Finding Offline Clients - What Worked For Me When I Was A Total Newbie
First I would like to say that I am in no stretch of the imagination a Guru in Offline Marketing. I just wanted to share my experience in the hopes that it can help someone...
About 6 months ago I started offering SEO services to a few friends who had websites for their offline businesses, their sites were lingering on page 3 or worse. As I got more into it I found I enjoyed it and the profit margin was pretty nice too. I soon decided I wanted to expand and offer my services to more clients. I did get a couple of referrals which was nice but still wanted more. I tried a few of the regular methods to find new clients…
1. Cold Calling
2. Cold Emailing
3. Ad in the local paper (which did get me one client)
4. Contacting businesses from the Yellow Pages…etc
Now I’m not saying that these won’t work for you because I know there are people who swear by some of these methods, they just didn’t work for me. Fast forward a few months and offline marketing is the latest buzz word (at least in the WSO section). I know it was popular well before then but I only took notice then (was busy doing other things) and I started buying a few of the more popular offline marketing WSOs that had come out. There was some very good info in them (2 in particular) and I won’t go into details about the contents of the WSOs (that’s not why I am writing this) but I will say that I took action and have made some recurring income from them over the last couple of months.
The main idea of the WSOs was a different approach than most would think of or are used to and I may follow through more on them later but it really wasn’t what I wanted to do in offline marketing. I only followed through with them because I hate not taking action, even if it’s something that doesn’t appeal to me 100%. The reason I tell you this is because buying those WSOs and taking action led me to how I started finding offline clients at a much higher success rate than before.
While implementing the approach outlined in the WSOs I decided to find more clients in the niche I chose by searching Google and not paying attention to the first page…I started on the second page. I won’t go into great detail as it would expose some of the info in the WSOs but I will say that the basic principle of what I am trying to explain here is that there are a lot of potential SEO clients starting on the second page of the SERPS.
If an offline business has a website on the second or third page then that’s a good indication that they are at least interested in online marketing, they just may not know how to get their site where it needs to be or the advantages of having their site ranking well…that’s where we come in.
I started emailing them directly and explained how I found their site; I gave them a very brief analysis of their site as well as their competitors and suggested some courses of action to increase their sites ranking based on their sites current on and off page SEO, competition for relevant keywords…etc.
I found as I tweeked my emails to address someone specifically (typically the business owner) that my success rate of setting phone appointments increased dramatically. I am currently working out of the US so setting an in person meeting wouldn’t work for me. I also found that if I took the time to write 2 emails (instead of one) that my success rate increased greatly. The first email was a short email just to introduce myself and my services and the second was a follow up further detailing the things mentioned above about that particular persons site and their competitors.
My results started to level out as I tested and tweeked my emails and the info I was putting in them. Now I have 12 offline clients that I offer a range of services to.
The important part...what worked for me:
2 clients are the friends I mentioned initially
1 came from the local paper ad
1 came from the bottom of page 2 for their main KW
8 came from pages 3 and 4 for their main KW
Only 1 client came from page 2 and he was at the bottom of page 2 when I contacted him.
This approach may be common knowledge for most of you but hopefully there are some who are either very new (like myself) at offline marketing or havent started yet and are interested in it. Maybe this will give you another method for adding to your client list.
One more thing…
Don’t hesitate to contact businesses listed in Google Maps/Places either. The businesses in the lower positions can certainly benefit from your offering to help them increase their rankings there. You can outsource that service here on the WF in the Warriors For Hire section and make as much as 3 or 4 times the cost of the service.
Good luck, I hope you find this helpful!
Robert
About 6 months ago I started offering SEO services to a few friends who had websites for their offline businesses, their sites were lingering on page 3 or worse. As I got more into it I found I enjoyed it and the profit margin was pretty nice too. I soon decided I wanted to expand and offer my services to more clients. I did get a couple of referrals which was nice but still wanted more. I tried a few of the regular methods to find new clients…
1. Cold Calling
2. Cold Emailing
3. Ad in the local paper (which did get me one client)
4. Contacting businesses from the Yellow Pages…etc
Now I’m not saying that these won’t work for you because I know there are people who swear by some of these methods, they just didn’t work for me. Fast forward a few months and offline marketing is the latest buzz word (at least in the WSO section). I know it was popular well before then but I only took notice then (was busy doing other things) and I started buying a few of the more popular offline marketing WSOs that had come out. There was some very good info in them (2 in particular) and I won’t go into details about the contents of the WSOs (that’s not why I am writing this) but I will say that I took action and have made some recurring income from them over the last couple of months.
The main idea of the WSOs was a different approach than most would think of or are used to and I may follow through more on them later but it really wasn’t what I wanted to do in offline marketing. I only followed through with them because I hate not taking action, even if it’s something that doesn’t appeal to me 100%. The reason I tell you this is because buying those WSOs and taking action led me to how I started finding offline clients at a much higher success rate than before.
While implementing the approach outlined in the WSOs I decided to find more clients in the niche I chose by searching Google and not paying attention to the first page…I started on the second page. I won’t go into great detail as it would expose some of the info in the WSOs but I will say that the basic principle of what I am trying to explain here is that there are a lot of potential SEO clients starting on the second page of the SERPS.
If an offline business has a website on the second or third page then that’s a good indication that they are at least interested in online marketing, they just may not know how to get their site where it needs to be or the advantages of having their site ranking well…that’s where we come in.
I started emailing them directly and explained how I found their site; I gave them a very brief analysis of their site as well as their competitors and suggested some courses of action to increase their sites ranking based on their sites current on and off page SEO, competition for relevant keywords…etc.
I found as I tweeked my emails to address someone specifically (typically the business owner) that my success rate of setting phone appointments increased dramatically. I am currently working out of the US so setting an in person meeting wouldn’t work for me. I also found that if I took the time to write 2 emails (instead of one) that my success rate increased greatly. The first email was a short email just to introduce myself and my services and the second was a follow up further detailing the things mentioned above about that particular persons site and their competitors.
My results started to level out as I tested and tweeked my emails and the info I was putting in them. Now I have 12 offline clients that I offer a range of services to.
The important part...what worked for me:
2 clients are the friends I mentioned initially
1 came from the local paper ad
1 came from the bottom of page 2 for their main KW
8 came from pages 3 and 4 for their main KW
Only 1 client came from page 2 and he was at the bottom of page 2 when I contacted him.
This approach may be common knowledge for most of you but hopefully there are some who are either very new (like myself) at offline marketing or havent started yet and are interested in it. Maybe this will give you another method for adding to your client list.
One more thing…
Don’t hesitate to contact businesses listed in Google Maps/Places either. The businesses in the lower positions can certainly benefit from your offering to help them increase their rankings there. You can outsource that service here on the WF in the Warriors For Hire section and make as much as 3 or 4 times the cost of the service.
Good luck, I hope you find this helpful!
Robert
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