Finding clients!

Hi,

A while ago i started a webdesign company with my girlfriend. Our business is to deliver websites to small businesses for a monthly fee.

We had 4 customers so far (since november) and those were all via email marketing. We send out hundreds of emails and we had some people emailing back but most of those 'leads' faded.

So we're doing some finishing touches to our last clients websites and now we're without clients! I think email marketing isn't the right way to go because we spend a lot of time on typing customized emails and no one bites.

So we need new ways to market our offline business. Our idea is to target local business owners without a website and explain them about the importance of having a website and what it does for them.

So my question would be what would be the best way to contact these local business owners? mind you if they don't have a website yet they're probably not that tech savvy).

I was thinking either cold calling or direct mailing them (sending postcards, flyers).

Since I'm young, I have a day job in an office supply store. I run a two-man web/print company with my friend (well technically two companies, but we're in the process of merging) and we pick up about 2-3 clients a week by talking to them in the store, especially the ones getting work done in the printing center because they are usually printing flyers, cards, etc. i.e. things to promote their business.

So you can contact some local office supply places, (even a corp. chain, because I work in one), and see if you can work out something where you can leave flyers in the print center for customers to pick up. Don't be afraid to ask even if they are a corp., because the local Chick-Fil-A and CiCi's advertise in our store all the time. So you may be able to work out a deal like "I'll pay you to print my flyers if you let me leave them here," etc.

You can also leave flyers elsewhere. I know a lot of the smaller restaurants and especially coffee/drink shops let you put up flyers, and since people are always doing business in places like Starbucks, it makes sense to put your business name there.

I would think mailing would work best with a follow up phone call to arrange a meeting, but that depends on how good of a salesman you are. However, straight up walking in and talking to the owner may work. I've never tried it, but I can sell mobile marketing to a company in ten minutes and it's also a recurring fee, so a website should be the same. As long as you pitch it in a way that shows you want to help them by providing irresistible value, rather than appearing to just want to take their money.

Also, if you live near a big city, or at least live in a decently-populated city, you can SEO your site to the top of the SERPs pretty quickly and get a couple clients a month like that.

Lastly, you should try selling mobile marketing to your clients as well so they can always be in touch with customers and create an unforgettable brand for themselves, so contact me if you'd like details on that.

try the telemarketing report by john durham its in the download section.

I'm doing some time with web design too.

For international clients it's best to use some adwords vouchers. You can use them for local ads too.

For local companies try the local Classfieds and similar. Also don't forget to do some marketing in the local newspapers, if you find it affordable. Every local business owner reads the newspaper, so that's the best way to go. Make your add catchy telling them how important it is for their business to have a website etc.

What's most important for your business are business cards. Create very unique and catchy web design business cards and once u have few clients give them few cards more so if they are happy with the design they will most likely share some of your business cards with some companies they are cooperating etc. Don't hesitate to share a business card with every important man u know. You can get your business growing in no time.

You can partner with other complimentary businesses. With design you could partner with a marketing firm, for example. I mostly do marketing work but always need design work done, so I send all design work to my friend Vanessa or sub-contract it out to her.

Offer exclusive deals to business groups in your area. There's probably multiple BIAs (Business Improvement Associations) in your area that you could call up and offer a deal for first X months only to their members. There's usually a few specific groups as well for different professions (Restaurant Owners, Doctors, Lawyers, etc).

Edit: Also take some advice from this thread and implement a referral system. He even has the documents in there to arrange a commission referral system - get other people to market your services and cut them in.

Cold calling can be effective - but you need a good sales person to do it. In my experience (I work in IT support), every business owner wants a website (if they havnt already got one), but alot of people put it off because they just don't know how to go about it and what they actually want/need.

You need to really get in front of businesses in your area and excite them !

As others say as well, you need multiple advertising platforms - just find out what's about, and make use of what you can afford - local newspapers, shop windows, give business cards out etc.

Thanks a lot for the great advice. Currently i'm in the progress of finding a cold-caller on Odesk and designing some flyers.

