Selling SEO via leaflet distribution

Not sure why this was moved to the SEO forum, it needs to be in the offline marketing section!

I personally would chuck it in the bin.

Much better to connect with local businesses through social media.

If this sort of ad reached me I would be quite amused. Then again, I'm building web pages and doing some SEO too.

I think some businesses may react better to a slick leaflet than, say, email. Everyone needs a website nowadays, but there's quite a lot of entrepreneurs who are not good at that stuff.

Which businesses and why?

If it's general, it will work less effectively...

If you're doing SEO for orthodontists and I'm an orthodontist and your leaflet clearly says you're talking to orthodontists, you're a big step closer to me paying attention.

If it's for all orthodontist, it will work less effectively....

If it spoke to left-handed orthodontists and told them how your SEO gets left-handed orthodontists an advantage over right-handed orthodontists and I wanted to have an advantage over right-handed orthodontists, you'd be in business.

To summarize:
Be clear on who you're after and why: what pain they have that you address better (or, at least) differently than other people?

Read these threads for how to construct a good offer (don't forget to say, Thanks, Ewanmack:
http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...t-mailing.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...-pages-ad.html

Luke;

It will work, but you'll have to do more than just hand out leaflets. If you just hand out 5,000 leaflets, you'll probably still get zero results.

But if you use the leaflet as a conversation starter, you'll have much better results.

It isn't the leaflet that sells. It's got to be you. You have to talk to your prospects in person. And a leaflet won't even get them to call for an appointment.

The leaflet is simply an excuse to talk to them. If you want to hand them a leaflet, fine. But it's incidental to talking to them.

Literally nobody is going to think, "Ahhh, a leaflet on SEO. I can't wait to read this!"

Again, a leaflet is simply something to do with your hands, while you talk to them.

My philosophy is to never hand them anything on paper, even a business card, until after you finish your presentation, including the close. Why? Because it's an excuse for them at the close to say "Okay, well I have your business card. I will think about this and call you if I'm ready", or "Okay, well I have your information, I will look it over with my colleges and get back to you".

Just my own take on it.

I would make a paper airplane & throw it across the office.

Luke4 that only thing I'd add is that as a business owner I'm unlikely to see your flyer. Incoming mail and phone calls are filtered. The letters that bypass reception tend to be handwritten envelopes, ones marked private and confidential and from a select few of important clients. It's been months since a flyer landed on my desk.

As were a marketing firm we do have a swipe meeting once a month where we go through incoming mail but that's for inspiration.

Big thanks to all the helpful replies!

For those that decided to go off topic... cheers!

I'm dubious that many people would respond to a leaflet offering SEO. It's seen as a dodgy industry and if they know they need SEO, they'd try and find a referral rather than advertising.

If they don't know they need it then they probably won't know what you're talking about...

When I was still offering SEO, we distributed info leaflets at networking meetings. These were problem/solution information with a simple "call us if you need further info or help" type call to action. The info was basically a how to, for common problems we identified, but without too much technical detail. We stopped in Oct 2011 and we continued to have calls from these info leaflets this year...

We built our business on referrals and networking. I don't mean BNI type networking, I mean making it a habit to take someone new out to lunch or coffee every week. No selling, purely to find out what they do and why they do it. And hopefully they will want to know about you too (and in most cases they do). If they show interest, then make an appointment, but keep the lunch as social...

Also become a connector. You get them talking about any business issues, then refer someone you've previously met, perhaps inviting them both to lunch together. You then gain a reputation of being someone who knows useful people. Your name gets around without advertising...

Offering discounts attracts the wrong type of client. We started out offering a free SEO audit, then we started charging for the audit. We got less enquiries, but conversions sky-rocketed and the quality of client went up too...

If I were to start again in the SEO business, I'd find some other service as an entry point - one that produces results fast. That way you build trust in your expertise. We started offering customer reactivation sequences in order to quickly generate cash to pay for our SEO - free SEO However we found most businesses were more interested in doing more customer reactivations than the SEO, so we more or less dropped SEO. We still do some onsite where necessary...

Gotta go...

Good luck man. If you can see through your ill feelings long enough to use the advice, it was good and will help you.

Later.

...Sorry to barge in here but I saw the word "leaflet."

Which to me is a phenomenal flyer (always use with care and caution - they are tremendous when people would much prefer not to be hassled with a "cold" verbal sales spiel * - make that around 97.979% of the worlds population).

And yes with the perfect message aimed at the ideal audience they can produce staggeringly good results.

It's the copy that will make or break it. For example nobody wants top notch copy - they want a huge boost in business with a massive surge of cash and profits.

SEO is not my main area of expertise - but I imagine nobody wants it either - they want their interweb site to be at the top of the page.


Steve


* not to be confused with the good people who are actively looking to make a purchase.

When I helped promote a web designer for 'mobilegedden' we used a two touch formula that you may be able to adapt.

On the first mailing we set it up as a challenge to find your site online through your mobile phone. We placed rules that you can't use URL, third party sites or your company name.

The idea was to get them to search something like 'emergency plumber Manchester'

We finished the mailing off with 'if it took longer than 30 seconds you lose.'

The follow up was industry specific so not quite what you are looking for. In this we sent a simple message saying 'In <month> you lost out on <£xxxxxxx> just because your site isn't mobile optimised. How much will you loose when mobilegedden strikes?'

We used keyword search volume and times it by published average job cost to attain the amount.

Probably the biggest point I'd make is that our fear of loss is stronger than our desire for gain. It may seem that ROI is attractive but lost business can be a bigger motivator.

Eric