Approaching Possible Customers:
By now, you should have a whole list of businesses you want to approach. Businesses that you know need your service but how do you approach them with your service?
Email:
Start off easy, take the names you found in the SERPs who have websites, and find their "Contact Us" page and send them an email. Make it personal. Remember, local marketing is about relationships. Don't write a generic email; make it unique and personal.Introduce yourself and tell them that you are a local marketing company and give them a short description of what you do. Tell them you noticed there website was ranked on whatever pages for whatever keywords.
Don't over do this. Just mention two or three keywords and the where the pages are ranked. Let them know you can help them rank on page 1 and that 75% or more of all traffic happens on page 1. Don't drill it into there heads but plant the seed that page 2 might as well be page 200.
Example Email:
Hello, my name is Ty Johnson. I run an online marketing service. In other words, I help local businesses get there websites ranked on page one for local based keywords; thus, driving local customers to their websites.I noticed your website was ranked on
- page (blank) for the keyword (keyword)
- page (blank) for the keyword (keyword)
- page (blank) for the keyword (keyword)
If you would like to discuss the various ways I can help your business and the cost involved, I would be happy to come to your office for a face-to-face meeting.
Sincerely,
TY JOHNSON
Keep it short, simple, and to the point. Don't hard sell. If they are in the market, they will get back to you and, when that happens, you know your on the right track.
Fliers:
Go have some fliers made up. These should outline who you are and what your business does - much like the email. Keep it simple but here's the trick to making this work...You will want to have the flier so that you can walk into a business and ask to speak to the owner, manager, or whoever handles marketing for the company. When they come to great you, just shake their hand, introduce yourself, and tell them you just wanted to drop this flier off.
Put it in their hand and start at the top pointing quickly to the bullet points and telling them quickly what they say. Thank them for their time and leave. Just be casual about it.
This is called the "drop and walk," and it works. Believe me, this can work wonders, especially if you already know from the research you did that this business needs your service.
You will be surprised how often you don't make it to the door, before you hear, "Hey wait up a sec." That is music to my ears!
Phone Calls:
This is not a personal favorite of mine but, if you are good on the phone or have experience with this, you may do very well with this method.
Business Conventions:
Any time you get a chance to attend an event for business owners, you will want to take full advantage. If you know about the event in advance, you can often times get a list of businesses who will be attending and start doing your research.
Once you're there, you just have to go make friends with people. Now, in this environment, don't hand out fliers. It's just tacky! Just go shake hands with some people and ask them about their business.
Sooner or later they will ask you what you do. You tell them what you do but don't push for a sale or act anxious. Quite the opposite. You're just talking to someone, shooting the breeze. Talk about other things as well. In other words, just be casual and friendly.
Golf:
If you don't play golf, you are really missing out. So many business owners are avid golfers and there is no better way to build a relationship with someone than on the course.
The draw back to this is that golf is not cheap. So, this may be a method you will use at a later stage of your business' development.
Again, just be casual. Never ever be the first one to mention what you do. I promise you, if you play golf with someone, you will get to know everything there is to know about them and they about you.
Word Of Mouth:
In any face-to-face business, word of mouth is always your best friend. If you are good at making people money, your customers will start to find you!
This is why I say, a good reputation is worth more than silver and gold. Always over-deliver what you promise and not just by a small margin. Set out to WOW your customers and they will be only too happy to spread the word about you.
I mean look around at customer service everywhere and the quality of what you get these days. Is it just me or do people just not try anymore?
Don't get lazy. Your business will thrive if you can amaze your customers. Imagine what your own reaction would be if someone promised you a certain amount of work and then far exceeded your expectations.
Don't ever cop the attitude like, "I'm not doing that unless this chump pays me extra." This is your business, not a job! Treat it as such and take pride in what you do. If you do this, your business will thrive.
Join the Discussion
veronica.l
Premium
Nice training. Quick question, what is your conversion with the email that you send out?
Reply
DABK
Premium
If by conversions you mean what percentage of people I email to contact me, then it's 0-25%.
If you mean what percentage of people I email to contact me and take me up on whatever offer I'm making, 0-6.2%
Depends a lot on list quality, offer, product/service. I get low email response to free consultations/presentation, but once I make them, 3 out of 4 are convinced to try me out.
I have high response to offers to write seo'd articles and get them high in Google for a local keyword (31.57%), and high conversion (1 out of 3 want it).
I get low response to SEO and low conversions too... close to 0%, unless I call SEO something else.
Problem, I don't do enough of them. Further problem, I do small campaigns, don't have thousands of emails sent out, so the results might just be not too reliable.
If you mean what percentage of people I email to contact me and take me up on whatever offer I'm making, 0-6.2%
Depends a lot on list quality, offer, product/service. I get low email response to free consultations/presentation, but once I make them, 3 out of 4 are convinced to try me out.
I have high response to offers to write seo'd articles and get them high in Google for a local keyword (31.57%), and high conversion (1 out of 3 want it).
