UPDATED LETTER


January 03, 2012
Firstname Lastname
{My Company Name}
15 Mystreet Road,
Melbourne VIC 3000

Dear {Dental Clinic Name},

I’m going to get straight to the point because I know you’re busy; my company does advertising for dental clinics. Our advertising works better than the YellowPages or your local paper, and costs less.

My name is Chris with {My Company Name}, in {My Town}. We help dental clinics by increasing their client base. Our advertising will get people looking for dental services in {Their Town} calling you immediately, in some cases you’ll already have your first client calling on the same day you sign up.

Please take your time reading, but don’t delay. We have room for only one dental clinic in {Their Town}.
We work with several industry types, but our dental clients are seeing the best results. Our current dental clients are receiving many calls from our advertising. Please see the attached call log, it shows an example of calls recently delivered to a dentist in {Another Town}.

The truth is, our online advertising produces much better results than your YellowPages ad ever will. We’re cheaper and we track all calls made, so you aren’t sitting there and wondering if it’s working.

The most important part of my letter follows. The site DentistIn{Their Town}.com.au belongs to our network of sites. It receives a whopping 80 highly-interested potential clients every month, & for the last several months has been generating on average 15 callers every single month.

We’re absolutely ready to start sending your clinic these callers – & the calls will show immediately. These callers will result in new patients worth thousands in short-term and life-time revenue for your clinic.

There’s only the slightest catch – we only work with one dental clinic per area. In fairness, we’ve mailed a similar letter to the other leading dentists in the area. If you are interested in receiving these callers, please call me without delay on 1300 XXX XXX or on mobile at 043X XXX XXX.

Sincerely,
{Signature}
Firstname Lastname

Better, also maybe a screen shot of google adwords tool with the (broad) results for "City, Dentist" might be a nice touch.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks guys!

Will be attaching a nice screenshot of recently delivered calls for another dental clinic. Will also try and do some personalisation so that they don't just throw it away. I might grab their GPlaces listing and print it out in colour and attach it, or just try to find someone about their business online and print it off.

Anything to basically get them to think 'this is different' and give the letter a thought, or two.

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

UPDATED LETTER


January 03, 2012
Firstname Lastname
{My Company Name}
15 Mystreet Road,
Melbourne VIC 3000

Dear {Dental Clinic Name},

I’m going to get straight to the point because I know you’re busy; my company does advertising for dental clinics. Our advertising works better than the YellowPages or your local paper, and costs less.

My name is Chris with {My Company Name}, in {My Town}. We help dental clinics by increasing their client base. Our advertising will get people looking for dental services in {Their Town} calling you immediately, in some cases you’ll already have your first client calling on the same day you sign up.

Please take your time reading, but don’t delay. We have room for only one dental clinic in {Their Town}.
We work with several industry types, but our dental clients are seeing the best results. Our current dental clients are receiving many calls from our advertising. Please see the attached call log, it shows an example of calls recently delivered to a dentist in {Another Town}.

The truth is, our online advertising produces much better results than your YellowPages ad ever will. We’re cheaper and we track all calls made, so you aren’t sitting there and wondering if it’s working.

The most important part of my letter follows. The site DentistIn{Their Town}.com.au belongs to our network of sites. It receives a whopping 80 highly-interested potential clients every month, & for the last several months has been generating on average 15 callers every single month.

We’re absolutely ready to start sending your clinic these callers – & the calls will show immediately. These callers will result in new patients worth thousands in short-term and life-time revenue for your clinic.

There’s only the slightest catch – we only work with one dental clinic per area. In fairness, we’ve mailed a similar letter to the other leading dentists in the area. If you are interested in receiving these callers, please call me without delay on 1300 XXX XXX or on mobile at 043X XXX XXX.

Sincerely,
{Signature}
Firstname Lastname

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

Thanks guys!

Will be attaching a nice screenshot of recently delivered calls for another dental clinic. Will also try and do some personalisation so that they don't just throw it away. I might grab their GPlaces listing and print it out in colour and attach it, or just try to find someone about their business online and print it off.

Anything to basically get them to think 'this is different' and give the letter a thought, or two.

Methinks this sounds familiar.

Don't be afraid to name the competing businesses you're trying to sign up. Fear of loss is a powerful closing tool.

7878! Familiar because credits go to you! I have used your letters to try and guide me in what I should be doing!

Below is the most updated letter, which I plan on sending out!

I do have a few questions, though. These guys don't have any YellowPages ads, and there really isn't anything for me to 'print off' or 'cut out' to attach to the letter to make it stand out when they open it.

Do you think printing their GPlaces listing is a good idea?

I am already attaching a call log report of calls I have delivered for another clinic. I am also thinking of attaching a screenshot of the site that I am talking about.

I am also going to highlight in yellow the first opening line of the 'updated letter' below as well as sign off manually. The envelopes are manually addressed with a real stamp.

What do you guys think of this so far? Is there anything else I can do to add some personalisation? And what about the newest letter?