Regarding referrals, i think the most common thing to offer is a certain percentage of the yearly fee. But has anyone ever considered offering something else like a gift? I'm thinking of an iPad or iPhone or whatever? Would it work better?

Hi Guys,

Little update on my side.

Via Odesk i had someone look up 1000 potential SEO clients and compile them in an excel sheet (very cheap $10)
Now we hired someone to cold call 100 of the people off the list offering them a free SEO report.

I'll post back the results!

I think the right mentality you need to successfully 'cold-call' on a business that needs a website is to come across like you're truly there to help!

For instance, let's say you have one of those nifty lead generation app out on the market today that scraps G-Places?let's take Local Lead Maximize for example.

Now, when you run the software and enter in your specific keywords and then a particular 'city/location', (Pizza Restaurants ? San Francisco, CA) the software will come back with all the listings that are currently listed w/in "Google Places".

Some things to look for in identifying new potential clients are:

• Is their listing *verified*
  If not, then you can either call or email them, since both (Phone # AND Email address) have been 'verified', you should be able to reach a live person. Let them know that they're in 'risk' of losing that particular spot in the listings simply because it's not *verified*. Offer to help them get it listed, as well as getting it listed higher up in the 7-pack!
  
  Here's a good video example of how you could possibly get their attention:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7qVJwuogmE&feature=channel_video_title
  NOTE: FAST FORWARD TO ABOUT THE 7:00 MINUTE MARK TO GET THE MEAT & POTATOES ON HOW TO GET THE OWNERS ATTENTION!
• If the business DOESN'T have a website, then there's an up-sell for you!
• If the business HAS a website, check to see if there's a mobile version. If not, there's another up-sell for you!
• If the business has BOTH a website AND a mobile version, offer them a SMS Marketing package!
• If the business HAS A website, but no lead capturing system in place?BOOM! There's another up-sell!
• If the business has a website, check to see if they have a FB Fan Page? If not, yet another up-sell!
• Does the business have a Twitter account? If not, there's yet another up-sell!

Bottom line?many businesses need online marketing, but so few actually know how to do it, nor do they have big pockets to outsource to the big name companies who charge 4/5 figures to do it!

Whether you attack local businesses via cold calling, email or direct mail, it doesn't matter!

What does matter though is?




TAKING ACTION!

@H2oBoy thanks for your great post. Allthough i haven't replied to it i read it and i thought i already replied to it but didn't!

However.

We compiled a list of 100 businesses with poor to non SEO and we hired someone on Odesk to give them a call. We didnt want to call as we were selling something but we just wanted to offer them a site report.

Out of the 100 came 7 warm leads which was more then we could have hoped for.

And one person already wants a meeting after seeing the report!

Cold Calling is an art. The absolute best way to do it is hire and manage from within. However, you will need money. Rent, Furniture, Computers, utilities, Calling Solution (dialer) or manual to start. There are nice open source dialers that have supported a couple of my centers over the years nicely.
Hire people as horses. Make em run fast and jump high for as long as they can, then dump them.... Hire them for 1-2 weeks free, unpaid training.....You will weed out the shit fast. If they have nothing, dump em, cost you zero in pay and taxes. They are not employees yet. Then hire them for 2 weeks at minimum wage, to prove themselves, further weed out the ones that are no good. Then the ones that are left are your stars....Bump them to 10-12 per hour with bonuses..... 80/20 rule applies to this. Monitor them like your teenage daughter, train them like Athletes, and praise them and you will have a successful room. If budget is a factor....
Hire overseas, BUT (and a big But) use what I have perfected as the filter system....get as many rooms as you can overseas ( Philippeans, Costa Rica, Jamica) is the best. I stay away from the rest. Either too expensive (canada, UK) or too much accent. This is a method that, and its the only method that has worked for me overseas, believe me I have failed more times than not over there....I have 9 rooms with about 5-10 agents setting warm leads (99% of them shit), It doesnt matter really to me, I just want more rooms and more Tier 1, (green agents calling). The lead gets hot transferred to my main room, this only has 3 Tier 3 agents that filters all the crap out... So the funnel system works like this 90 agents hammering the phones, hot transferring to my Tier 3 agents, The tier 3 agents kick all the BS out. 99%. I am left with the buyers. This is the only way it works for me....Otherwise youwill be left chasing your tail after a bunch a shit leads...You would be better yourself if you picked up the YP and Called business out of the blue......

