Trying out 7878's ORM Mail Tactic

[jexie]

Just finding the leads that are most willing/interested in the service.

Currently I am going off - most recent review, # of reviews and an avg less than 3.0
bonus if the business has a website or any online pressence.

as far as industry type I am really going for whatever, hotels, dentists, retail, entertainment, etc.. any business I can find.

The process is also a little tedious, but I understand a single letter could potentially have a large payout, and some of these business it's crazy how poorly they are reviewed, some even have the courage to yell back at the reviewers, its insane to read haha.

Listen to 1337WuLF, I think people focus too much on low ratings & reviews from Yelp. Instead, just get in touch with as many businesses as possible

 

[BHopkins]

Listen to 1337WuLF, I think people focus too much on low ratings & reviews from Yelp. Instead, just get in touch with as many businesses as possible

With the caveat that a company with good or great reviews wouldn't need your help. Obviously you need to target businesses with reputation problems since that's what you're trying to fix.

 

[Laraz]

My style is to compile all the bad reviews for 1 company and then send prospective clients the links. That usually scares them into hiring me.

 

[netmoney1]

You might be playing with fire in terms of those reviews. For instance, the one saying they have been using you for a year. A simple Whois search shows you just registered the domain on the 16th of this month - 4 days ago.

Business owners are smart. They WILL reverse search you. They will then assume you are 100% full of shit. Your letter will then go in the trash.

I would remove all those fake reviews. A quick whois wipes out any credibility instantly. Don't assume your potential customers are stupid - they are much smarter than you are giving them credit for...

 

[H0BB5]

Hey everyone,

Got some great news! Mailed out a batch of 50 on friday and received a call today, Monday from a hotel.
I am not 100% sure if the person I was talking to was the owner or a manager, I should have asked to find out if he was a decision maker in retrospect.

But get this - He asked what I could do with FOUR properties! Fucking awesome!
Hope it plays out well, his properties are pretty negative, so I think this will help him out as well.

Will keep everyone posted, I will also upload some images of the copies I have sent out. I did some tweaks and laid out the review page a bit differently.
This is a great start though! I have already mailed out the remaining 50 today.

 

[oblivion19]

Hey everyone,

Got some great news! Mailed out a batch of 50 on friday and received a call today, Monday from a hotel.
I am not 100% sure if the person I was talking to was the owner or a manager, I should have asked to find out if he was a decision maker in retrospect.

But get this - He asked what I could do with FOUR properties! Fucking awesome!
Hope it plays out well, his properties are pretty negative, so I think this will help him out as well.

Will keep everyone posted, I will also upload some images of the copies I have sent out. I did some tweaks and laid out the review page a bit differently.
This is a great start though! I have already mailed out the remaining 50 today.

Talk about beginners luck. Good job. What are you gonna be actually doing for them fore their rep management?

 

[H0BB5]

Wooh! Alright, so I have my first meeting today. It is a furniture company and it was hard to gauge his interest level over the phone since he went straight to booking the meeting. I like the straight to business attitude so hopefully it turns out well and I can close.

I also noticed, some of you might find this interesting but on his google review page he actually went and wrote in a 5 star review for his business himself. Pretty funny to see but it does show he recognizes it as an issue and probably does need some help.


Last night I built the funnel system/site. I decided to build it with angular just because I have wanted a simplistic site. I think it's a little rough around the edges and I wish I had more time to work on it but I've been busy with my full time job.


Anyways, I've got something to show him, I'm going to go in and explain the benefits, what I do and the cost.


I have a few things I would like to try on him to see his response. I think I will mention a contract or term for 6 months.
I think when he refers to price (he already asked how much and knows it's $497 prior to this meeting) but I know he's going to ask again. At this point I think I will mention that I have packages for $2500 designed for larger businesses/hotels/chains or whatever but mention that I think the $497 package will work just fine for his business and explain what it includes.


This is just a preemptive measure to prevent haggling

 

[Syzpe]

I've tried this method before and saw some traction from it. The only recommendation I have is to ensure you are targeting a place that has a high margin.

For example a dentist only needs 1 new client to justify the cost, someone who sells yogurt might need 100+ customers to do the same. Focus on the high end as you will have a better impact for your customers, and a higher conversion rate on your sales. Each of these letters could take you almost an hour to create so making sure that it is something your customers CAN actually say yes to is crucial.

 

[Shadexpwn]

Much of this method has to be self-replicated as it can easily be deceived as marketing material as the next generation expect more and become more literate in terms of acknowledging marketing material.

