A couple of offline marketing tips I've learnt along the way

I'm relatively new to the WarriorForum. I've been reading here (spending a lot of money too for the past 6 months or so, but only recently signed up.

From 2005 to 2009 I was a senior SEO consultant for one of the largest media buying agencies in the world. I did their in house SEO and also select large clients (these guys were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars) and I quit to start my own local firm.

It's been one hell of a ride.

I thought I'd share a couple of tips I picked up along the way and maybe this thread could turn into a tip thread from experienced professionals.

So here goes.

Tip #1 - Love Thy Virtual Office

Having a virtual office has made a huge difference to my business. It gives me a real professional edge.

One of the things I love most is I get a dedicated phone line answered during business hours in my business name by a professional receptionist, who then transfers all calls to me.

I also get access to meeting rooms and board rooms and day offices if I need to meet with clients. These are swanky offices in a central location which really help close bigger deals.

Let's say a client wants to meet me. I book a few hours in a day office, my receptionist greets them, shows them in, offers them tea or water or even a beer.

I also get to use these board rooms for as little as an hour and I do my free SEO workshops to bring in clients from that space.

I have a small office where myself and 3 employee's work, but it's not some where that will WOW clients and I have to say, that WOW factor has really helped my business.

So tip #1, is to look professional if you can afford the outlay. It's a couple hundred dollars a month well spent.

Tip #2 - When Starting Out, Go The Extra Mile

When I first started out, I didn't email potential clients and tell them what we could do, I showed them.

We would find clients by going through Google, finding websites that needed a redesign, then we'd do a mockup new design of their front page and wow them.

Yes, it took a little longer, but it worked. We found sites that were not going to be labor intensive to re design, just simple local websites that were 5 to 10 pages, we'd create a mock up, email the client, then ring the client and go from there.

We'd do the same with SEO. We'd find websites on page 2 and 3 for local keywords, send them a report of where they are ranking, show them how they could improve their rankings by tweaking their pages and showing them small little backlinking methods, we'd then give them a call, go over the report, have a chat and either sign them up, or wish them well.

The key here was not just trying to sell them, but educating them as well.

Our motto is, deliver results and educate first, then sell.

I hope that's been of some help to a few of you.

Cheers,

Markus