I get low response to SEO and low conversions too... close to 0%, unless I call SEO something else.
Problem, I don't do enough of them. Further problem, I do small campaigns, don't have thousands of emails sent out, so the results might just be not too reliable.
Ty Johnson
Premium
DABK
Premium
If you have the funds to sponsor a meeting/seminar, etc., do it.
I found out about this in 2005, when I had a real estate appraisal business.
Some guy called me to ask me to sponsor a day-long seminar that would be attended by 100 mortgage brokers and loan officers. Back then, they could hire appraisers.
I did. Cost me $1,200 and, though they promised 100 attendees, there were only 77, I was clueless about marketing, so I had my business card and a list of appraisers working with my company and how long they'd been appraisers, I got close to $40,000 out of that over the following 2 years.
As regards to chamber of commerce meetings, you don't have to join to attend... At least in my neck of the woods. They let you come to a couple of their events to get a feel for them, see if it's something you want to do.
So, join as many as you can afford but also try out others, or, if you can't afford, attend a few meetings anyway.
Don't go with regular business cards. Give out something useful. You know, online, you ask them to download your free report. What's to stop you to give them the same courtesy offline?
Give a couple of points from your free report on the back of your card and invite them to visit your website or email you to get the rest.
Follow up. They're there to make connections, to increase their area of influence, so after a meeting, sort through the cards you get, call the ones that interest you to meet with them for 30 minutes to find out what they do, how they do it and to see if you can refer any business to them.
One of the best questions you can ask them, How do I know if someone I know is a good fit for you?
As regards emails, my best subject line was
Looking for jeweler in (name of suburb or neighborhood)
I got 72% open rate and 25% contacted me.
It doesn't work with a lot of things, works with SEO. Because though you can increase a lot of people's internet presence, you can't rank more than 1 at #1 per keyword.
Be prepared to meet a lot of people who're going to tell you, I tried internet marketing and it doesn't work. Or, I tried SEO and it doesn't work.
Speaking of SEO, it's Chinese to most people (if you're in China, it's Romanian to most people) you're going to meet.
When Ty says don't sell, listen to him. If you go in there with the notion that you're there to find out what the business does and how it's working for them so as to see if you have any tools you can use to get them the results they're after, you're ahead.
1st job I ever got, I talked about how they could increase their internet presence for free. I talked to them about blogger.com. Had the owner sign up right then and there. Told her how easy it would be for her to post things about her company... (Disclosure, this was my insurance agent and she used to be friends with my wife... But the 2nd job I've done, I did the same, except I met the guy at a chamber of commerce event... and then another, and then another... After the 6th one he asked to meet with me.)
The next time I met her, I asked her if she'd blogged. She had not, did not have the time. I told her about facebook... every 4th or 5th post could be about her business. Gave her an example about her husband's business... independent insurance agent who'd just signed up with Traveler's insurance.
He'd just say, Hey, I just signed up with Traveler's Insurance. I'm excited because they have a great program for x type of people.
Next I know, her husband wants to give me $2,777 to get him some clients off the internet.
I took the money and... regretted it... He's still a paying client, but he's cheap as hell, so every meeting he complains about prices and asks for mutually exclusive things: like tons of leads that don't require him or anyone in his office to talk to them... He just hasn't got the time to convert them.
Since then, I've put in place screening criteria.
Sorry for the long reply. I think I could have said it, don't go to meeting looking to take, go to meetings and give something.
I found out about this in 2005, when I had a real estate appraisal business.
Some guy called me to ask me to sponsor a day-long seminar that would be attended by 100 mortgage brokers and loan officers. Back then, they could hire appraisers.
I did. Cost me $1,200 and, though they promised 100 attendees, there were only 77, I was clueless about marketing, so I had my business card and a list of appraisers working with my company and how long they'd been appraisers, I got close to $40,000 out of that over the following 2 years.
As regards to chamber of commerce meetings, you don't have to join to attend... At least in my neck of the woods. They let you come to a couple of their events to get a feel for them, see if it's something you want to do.
So, join as many as you can afford but also try out others, or, if you can't afford, attend a few meetings anyway.
Don't go with regular business cards. Give out something useful. You know, online, you ask them to download your free report. What's to stop you to give them the same courtesy offline?
Give a couple of points from your free report on the back of your card and invite them to visit your website or email you to get the rest.
Follow up. They're there to make connections, to increase their area of influence, so after a meeting, sort through the cards you get, call the ones that interest you to meet with them for 30 minutes to find out what they do, how they do it and to see if you can refer any business to them.
One of the best questions you can ask them, How do I know if someone I know is a good fit for you?
As regards emails, my best subject line was
Looking for jeweler in (name of suburb or neighborhood)
I got 72% open rate and 25% contacted me.
It doesn't work with a lot of things, works with SEO. Because though you can increase a lot of people's internet presence, you can't rank more than 1 at #1 per keyword.