 

[1337WuLF]

Much of this method has to be self-replicated as it can easily be deceived as marketing material as the next generation expect more and become more literate in terms of acknowledging marketing material.

What are you suggesting?

 

[H0BB5]

UPDATE:

Alright! Interesting day for sure. I've got some great news but first ill talk about the meeting:

I went into the meeting at the store location today. I introduced myself, built rapport, the meeting went quite well, he seemed very keen for a good portion of it but when I mentioned the cost being $497 he almost freaked out. I don't think this is because my price was too high but rather he seemed very cheap as a person, not to be rude or anything. We got along just fine and he saw the benefits in it and offered me $100/mo for a 1 year contract on it.
That definitely doesn't seem like it's worth the work so I told him I was at the lowest rate I could go.
So no luck this time, but definitely a learning experience. I think overall he was really impressed by the whole thing and really seemed like he wanted it, unfortunately he wasn't willing to pay the price.


I'm not too bummed out that it didnt turn into a sale though, just before I went into the meeting I received a call from a retail chain that I reached out to. In the letter it was made out to one of their locations but the head office said they got the mail and asked what it was I did. I explained to them that I do online reputation management and asked what they thought of the letter etc.. and I was asked how much it would be for 80 of their locations! Insane! Completely took me by surprised, luckily I didnt show it and said that's great I would have to talk to my developers and see how much time would be needed etc.. and get back to them with a price. I think it was a secretary that called me however, so I don't know how much of a pull she'll have. But she didn't act like a gate keeper much at all.

I told her that we were going to charge the one location the letter was made out to $1000 and she didnt seem to phased by it, so this might turn into something. I was emailed afterwards asking for quote, assuming that what I write here will be forwarded to the owner.

Any suggestions??? I would probably have to take a few days off work to code everything and prepare so many.

This has definitely been a great journey so far, still no sales but nice getting my feet wet and the leads are warm

** Edit ** If anyone has any tips or advice on how to approach this i'm open ears.
Should I try and take it off email? I'm assuming she would like me to explain who I am what I do how much it will cost and what the benefits are.
I'm thinking the email will probably be forwarded to the owner and I want it to be compelling enough that he will want to have a meeting.

Not sure on how to quote a larger project like this.

Cheers!

 

[1337WuLF]

Awesome. Goodluck man!

 

[oblivion19]

Sounds like it is worth putting a lot of effort in to. I would suggest you to consider the idea of sending a PDF file which is well organised. In the beginning, do a brief summary of what you are offering and the price and then proceed to give a detailed account of what you are going to be doing. Focus on how each step you do helps the business. Include screenshots of other businesses before and after ORM and how much it helped their business. If you have the budget, don't be afraid to hire a video guy and do a presentation in video too.

 

[H0BB5]

Sounds like it is worth putting a lot of effort in to. I would suggest you to consider the idea of sending a PDF file which is well organised. In the beginning, do a brief summary of what you are offering and the price and then proceed to give a detailed account of what you are going to be doing. Focus on how each step you do helps the business. Include screenshots of other businesses before and after ORM and how much it helped their business. If you have the budget, don't be afraid to hire a video guy and do a presentation in video too.

Yeah for sure. Thanks for the advice. I'm putting together a pretty nice PDF made specifically for them. I've searched for their competitors results and their results in specific areas around the city and have outlined comparisons in their reach vs the competitors.
I also provided a screenshot of their store locator vs a google map's search. They have over 70 locations on their store map but on google only 9 are being displayed.

This combined with the basic info is what i've gotten so far. I think it will end up being a 2-3 page document. I may upload it afterwards, but it is pretty specific so for confidential reasons I may have to black out sections/parts.

Does ANYONE have any advice on how to approach pricing or price this out? It's a very scary decision. I have looked online and found franchise information about their locations, it says each location makes about 540k in gross profit yearly.
They would like nearly 80 of their locations, at 500/mo per location that is quite a bit of money. Would I price this high or should I decrease it drastically to get the work?
Opinions and advice is definitely welcome.

If I were to get that many locations I would probably develop some sort of system for them to receive customer emails on purchase and integrate it into the review process as well as some sort of email marketing.

 

[oblivion19]

Don't short-sell yourself. I think $500 is pretty low for a company that makes so much money. I would personally give them multiple options to choose from with the lowest being $500 and the highest being $5k. Make sure you throw in some SEO jargon in there so that each package has distinct features and benefits.

Do not say that the $500 plan is enough for their needs. You are underselling if you do that. If they ask you what plan you would suggest, you say that they could go for the $500 plan but if they have a bigger budget, they could go for the $2k plan which has these advantages over the $500 plan.

