When is the best moment to get in touch with a potential customer?
The best moment is when they are actively looking for an agency that provides the services you offer. Obvious, isn’t it?
The problem is that these customers do not have a sticker on their face that says they want to hire an agency like yours.
Then, how can you spot them?
There are some ways, but it is not easy.
The best way is to put yourself in the shoes of the deciding person at one of these companies. If you had to look for an agency, how would you go about it?
Below are some of the typical ways customers look for agencies.
- Ask other companies they know for a reference of a good agency in a given field.
- Ask other agencies they work with if they know an agency specialized in…
The above (recommendations) are the most powerful ways to get customers and the ones that work the best, but they are based on past actions. You need to have a name in the market and satisfied customers who can refer you. If your agency already has a good image and a lot of satisfied customers under its belt, congratulations! You will be getting many customers from these recommendations.
Your past actions also influence future customers. If you visited some prospects in the past and gave them a good impression, but they were not ready to hire you yet, it is possible that when they are ready, they will contact you. If you have kept in touch with them since then, this probability increases. So, if you usually reach out and talk to new prospects, keep in touch with those that you think have a high probability of needing your services in the future.
What you publish online is also important. If, for example, a customer reads an article you published that addressed their specific case and identified with the suggested solution, they may contact you and give you the job. This is what content marketing is all about.
For all these methods, you need to seed first to harvest later. If you are not there yet, you could start seeding. On another day I will share different ways that agencies can get true recommendations from their current and past customers.
If you have not seeded yet, you can still spot these customers by:
- Advertising in Google Adwords or in other ad platforms. Through an ad, you could find people who are putting search terms in Google related to the services you provide. Think what keywords your customers would type and create an ad that shows up with those keywords. You could also advertise your services in sites targeted to them.
- Advertise in LinkedIn. If you put an ad in front of 1000 potential customers, and ten of them are looking for a service like the one you offer at that very moment, they may contact you. This is why it is important for you to have defined an ideal customer and how to attract them to you.
- Connect with people you know and ask them to refer you to any company they know that is looking for services like yours.
- Go to networking events and let people know about your services.
- Reach out to other agencies and obtain agreements and alliances that offer services which are complementary to the ones you offer.
- Create content that will attract your potential customers to your website and collect their contact and company details.
- Monitor social media (Twitter, Linkedin) and look for people who may express that they need the services you provide. Reach out to them.
- Study the strategies that other agencies use to detect and attract customers. A few days ago, I shared with you how the agency ThinkHandy attracted customers through LinkedIn groups. I will be sharing many more strategies in future articles.
If you are just starting, you will need to actively look for these types of customers and also for customers of other types. Tomorrow, I will go into much more detail on how to sell your services to companies that have already covered the service you offer. If you do not want to miss these articles, subscribe below to receive them by email.
Comments are closed.