UPDATED LETTER BELOW:

January 05, 2012
Firstname Lastname
{My Company}
15 Mystreet Road,
{My Town} VIC 3000

Dear {Dental Clinic Name},

I’ve got 15 patients who are calling me every month, looking for a dentist in {Their Town}.

My name is Chris with {My Company}, in {My Town}. We do online advertising for dentists.

The site DentistIn{Their Town}.com.au belongs to our network of advertising sites. From it I receive on average 15 patients calling me per month, asking for appointments for dental services.

If you’ve ever toyed with advertising in the YellowPages or local paper, you will know that the results leave a whole lot to be desired. Our advertising is already generating callers every month.

Please see the attached call log. It shows calls we have delivered recently to a {Different town} dentist.

Benefits of working with us – our advertising...

• Does not have any contracts, paperwork or minimum commitments
• Will get patients calling your clinic the same day you call us & join
• Provides a better ROI compared to any other advertising (YellowPages, local paper etc)
• Includes a call tracking report at the end of the month – guaranteed results
• Is very affordable (seriously)
• Is Exclusive - we will only work with one dentist in {Their Town}

If you would benefit from the 15 patients we are generating every month, then please call me now on 1300 XXX, or on mobile at 043X XXX XXX.

Sincerely,
{SIGNED}
Firstname Lastname

-----------------

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

7878! Familiar because credits go to you! I have used your letters to try and guide me in what I should be doing!

Below is the most updated letter, which I plan on sending out!

I do have a few questions, though. These guys don't have any YellowPages ads, and there really isn't anything for me to 'print off' or 'cut out' to attach to the letter to make it stand out when they open it.

Do you think printing their GPlaces listing is a good idea?

I am already attaching a call log report of calls I have delivered for another clinic. I am also thinking of attaching a screenshot of the site that I am talking about.

I am also going to highlight in yellow the first opening line of the 'updated letter' below as well as sign off manually. The envelopes are manually addressed with a real stamp.

What do you guys think of this so far? Is there anything else I can do to add some personalisation? And what about the newest letter?

UPDATED LETTER BELOW:

January 05, 2012
Firstname Lastname
{My Company}
15 Mystreet Road,
{My Town} VIC 3000

Dear {Dental Clinic Name},

I’ve got 15 patients who are calling me every month, looking for a dentist in {Their Town}.

My name is Chris with {My Company}, in {My Town}. We do online advertising for dentists.

The site DentistIn{Their Town}.com.au belongs to our network of advertising sites. From it I receive on average 15 patients calling me per month, asking for appointments for dental services.

If you’ve ever toyed with advertising in the YellowPages or local paper, you will know that the results leave a whole lot to be desired. Our advertising is already generating callers every month.

Please see the attached call log. It shows calls we have delivered recently to a {Different town} dentist.

Benefits of working with us – our advertising...

• Does not have any contracts, paperwork or minimum commitments
• Will get patients calling your clinic the same day you call us & join
• Provides a better ROI compared to any other advertising (YellowPages, local paper etc)
• Includes a call tracking report at the end of the month – guaranteed results
• Is very affordable (seriously)
• Is Exclusive - we will only work with one dentist in {Their Town}

If you would benefit from the 15 patients we are generating every month, then please call me now on 1300 XXX, or on mobile at 043X XXX XXX.

Sincerely,
{SIGNED}
Firstname Lastname

-----------------

Thoughts?

Your latest update on the letter definitely looks better than the earlier versions.
I'd say you should give that one a test run already and see how many clients you land! Don't get stuck making changes after changes and not send anything out. Once you have one that you are genuinely happy with then send that one out asap and if you get no results then you can make some changes.


Best of luck to you!
Keep us posted on your results!
Cheers!

Benefits, Benefits, Benefits. Start Off asking a question. (The Hook) then give the benefits, benefits, benefits. Business owners subscribe to WIFM ( What's in it for me). Hello, Mr Jones, What would 80 more customers do for your business? We have a site which is getting 80 potential customers in the anywhere town, state. Which means you are able to hire more office staff so you can go on that vacation you always wanted or if you are lucky you can send your wife on that vacation without you so you can get a break from her.

Originally Posted by jb1978

Hi mate, i'm interested in knowing what service you are using to track your calls! Thanks in advance!

If you are in the U.S you can also use Google Voice to track the calls. Plus GVoice is FREE too!

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

I am making a full site, I think my sites are 5 or 6 pages. Home, About, General, Cosmetic, Orthodontics, Contact us + Blog.

Making just a home page / one page site is good if you can make it work. My sites are good too. Doesn't matter as long as they produce results. In my opinion, a normal looking site would seem more legit to my visitors - so in my opinion the conversions would be better than a 1 page site.

Maybe with other niche's I could imagine a single page lead gen site to work well. But for a dentist, people don't want to just enter their details or call the number without looking around. Granted, most visitors on my site just see the home page and call the number without exploring - but if it was just the home page with nothing else, I am not sure if I would be getting as many callers as I do now.

Also, more pages is better for SEO because it allows me to do some good internal SEO and pretty much telling Google which keywords I want my home page to rank from, by using anchor texts from inner pages pointing to the home page. That's just my take on it.