Don't be afraid to make money. Use the money from this business to hire a couple of people, set up a real business and scale.

All the best.

 

[RightInTwo]

Yeah for sure. Thanks for the advice. I'm putting together a pretty nice PDF made specifically for them. I've searched for their competitors results and their results in specific areas around the city and have outlined comparisons in their reach vs the competitors.
I also provided a screenshot of their store locator vs a google map's search. They have over 70 locations on their store map but on google only 9 are being displayed.

This combined with the basic info is what i've gotten so far. I think it will end up being a 2-3 page document. I may upload it afterwards, but it is pretty specific so for confidential reasons I may have to black out sections/parts.

Does ANYONE have any advice on how to approach pricing or price this out? It's a very scary decision. I have looked online and found franchise information about their locations, it says each location makes about 540k in gross profit yearly.
They would like nearly 80 of their locations, at 500/mo per location that is quite a bit of money. Would I price this high or should I decrease it drastically to get the work?
Opinions and advice is definitely welcome.

If I were to get that many locations I would probably develop some sort of system for them to receive customer emails on purchase and integrate it into the review process as well as some sort of email marketing.

Set your standards high with your clients if you are doing consulting. In all of the consulting work that I have done, if they scoff at my pricing early on, it just simply isn't a good fit. Your time is valuable and if they aren't willing to pay for it, I guarantee you that they will be a huge pain in the ass. The smaller clients bring in less money and take up more time. Thats just the way it is unfortunately.

This sounds like a large campaign. Have you looked at each of the results to see what you are up against? This will help you establish how much you might have to spend on link building or other costs. You could work backwards to establish your pricing if you have an idea of what it takes to influence each of the results. Establish your cost, add in your time for reporting, meetings and working on the campaign. Then slap on a margin on top of that as well. Hope that helps!

 

[pewpez]

As a former wage slave at a fashion retailer, I have encountered those ORM programs. Every tenth customer got an extra receipt with an access code for an online customer survey. A monthly cashprize was the incentive to participate.
That hardly helps with your question regarding pricing, but it may give you an idea on how to implement it at such a scale.
Good Luck anyway, that is some exciting progress.

 

[ddarkos]

I tried this six months ago. This method worked for me, but you need to do a lot (you need time, if you have it-this is for you). It is better if you live in a big city. Dont send just 50 letters, send at least 100 a week will be better. Use Yelp. You can chose any business you want, I preffer md, podiatrics, dentists...all with money
I made 5 different types of letters. Every Wednesday I sent one type of letter to xxx numbers of business.

Its ok, you can have a lot of money, but you need a lot of time!

 

[H0BB5]

I tried this six months ago. This method worked for me, but you need to do a lot (you need time, if you have it-this is for you). It is better if you live in a big city. Dont send just 50 letters, send at least 100 a week will be better. Use Yelp. You can chose any business you want, I preffer md, podiatrics, dentists...all with money
I made 5 different types of letters. Every Wednesday I sent one type of letter to xxx numbers of business.

Its ok, you can have a lot of money, but you need a lot of time!

Nice man! How much did you make/what results did you receive? Keen to hear

 

[H0BB5]

Set your standards high with your clients if you are doing consulting. In all of the consulting work that I have done, if they scoff at my pricing early on, it just simply isn't a good fit. Your time is valuable and if they aren't willing to pay for it, I guarantee you that they will be a huge pain in the ass. The smaller clients bring in less money and take up more time. Thats just the way it is unfortunately.

This sounds like a large campaign. Have you looked at each of the results to see what you are up against? This will help you establish how much you might have to spend on link building or other costs. You could work backwards to establish your pricing if you have an idea of what it takes to influence each of the results. Establish your cost, add in your time for reporting, meetings and working on the campaign. Then slap on a margin on top of that as well. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the advice RightInTwo,
I've made a 3 page PDF (4 pages inc cover), it seems pretty well designed, very clean and persuasive.
I basically showed comparisons of their current search results on google vs the storelocator on their website.
The google search brings up a fraction of the stores.
I also found their average ratings on yellowpages, yelp, google + as well as educated them on the benefits and pricing.

Sent it out Friday evening and I am awaiting a response today (Hopefully one comes, that would be amazing).

We'll see what happens, I found the whole process after receiving their RFP sort of stressful but am happy I was able to pull it off and deliver.
Eager to seek out more opportunities like this one.

A tip to everyone from what i've learned so far ? always take a shot, even if you feel like a little fish. If you find an issue a larger company has, do your due diligence and take action to solve it. Worst thing that can happen is you get ignored but even then you have that much more as experience.