This week I want to answer another commonly asked question… How do I get clients online? Where do I start? How do I do it without spending hundreds of dollars in ad spend?
Before I jump in, I do want to say this… You must make an investment to get clients. That investment can be resources (aka, money) or time. So, if you don’t have the funds, you need to make the time.
That being said – I’ve built my business organically. I didn’t run Facebook ads at the beginning. I spent $100 in Google AdWords one time. I didn’t invest hundreds of dollars into SEO.
But I did the work… And I want to share with you exactly how I did it in this week’s blog post.
Get visible
It seems so obvious, but so many times, we forget. You need to be visible. If no one is seeing you online, how are they going to know about your business? Being visible means posting daily – multiple times a day on some platforms. It means being active in Facebook groups. It means posting Facebook and Instagram stories. It means facing your fear of being on camera and going live on social media.
Provide Value First
One of the biggest mistakes I see all the time is people blindly promoting their business in Facebook groups. They drop their link to their website, asking people to check it out. Or they share posts from their Facebook page into groups in hopes to get more traction. These methods can come across spammy and actually harm your brand more then they help!
Instead of doing this, try posting solid value in groups. How can you educate, entertain or engage the group relating back to your industry? Run a renovation company? Answer common questions – “What do I need to know before hiring someone?” What common mistakes do you see all the time in your industry? Address these!
This rule applies to your Facebook page as well! Simply promoting your business isn’t going to give you traction – but showcasing what you can do for someone, engaging with your audience and educating them on your industry will!
Capture leads EVERYWHERE.
You’re visible. You’re producing great content that provides value. I go to contact you and…. Wait – how do I contact you? Where’s your email? Do I call? Where’s the website??? Never mind, I’ll go somewhere else.
I can’t even begin to count the times I went to contact a business, couldn’t find a way to contact them, literally said out loud “would you just take my money already??” and then given up and gone somewhere else simply because there was no clear beginning of a sales funnel.
Make sure this information is front and center, and make sure it’s correct and updated!! If you have a business that requires a bit more nurturing or if you have a lead magnet – make sure that’s where people can see it right when they open your page.
Don’t make people search to contact you or to sign up. Most are not that committed and won’t search for more than a minute.
Outreach
Oh, how I hate cold calling… I would rather plug each of my eyelashes out individually than cold call a business. But sometimes you have to take the next step. One of my favourite ways to do outreach is to look up businesses (or my target audience) that I would like to work with, do some research, pick out one to three different things I can do for them specifically and then send them a message.
Sometimes this is on social media (LinkedIn and Facebook are my favourite) and sometimes it means finding their email and reaching out there.
There are more in-depth sales funnel strategies that can help you gain more clients, but that’s more of a book than a blog. If you’re ready to make an investment (financial) into your business, I would LOVE to chat with you to help you create a strategy to help you find more clients.
You can book a call here!