Can you share an example of one of your sites? If you don't want to post here can you PM me? I've got a few dentist sites setup, but want to see if my design can be reworked to get more leads. Thanks.

UPDATE

Had one dentist call back and rent one of the sites. I sent out 30 letters, around 15 to each suburb (2 suburbs total).

So one guy from 1 suburb called me and gave me his credit card over the phone and I've already billed him, invoiced him and changed all the details - and already delivered 1 call into his clinic.

Am doing some free GPlaces work (basic) for him as well which I think he is happy about.

He is already telling me he wants to recommend me to a few dental organisations that he is part of because he likes what I am doing.

$297/month

--- For the other suburb, no one has replied yet. I might get myself or my cold caller to follow up with them and see if they have any questions or what not.

Will keep my fingers crossed I can get the other suburb rented.

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

UPDATE

Had one dentist call back and rent one of the sites. I sent out 30 letters, around 15 to each suburb (2 suburbs total).

So one guy from 1 suburb called me and gave me his credit card over the phone and I've already billed him, invoiced him and changed all the details - and already delivered 1 call into his clinic.

Am doing some free GPlaces work (basic) for him as well which I think he is happy about.

He is already telling me he wants to recommend me to a few dental organisations that he is part of because he likes what I am doing.

$297/month

--- For the other suburb, no one has replied yet. I might get myself or my cold caller to follow up with them and see if they have any questions or what not.

Will keep my fingers crossed I can get the other suburb rented.

Pretty good result you have there May I ask what kind of population these 'suburbs' have? TIA

Originally Posted by mil0x

Pretty good result you have there May I ask what kind of population these 'suburbs' have? TIA

18.2K for the one rented!

Great thread! I see you're getting 15 calls a month, can you share how many visitors it takes to get those 15 calls? Ball park is fine.

Originally Posted by _alpha

Great thread! I see you're getting 15 calls a month, can you share how many visitors it takes to get those 15 calls? Ball park is fine.

The 15 per month is an average. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.

From memory my tracking shows I am getting around 50-60 visitors from search engines per month. So you can do the conversion math there

Speaking of which, it makes me upset that I get that many visitors but so little callers. I mean 15 is fine, but if I scale this up it might pay to spend thousands in conversion optimisation and just get the best converting design, even if I could bump that 15 up to 20 or 25 (still within realm of possibility, assuming traffic is constant) then I would have a much better service!

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

The 15 per month is an average. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.

From memory my tracking shows I am getting around 50-60 visitors from search engines per month. So you can do the conversion math there

Speaking of which, it makes me upset that I get that many visitors but so little callers. I mean 15 is fine, but if I scale this up it might pay to spend thousands in conversion optimisation and just get the best converting design, even if I could bump that 15 up to 20 or 25 (still within realm of possibility, assuming traffic is constant) then I would have a much better service!

Wow pretty good conversion! I've been wondering what kinda conversion to expect from these local "buyer" type words to try to price out a vaguely similar idea I have.

Obviously not all keywords and locales are the same, but still...that's a good rough ballpark to have.

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

UPDATE

Had one dentist call back and rent one of the sites. I sent out 30 letters, around 15 to each suburb (2 suburbs total).

So one guy from 1 suburb called me and gave me his credit card over the phone and I've already billed him, invoiced him and changed all the details - and already delivered 1 call into his clinic.

Am doing some free GPlaces work (basic) for him as well which I think he is happy about.

He is already telling me he wants to recommend me to a few dental organisations that he is part of because he likes what I am doing.

$297/month

--- For the other suburb, no one has replied yet. I might get myself or my cold caller to follow up with them and see if they have any questions or what not.

Will keep my fingers crossed I can get the other suburb rented.

Great results! Your call rate does not seem too bad really.

One thing you might want to try on your mailings:

Someone else said this, can't remember where, but I believe it's true. As the lumpy mail thread above indicates, Federal Express or UPS packages always get through the gatekeeper and go directly to the individual addressed. But it is expensive. However, you can get their envelopes for free and just send them in the local mail. The USPS, not sure about other countries' local mail service, will accept these envelopes as long as they have the right postage on them. In this way it gives your package priority.

Just food for thought,
DW

Originally Posted by krzysiekz

UPDATE

Had one dentist call back and rent one of the sites. I sent out 30 letters, around 15 to each suburb (2 suburbs total).

So one guy from 1 suburb called me and gave me his credit card over the phone and I've already billed him, invoiced him and changed all the details - and already delivered 1 call into his clinic.

Am doing some free GPlaces work (basic) for him as well which I think he is happy about.

He is already telling me he wants to recommend me to a few dental organisations that he is part of because he likes what I am doing.

$297/month

--- For the other suburb, no one has replied yet. I might get myself or my cold caller to follow up with them and see if they have any questions or what not.

Will keep my fingers crossed I can get the other suburb rented.

The latest site that you rented did you use the last updated letter that you posted here? Did you change anything with it?

I used the letter as it is. Do not remember changing anything. I would already have some modifications for it, though.