Updated-Case Study: One month of selling mobile sites by email

There are so many WSO's about the great need for mobile websites and
about how businesses are begging for them and how by sending videos or
mockups you could could make thousands per month without face to face
meetings.

I like to report on money making ideas to my members so I thought this
would be a good test.

For the month of Feb. I had a family member send out emails every day
to small businesses. These emails came from Yellow Book and were listed
to have a website but not a mobile site. The emails were spam compliant
named their business, how he noticed they didn't have a mobile website,
why they needed one and telling them that he created mobile design for
them. They looked pretty much like a personal email.

I've seen this type of email approach suggested numerous times in WSO's
and on the forum.The plan was if they wanted to see the mobile design I
would have him make a quick mockup for them.

During the month about half the list was mailed twice, (the second
was a reminder) some of the interested ones were called as a followup.

Approx 3000 emails sent

Before I give you the results would anyone care to guess:

-The number of businesses who wanted to see the mockup?
-The number of sales?

*More info: We found that approx 25-30% of the Yellow Book
emails were undeliverable so the actual number of emails received
was more like 2000-2200.

We created 32 Mockups

Sales.................. 2


Here are some takeways:

-Gettingt them interested in seeing a mockup wasn't hard, but getting them
to actually buy was a different story.

-Often the business sounded very interested but he didn't hear from them
again. He tried following up more by phone. This turned out not to work because
it was so hard to catch the owner in. Some he did get on the phone acted very
interested but then never committed.

-Don't get too excited if an owner seems interested or promises to call you
back.

-Business owners seldom get back to no matter what they say. They are either
trying to tell you nicely that they aren't intereted or they really are but then they
get caught up with other things and it's hard to get them interested again. Let's
face it they are busy with their own problems and business.

-After the 2nd week he tried resending emails out to about 1/2 who didn't respond
the first time to the offer to see the mockup the first time. Each time he did this
he got more who wanted to see mockups.

-As it neared the end of the month we tested emailing all he busineses he made
mockups for and told them if they bought by the end of the month he would
discount it more but the price would go up dramatically on March 1st. This really
didn't have any effect accept for one frustrating incident I'll tell you next.

-There was one business owner that was contacted the first week who wanted
to see a mockup he ended up taking to on the phone. He was able to help him
understand that his flash website was not showing on many phones. He even
made a short video showing all the searches for his type of businesses that
Google was reporting from Mobile phones. Finally today on the last day he
emailed us and said he wanted to go ahead. He wanted to know if we could
host it on his site. At this point we decided that was ok and 10 minutes later
he emails back and says he just checked with his current web person who told him
that could do a mobile site for the same price so he thanked us but he was
going to have them do it. Unreal-At least 4 emails echanges, a phone call,
a video made for him when he had trouble undertanding it, then he says ok
on the last day only to say never mind.

-Selling mobile sites like any other type of sales takes a salesmanship.

-I'll let you decide if this model is feasable or not. But keep this in mind
the next time someone tells you how you can send out a few emails and
sell a mobile sites. Sure it happens occasionally but lets see a case study
over a longer period of time.

-If anyone has a system involving emailing that works for them let me know
and we may run run a real world test.

I hope you find this helpful.

Ron