What I have done to market my business

[callthatgirl]

OhioTech:

How I offered the 50% off the unemployed? I spread the word in my online communities and via my email marketing. I have almost 30,000 contacts that I can reach if I wanted to (for pro bono work) and those folks spread the word. For my last few 50% off specials, I only told a smaller percentage of the 30,000 due to time restraints on me. I still got plenty of folks taking advantage of it. I never told the county, but rather told the State of Minnesota state workers via my network. I never told them directly. They in turn, put up my email in their workforce centers. So you may want to make a flyer and give to the state of Ohio and ask them to post it for your county.

Unsure of the exact count of clients becuase I marked them all from Lisa Marketing.

PorterComp: Yes, it got me good press. As I said, I was featured on the front page of our local paper's Business Section (Minneapolis Star Tribune) and they sold the story, went national. Now when I offer the special, I do it for once week and tell my network. It's a big deal and I only offer it when I have had a slow past 2 weeks. Helps build up some work and gets my name out there as a company giving back to the community.

Harbordatasystems: by saying "Hand and foot" means, I gave my cards out everywhere I could, and I still do! I put them up in all the coffee shops, sandwich shops, convenience stores, manicure salons, etc. I have been doing this for years now...if I see an opportunity, I take it! I track it as "Lisa Marketing" and I have probably 25% of my clients from that alone. I have done 90 repairs job from this form of marketing.

Hand/Foot/90 clients

Krutoi: Speaking engagements...for what I have done is become and expert in 2 fields, LinkedIn and computer safety. I have make it clear that I am expert and people come asking me to speak to their groups. Each group can be 12-70 people. I always pass out my cards.

Speaking gigs/52 clients

Here are some extra stats from other big ticket items:

Referrals/206 clients

LinkedIn/152 clients

Remember, all of these things I did were FREE.

 

[kagman]

wow.. Lisa i need you lol.. wow.... you have such great ideas... can i borrow your brains for a few days..


--Jose--

 

[TayConsInc]

Thanks for the info.

 

[vitalgeek]

Lisa!

Just stumbled upon this post. What happened? Why'd you stop updating?

Great information by the way.

-James

 

[callthatgirl]

omg, I did forget! I'll work on it over the weekend

 

[dipper]

I missed this thread orginally and just found it now.

Well done Lisa and thanks for any future updates.

FYI I've done a few speaking events and unless they were part of a networking groups I belong to the response has been poor.

I have also done expos with poor response.

 

[BostonGeek1]

SEO

time spent: A LOT

money spent: A LOT

result: essentially an autopilot source of leads that I don't have to worry about, and can focus on my core business.

 

[talmart]

For your 50% off to the unemployed, how do you verify they are unemployed? Have you ever run across someone just trying to get the 50%?

 

[kats22]

For your 50% off to the unemployed, how do you verify they are unemployed? Have you ever run across someone just trying to get the 50%?

This is a great question, I was wondering the same thing. Is it rude to ask them to show "proof" that they are unemployed?

I would assume you would have to be a pretty big low life to pretend to be unemployed to get a discount on computer repair, but nothing surprises me anymore...sadly.

 

[Bullfighter]

Speech ideas

Hi CTG,

Can you give us a sampling of what you spoke about in your public speaking engagements?

Was it business marketing, technical items or other topics? I'd love to know.

 

[jaychivo]

your information is great, it gives me some clue.

 

[ComputerRepublic]

For your 50% off to the unemployed, how do you verify they are unemployed? Have you ever run across someone just trying to get the 50%?

I'm curious about this myself. How would you verify this?

 

[numnutz]

I can not speak for Lisa but I too have offered specials to unemployed customers. It was all word of mouth and email campaigns. It was for a specific time frame like 30 days only time of thing. How did I verify if they were telling the truth? Technically I didnt, half the time a current client would reply to my email telling me they knew someone. The other half contacted me directly saying they heard of my promotion from so and so. Did I really care if all of them were telling me the truth? Well I hoped they all were but we do these things to pick up business especially during the slow times and if I was able to help a few unemployed ppl makes me feel good as well.

Other things I have done in to market myself in no particular order:

Put an ad in the Pennysaver ( not one call )
Put flyers around town post office, supermarket etc ( not one call)
Handed out business cards (gained many clients)
Mention my business any public place I was at kids karate school, gym, school outings (gained many clients)
Email campaigns (gained many clients)
Partnered with local Electrician (both gained clients)

Donate, Donate, Donate - at least once a year I have donated a custom built pc to local schools, my town, charitable orginazations. They advertise my business for free, you feel good that your helping out and I have picked up many clients

Lisa your amazing dont think I had your energy when I was 20 let alone now lol congrats

 

[callthatgirl]

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost a year since I posted this and have not updated with the 2010 marketing ideas. As I said a few weeks ago, I would update and I forgot (too many posts on TN I follow, sorry!).

I have it on my calendar to update this with all my 2010 marketing plans and as well....new ideas for 2011.

Q1 2010
ebook (writing a book, ready for print in March)

haha!!! This took until Q4 to get out! If you ever plan writing an ebook, make sure you end up adding in 9 extra months. At the time I posted this, I thought for sure I would have the ebook done. Nope. I had a bad case of drama/writers block and couldn't get it done. Finally I did and have sold now...many copies. I thank Bryce for letting me sell them here.

The Manual of Operations that I sell also took over a year to write up. I had an intern get it started and then I did the final writing to get it up to par for my liking and it is always a work in progress. For those that do not do any writing for publication, please remember that those that do write for publication, read, read, write, write, re-read, write, read again and write again. It's not write once and publish. Writing a sell-able ebook or document must be read, written and tested. Lots of work. Not many think so.

rant/off.

Anyway, I have been doing my 2010 marketing tracking for 2011 and will publish those results with my update to this post so those that care, will understand how it panned out for CTG.

Numnutz...thank you for the nice words.

For those that are interested in offering 50% off to the unemployed, it's really about trust and hearing their stories. Most don't want to delve into their horrific lay off story, but if you do remote support, you will hear it all. These people want to talk about it and those folks are the most thankful. Many do the referring of your business while they are out "networking" to get their next job. I can't even begin to count how many unemployed folks referred CTG. Insane...I recommend offering it out!

 

[Hercomputers]

Excellent idea, Lisa. This would def work in my local area because most of the folks are unemployed and they have older computers at home. They can't afford to spend a lot of $ so either they call around to get the cheapest price or they do nothing and their computer issues get worse. Thats where I come in....Excellent!!!!

 

[callthatgirl]

Ok, I just updated it for 2010. Enjoy!

2011 will be slimmed down as I am working on larger partnerships that take more time to win.

 

[vitalgeek]

Awesome. Thanks!








filler

 

[RedFoxComp]

Very impressive and inspiring! When people wonder why they aren't getting clients they need to look at your list.

It's helpful to know at a glance what worked for you and what didn't. I'm noticing that the more traditional means of advertising were most likely to be unsuccessful. I'm definitely going to look more into speaking rolls. I think I have avoided it so far because of fear.

Thanks!!

 

[RegEdit]

Email Marketing (this is well worth it! start doing it if you can, keep your clients in the loop)

Where do you get local email addresses?

 

[gooseman8433]

I offer to teach community groups about web safety and ask during the class for people to sign up for my email newsletter. It has worked wonders for my marketing. I teach classes up to about 20-30 people at a time and get at least 5-10 jobs out of it, either from a direct participant or referral from a participant. I am also helping to make the web a safer place too Great post CTG