I do all tests myself.....I load up call fire and sample 2000-3000 owners to perfect scripts etc....

Ask any questions about call centers....I have owned them for 15 years. Just setting up another one now.

I know a great deal about direct mail too.
Direct mail expect a .5% response, if you get this its good.

Email Marketing blows, unless it is too your own list and compiled by you. Or you buy very targeted leads (expensive but well worth it)

I would much rather buy 1000 leads that cost $1.00 a lead, than buy 1MM for $100. Quality Quality Quality.....In the end its all about numbers.

Word to the wise, dont let anyone take the power away from you that you have. No employee and def not any business owner on the phone. They will try and suck you dry; perseverance, persistence, patience......

if you want my opinion, referrals is the best way.

I charge $1000 for a simple wordpress site all you need is to give them a reason to have a website, then work on it hard, if they like it, they will tell the other business owners about your services.


Online Clients? my advice would be forget about them, they don't pay much.

So after about two weeks of cold calls we got some serious leads which is great. What we do i see call them and offer them a site report. So i use some software to generate a report and add some custom info.

The only thing is.. I'm wondering if these emails are effective enough because sadly we got 0 replies! So monday i got a day set up to call everyone back that we have send a report to and we'll see if they read them.

Does anyone have another way to proceed after the call? Set up a meeting straight away?

Does anyone have a sales pitch?
i would mind trying this out Because i do Telemarketing>

IKbentim said:

So after about two weeks of cold calls we got some serious leads which is great. What we do i see call them and offer them a site report. So i use some software to generate a report and add some custom info.

The only thing is.. I'm wondering if these emails are effective enough because sadly we got 0 replies! So monday i got a day set up to call everyone back that we have send a report to and we'll see if they read them.

Does anyone have another way to proceed after the call? Set up a meeting straight away?

Click to expand...

Anyone?

media, what about google tv marketing?

I perfer craiglist. Just a few ads will bring in some calls. Keep away from emails... and try to get phone calls. Email is easy but very low conversion rates. Also email allows people to control the conversation where a phone call makes it easier for you to give advice and input to build value in your service. Offer a FREE website and put month fees in. 30 day money back guarntee or something...

The trick is get them in and give gaurntees. Web DOT tv has a great promo they are running radio spots and tv spots. We just bought a website (sorry you just missed a customer) and I looked at a dozen companies before we went with one.

PM me and I can show you how to get free radio spots on any clear channel radio station in South Florida. This is a cool offline source I found. Not only will you get free radio spots but also free customers... from south florida.

I don't think i can PM you yet but sure would love more info on what you say on Craigslist (or anywhere for that matter) as well as more info on the other ads. Thank you for the info, us newbies sure appreciate your sharing!

Have you tried specializing to a certain market...example real estate sites. If you focus on a certain field you can market with adsense, post your services on forums, post ads on craigslist and scrape emails from the sections that pertain to the field your specializing in. Most smaller business have there emails with the web domain address in them. You could check out their sites and I'm sure you will find a ton of crappy sites that you could explain how you services will increase their business presence and improve their professional image. I've had great success using these methods. Good luck!

call and set up a face 2 face. The close should be done in person.

IKbentim said:

So after about two weeks of cold calls we got some serious leads which is great. What we do i see call them and offer them a site report. So i use some software to generate a report and add some custom info.

The only thing is.. I'm wondering if these emails are effective enough because sadly we got 0 replies! So monday i got a day set up to call everyone back that we have send a report to and we'll see if they read them.

Does anyone have another way to proceed after the call? Set up a meeting straight away?

Click to expand...