How to Get New Clients? Getting Leads Is Just the Start!

How are you doing with getting new clients? You know you need to get new ones all the time, to make up for those that fade away, for all sorts of reasons…

Why would they fade away? Well, some of them literally move away, and others have changing needs and preferences. Who knows.

Maybe the regular who showed up almost every week at your Italian restaurant now is into sushi or Chinese food, or maybe Thai. Who knows.

It’s a fact of life though that you have to refill your funnel of leads and turn them into clients on an ongoing basis. So how do you do that?

First, you need to get more leads. That’s the topic for another post (or you can go look in some of the older ones on getting more traffic).

And then, you have to actually capture those leads and turn them into clients.

All too many business owners skip those two steps. They have a website, and people visit that website, but then, they either appear on their doorstep or they don’t.

Unfortunately, those who don’t tend to be in the majority, but with a little extra effort you might have been able to capture their info and follow up with them, turning them into clients or customers too, sooner or later.

So here’s the key. Getting those people to your website cost you enough already, especially if you’ve done any kind of paid advertising, including Google’s Adwords.

Why not get the most bang for your buck and actually get their contact info so you can follow up. All it takes is a customer capture mechanism that allows you to preprogram a series of email messages that will be sent to them automatically in regular intervals.

And those messages are tempting enough to get them to open their email and read them.

That means, go easy on the sales pitches and provide value instead. Whether that’s tips or coupons or a combination of both, you’ll find that you’ll get a much better response than if you just tell them to come to your store already.

And of course, if you want some help with setting up such a system, I’ll be happy to help. Just request a complimentary website review at the top right of this site, whether you have a website or not. If you don’t have one yet, we can fix that fast.

After all, people still let their fingers do the walking, except now, they tend to walk on their keyboard, checking out what Google has to say, as they look for whatever it is they want.

Online Marketing for Real Estate Agents

Online Marketing for Real Estate Agents is a must these days. Whether you’re helping your clients sell, buy, or both, you will benefit greatly by building a presence and a following online.

Sure, most people don’t buy real estate more than once every few years — at most, but you’ll still benefit by building relationships with your potential clients.

Remember, they know other people, and those other people might be looking for homes. It’s all about growing your circle of influence, and you’re probably doing plenty of that by way of networking.

But networking online is a whole new ballgame.

Here are a few tips:

Social Media

Yes, you should definitely use social media sites, from Twitter to LinkedIn to Facebook. But don’t stop there.

You Need a Blog

You need to be able to send people somewhere where you can get their contact info and follow up with them. And that means a website or a blog, preferably a website in the form of a blog.

Blogs aren’t just for sharing the minutiae of your life anymore. You can fill yours with information that is valuable to your clients.

Get your visitors’ contact info

But the most important part is that you capture your visitors’ contact information — and with a blog you have a number of options.

You can send your visitors to a so-called Squeeze page first, which is a page that basically gives people two options and only those two options:

Make them give up their contact info or leave.

So how do you get them to give up their contact information? You give them something of value in return. You might write a guide with tips on buying or selling a house. Or how to pick a real estate agent.

Then tell them they’ll get it for FREE if they only pay the “price” of admission, which is their email address and maybe their name as well. Don’t ask for much more than that.

The thing is that more you ask for, the fewer people will sign up. You can always get their phone number later when you offer them free consultations after they’ve had a chance to get to know you.

What to do once they are on your list?

And once you have them on your email list, follow up with them. Provide some value and news of available homes, plus tidbits about legal developments or whatever.

It has to relate to what you do, and it has to be valuable. The rest is up to you.

And if you’d like to find out more about how to market your real estate business online, just sign up for my special report (see top right) and I’ll send you the occasional tip or resource on online marketing for small business.

What you’ll find on MY site and list

Most of the info is not limited to real estate folks, but yo’ll find the down-to-earth instructions for how to get your website found online helpful nonetheless.

How to get targeted traffic

Just click here and send me an email, and we’ll take it from there…

Restaurant Email Marketing

Let me ask you a question…

Would you like more business?

How about more repeat business? Regulars are the life blood of any restaurant business.

The key to getting more of both kinds of business is proper restaurant email marketing. Read on to discover why and how to get started claiming those extra customers.

It’s surprising how many restaurant owners leave money on the table by refusing or neglecting to engage in email marketing. Chances are you are one of them.

Let’s look at how restaurants typically market their business:

.
1) Typical Restaurant Marketing Strategies

As a restaurant owner, you probably invest heavily in local advertising, from ads in the Yellow Pages to ads in fliers. Some of them feature coupons, which is helpful, though it might condition potential visitors to wait for the next discount before they visit the restaurant.

Keep reading and discover how you can get a whole lot more mileage out of your coupons!

Many of those ads also include a website address, which is also good.

But once visitors get to your website, you’ll lose most of them right then and there. Why?

