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Marketing Your Services with 6 Effective Strategies

I recently read an amazing book that helped me reach a 40% increase in my revenue. Get Clients Now (by C.J. Hayden) has helped me identify a rhythm of marketing and promoting my services. This basic guided outline takes you through the different types of effective marketing strategies.

From MOST Effective to LEAST Effective Marketing Strategies:

1. Direct Contact & Follow Up
2. Networking & Referral Building
3. Public Speaking
4. Writing & Publicity
5. Promotional Events
6. Advertising

Direct Contact & Follow Up

This involves making a person-to-person connection with a prospective client through email, phone call, in person, fax, text message, etc. This tactic can include cold calling, warm calling, and lunch/coffee with potential clients. I touch on a few steps that I’ve done personally to land some of my first clients as well as some of my most lucrative clients.

Have a strategy created of when and how frequent you will followup with potential clients. Keep them thinking about you and they’ll remember you when their project is ready to move forward.

Create a mailing list of your customers/clients and keep them updated with a monthly newsletter. This will help top-off their memory of your services and will greatly increase the opportunity to work with them. By having that mailing list option on your website, you are inviting people to raise their hand and directly tell you that they are willing to listen to what you have to say and potentially buy. Win-Win for you!

• Mailchimp.com – Free for first 2,000 subscribers
  • Mailchimp is my go-to email marketing tool. They have some slick automation, triggers, and feedback loops to let you know what’s working and what isn’t. You can use the free version for a long time before you need to bump up to their $10/month version. Create your newsletter with ease with Mailchimp.

Networking & Referral Building

Meeting people face to face at networking events is just a drop in the bucket for this strategy. Building a list of contacts that you can tap into for referrals, clients, resources, ideas, or information should be the goal of networking.

My strategy for networking events is to just go and meet people. I rarely use a sales pitch or push a product. 99% of the time, what I can do for clients comes up organically in a conversation. When was the last time you enjoyed talking to someone who was just trying to sell you something……..?

• Meetup.com – Free
  • Meetup is going to be your go-to to find events to attend. Meetup lets you find link-minded people or categories that matches your audience. You can search based on a product, idea, or other categories. If you can’t find groups that meet your criteria, why not create your own group of common interests and goals?

• Eventbrite.com – Free
  • Eventbrite is where you can find events and conferences all over the US. They can even be online. You can search based on categories or for a specific event. Eventbrite is perfect for grabbing those tickets to the conference or event you want to start networking.

Public Speaking

Positioning yourself as a expert to your potential clients can start from public speaking. Public speaking will help you become more memorable and noticeable than if you were in the crowd. Find already established groups and participate on any level. Whether it be a M.C., sitting on a panel, making a presentation, or just facilitating classes, you will be viewed as the expert more often than not.

Community colleges, local meetup groups, or small events are perfect to start your speaking engagements.

Writing & Publicity

Writing about your expertise can also be a powerful marketing strategy by gaining visibility and credibility among your peers and potential clients. Start small through social media, blogs, or your own website. Reach out to other blogs as guest writers can quickly lead you to more and more opportunities to show that you’re an expert.

My choice of marketing, at the moment, is writing. I have a blog, newsletter, and other publications that I contribute to. I also frequent forums and chat rooms to help position myself as a SharePoint and WordPress expert.

• Buffer.com
  • Buffer is a must-have in my wheelhouse of marketing tools. Buffer allows me to schedule and manage social media posts across my profiles. You get 4 social media accounts for free (LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, and Facebook). Pintrest and Instagram are paid features that require a monthly subscription. You can pre-schedule my social media posts to go out at specific intervals during the day. This allows me to easily create a posting schedule where I don’t have to physically sit in front of a computer.
• Medium.com
  • Medium is a popular blog/website that hosts thousands of articles for millions of visitors. The content is usually very polished and informative. The potential of you reaching thousands of people is pretty great and they allow almost everyone to contribute to the site. Create an account and stalk a few popular posts to learn the ‘rhythm’ of Medium to get a sense of reaching a bigger audience.

Promotional Events

Creating an event such as a trade show, fundraiser, or a conference can put you in direct contact with potential clients and bring the audience to YOU. This also holds true with participating in an existing event by owning/renting a booth. Cost is very real on both end at with this strategy: participating in an event or creating an event can be a very expensive cost per head experience.

Advertising

There are generally two different types of advertising: organic and paid.

Organic advertising is essentially word of mouth and low/no-cost advertising. Advertising by talking about and promoting your goods and products on social media or withing your mailing list is an example of organic advertising. This is the lowest cost engagement and can have some of the highest returns. Referrals are very powerful and builds trust.

Paid advertising can help fill your pipeline with paying customers, but they don’t necessarily build trust in your product. Treat advertising as a way to increase your visibility and awareness to potential customers. The trust and eventual sale will come with them interacting with you directly.

• Google AdWords
  • Google is one of the largest advertising companies around. They have reaches into almost any online platform from videos with YouTube, phones, other website, or other online sources. Based on your audience, keywords, and ad type, your cost will fluctuate. I would estimate $200 would help reach almost 5,000 people with a basic ad. Google goes above and beyond to help you target your audience and stretch your $$$.

What works and what doesn’t work?

One strategy that I personally use is to pick 3 marketing strategies that I am comfortable doing and be consistent with them.

• Direct Contact & Follow Up
  • Every business card I take, I take because it serves a purpose. I don’t collect cards just because.
  • I followup within a week of meeting or talking to someone by email that funnel the conversation back to my portfolio if its appropriate
• Networking & Referral Building
  • I am part of the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce
  • I participate in 2 other business to business networking group
  • I am active in various online communities
• Writing & Publicity
  • I have my blog, a newsletter, and various other publications I participate in.
  • All of my publications funnel back to my portfolio site, increases Search Engine (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) ranking, puts a fingerprint on the web

Keeping those sales pipeline filled is the goal of marketing. Pick three marketing strategies that work for you and stick with it for about a month or two. But you’ve got to put in the work to see the results. If you’re not getting the goals that you’ve set for yourself either adjust the goals or adjust your strategies. No one said you couldn’t choose a different strategy.

I was able to gain 40% more clients revenue through various marketing strategies that worked for me. Marketing your services may be different than mine but you will notice an increase in engagement. Your potential customers won’t know what you have to offer if you don’t position yourself in their cross hairs. Marketing your services with various strategies greatly increase ROI and turn around.