Be prepared to meet a lot of people who're going to tell you, I tried internet marketing and it doesn't work. Or, I tried SEO and it doesn't work.
Speaking of SEO, it's Chinese to most people (if you're in China, it's Romanian to most people) you're going to meet.
When Ty says don't sell, listen to him. If you go in there with the notion that you're there to find out what the business does and how it's working for them so as to see if you have any tools you can use to get them the results they're after, you're ahead.
1st job I ever got, I talked about how they could increase their internet presence for free. I talked to them about blogger.com. Had the owner sign up right then and there. Told her how easy it would be for her to post things about her company... (Disclosure, this was my insurance agent and she used to be friends with my wife... But the 2nd job I've done, I did the same, except I met the guy at a chamber of commerce event... and then another, and then another... After the 6th one he asked to meet with me.)
The next time I met her, I asked her if she'd blogged. She had not, did not have the time. I told her about facebook... every 4th or 5th post could be about her business. Gave her an example about her husband's business... independent insurance agent who'd just signed up with Traveler's insurance.
He'd just say, Hey, I just signed up with Traveler's Insurance. I'm excited because they have a great program for x type of people.
Next I know, her husband wants to give me $2,777 to get him some clients off the internet.
I took the money and... regretted it... He's still a paying client, but he's cheap as hell, so every meeting he complains about prices and asks for mutually exclusive things: like tons of leads that don't require him or anyone in his office to talk to them... He just hasn't got the time to convert them.
Since then, I've put in place screening criteria.
Sorry for the long reply. I think I could have said it, don't go to meeting looking to take, go to meetings and give something.
Ty Johnson
Premium
You bring up some great points here, I like this replay, don't be sorry for the length, it's a very helpful reply.
It's a lot easier to get clients than people think, the hardest part is just showing up to meetings, or contacting people, you really have to be self motivated for this type of business
I have just downloaded that seo suit, I am going to give it a try, and see how I like it, it will have to wait till tomorrow tho, getting late here, but it is at the top of my list for tomorrow
OH thank you for liking it =)
It's a lot easier to get clients than people think, the hardest part is just showing up to meetings, or contacting people, you really have to be self motivated for this type of business
I have just downloaded that seo suit, I am going to give it a try, and see how I like it, it will have to wait till tomorrow tho, getting late here, but it is at the top of my list for tomorrow
OH thank you for liking it =)
Ty Johnson
Premium
I start with finding great keywords, by just doing a normal keyword search, from the keywords I find, I see who is ranking for them, and that's where I find who to approach, if you watch closely you will start to see the same companies ranking for similar keywords, on various pages, of course.
If anyone knows of software, that you can plug in a URL and see where they rank for different KWs I would love to hear about it, that would be a really handy tool to have, priceless even.
I hope that made sense, if not just let me know, I will try to explain it further
Thank you for the complement btw =)
If anyone knows of software, that you can plug in a URL and see where they rank for different KWs I would love to hear about it, that would be a really handy tool to have, priceless even.
I hope that made sense, if not just let me know, I will try to explain it further
Thank you for the complement btw =)
tommo1968
Premium Plus
I see, if you find a low QSR keyword you already know you can push it to 1 without much hassle. So you target other companies on page 2 and below to see if they are interested. They then look at you as a SEO guru and pass on the word. Excellent.
Have already found a few good keywords locally just need to hone my skills on pushing pages to 1 still on the leaning curve on that one.
Have already found a few good keywords locally just need to hone my skills on pushing pages to 1 still on the leaning curve on that one.
Ty Johnson
Premium
Ty Johnson
Premium
DABK
Premium
http://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/check-rankings.html
This is the link to download SEO power suite. It's free. One of the things that comes with it is Rank Tracker. You put in a URL, add the keywords you want to see if it ranks for, select search engine, hit enter, and a few minutes later you have the results.
It only checks the top 10 pages.
Google is not fond of it, thinks you're trying to spam it. It lets you do some 50 keywords at a time.
After you use it, if you use it for more than 5 or so keywords, Google will ask you to decipher a capcha.
If you check all 3 main search engines and have more than a dozen keywords, it takes forever (at least 4 minutes).
You can do only one domain name at a time... It doesn't show you which page on the domain is showing up in the search engines.
This is the link to download SEO power suite. It's free. One of the things that comes with it is Rank Tracker. You put in a URL, add the keywords you want to see if it ranks for, select search engine, hit enter, and a few minutes later you have the results.
It only checks the top 10 pages.
Google is not fond of it, thinks you're trying to spam it. It lets you do some 50 keywords at a time.
After you use it, if you use it for more than 5 or so keywords, Google will ask you to decipher a capcha.
If you check all 3 main search engines and have more than a dozen keywords, it takes forever (at least 4 minutes).
You can do only one domain name at a time... It doesn't show you which page on the domain is showing up in the search engines.