.
2) The Crucial Next Step (Usually Missing)

Here’s what’s usually missing:

You need to provide a reason for your website visitors to get on your mailing list — and a way to do so.

Any restaurant that does not offer this is leaving a LOT of money on the table. And chances are, so are you.

.
3) Why This Step Is So Important

You probably pay a lot to get those visitors to your website, but then you don’t provide a way to follow up with them.

Imagine how much each lead has cost you already. It doesn’t matter how they ended up on your site — you spent money for them to be there.

Whether they found you through your Yellow Pages ad, through an ad in the local paper, through a flier included in a Val-Pak, or through a Pay-per-Click ad, they cost you a pretty penny, or rather several dollars a pop.

So what are you going to do to get some actual value from your investment?

.
4) The solution

Get them on your mailing list so you can follow up with them.

Don’t have a mailing list? Don’t know how to go about setting one up and getting your customers to join it?

The good news is that it’s neither hard nor expensive. It can be easily outsourced for pennies on the dollar, considering the dollars you’re losing now. In fact, we at Richmond Web Marketing provide that service.

.
5) What you need

You need a three part system:

a) A database where you can store your prospects’ and customers’ contact information

b) A way to collect that contact information

c) A system for following up with your prospects.

And then, of course, you need the actual emails that get people to open and read them (more challenging than you would believe in these days of overflowing inboxes).

.
Now here’s the promised tip about those coupons:

If you give people a coupon free and clear, whether on your website or in your ads, they may or may not use them, and if they don’t, they’re gone…

If you give people coupons in exchange for opting in to your newsletter list, you have their contact information and can follow up with them.

It’s a no-brainer, once you think about it.

.
Get Your FREE Website Evaluation

To find out how we can help you set this up for you, just fill in your information in the form at the top right of this page, and claim your FREE website evaluation or consultation.

OR… click here and send me an email!

.
Not in Richmond? No Problem. We’re happy to help restaurants all across the country.

SEO Richmond — Help for Richmond Business Owners

Is your blog just sitting pretty in cyberspace? Here are some tips on how to optimize your site for Richmond. SEO can make a big difference.

What is SEO?

SEO is short for search engine optimization. The idea is that you have your website optimized in a way that gives it the best shot at turning up at the top of Google (and other) search engine results.

And SEO Richmond (a term I just made up) stands for being optimized to be found when people in Richmond are looking for your business.

There are a number of things you can do to make that happen:

First, optimize your website itself, both the bits you can see and those you can’t because they are behind the scenes.

Next, build some high quality and RELEVANT backlinks. Those support your on site efforts tremendously and give you what’s know as “Google juice.”

But here’s the thing…

All those things can only take you so far when it comes to building your business. Sure, they’ll get your site found more easily. But then what?

What happens when people come to your website. They may say “ho-hum” or “very nice” and then they move on. That’s not what you want.

Instead, you want a way to follow up with anyone who visits your website — or at least with as many of your visitors as possible.

And that’s my own personal mission: SEO Richmond is great, but you really need a follow-up system in place, or else you’re not getting the results you’re hoping for.

Call us for more information and find out how we’ll be able to help you: 804-285-2535

Or click here and send me an email and put “SEO Richmond” in the subject line.

I look forward to talking with you.

Teleseminar Marketing Secrets

How would you like to add a really powerful additional marketing strategy to your mix? Teleseminar marketing is one of the powerful ways you can boost your bottom line.

Teleseminars (and webinars) are a way to boost your visibility, get more leads into your “funnel” and help people get to know, like, and trust you.

Now you may feel a bit shy about hosting a teleseminar. Most people do. But it’s not half as bad as you may think. The first few times might be a bit challenging, but soon, you’ll mostly have fun.

Here are two ways in which teleseminars can really boost your income:

1) A teleseminar is an event, and so you can announce it anywhere where you might announce events, from press releases to the business events section in your local newspaper to Facebook and LinkedIn and more.
And that means, new people will find out about you who didn’t know about your business before.

2) You can turn teleseminars and/or webinars into products that you can sell — or give away on your lead capture page, and that way you can make more money with them — or use them to get more leads.

How do you do them? It’s really not that hard. Check out my FREE report here:

CLICK HERE for Teleseminar How-To Tips

Once you’re on that list, I’ll also send you more info on how to do teleseminars specifically, and also let you know when I have my next teleseminar how-to training.

And of course you’ll need reliable teleseminar service. There’s really only one that I would trust with my teleseminars. One of the cool thing is that they will keep your teleseminars on file as long as you’re a member, and so you can send people to THEIR download page if you like.

It also allows people the choice of listening to a webcast or on the phone, AND there’s a place where you can add links to things you’d like to promote.

CLICK HERE to get three weeks for just 1 buck!

Want help? Just click here and send me an email!