Just gone Freelance. Tips for getting business/clients...?

seachto7

Hi all,

I've just gone freelance in online marketing, and hope to use my linguistic skills in this area (French and Italian). I have an idea of the region in Ireland and types of business I would like to target, but I pretty much have to build up the business myself from scratch. I worked for an agency before, and we would have had a bus dev guy bringing in the clients.

I have a website. So far, I have sent a few emails, not a whole lot, as I wanted to see a trend, if people replied or not. I would imagine lots of people treating my email like spam, and just deleting it.

Is better to cold call, then email? Or email and then do a follow up call. What are your experiences? I would be targeting small businesses in the accommodation sector who may not have the budget to spend with bigger agencies.

Fergal C

seachto7 wrote: »

...I've just gone freelance in online marketing...

Will you be providing online marketing services to your clients, or something else?

seachto7

Hi Fergal,

Yes, just online marketing services which could involve PPC/SEO/Content Optimisation. If they did ever request other things, such as a logo redesign, or flyers etc., I would refer them to someone else if they wanted to..
I don't know how people react to cold calling these days, but I am thinking it's something that probably has to be done.
The fact my website is new, means it won't rank on Google for quite a while, so I'm slightly "invisible"...

Axwell

If you email them without permission what you are doing is considered Spam. While cold calling isnt much better and some will say they arent interested the best approach is probably ring and explain who you are and ask would it be possible to have an email address for the relevant person in their business to speak to and send on information if they wanted more details on the services you offer.

Whats your website address by the way? You should stick it in your signature on boards so people can click on it if they come across your posts.

seachto7

Just put it in my sig now.

yeah, I was thinking that unsolicited emails would just be cast aside, so I think I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way....

D Hayes

seachto7 wrote: »

Just put it in my sig now.

yeah, I was thinking that unsolicited emails would just be cast aside, so I think I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way....

Nice website, easy to navigate. Good luck with your venture.

seachto7

Thanks buysellswap. I'm thinking I could do with some more content possibly, to sell myself a little more. I'll see how it goes...

Axwell

Just some points of notice having looked at the site - nice and clean site with good information.

You provide SEO but your own pages are lacking a lot of meta data to be honest if you look at the source code. Those are as important as content optimsation.

Also the word is spelt optimization a number of times on the site which is the american spelling and then optimisation which would be correct in your signature below.

seachto7

Good spots. I didn't design the site, so need to get access to the source for all pages. I have been correcting a few things as I have gone along....
Not good errors in my line of work though..:(:eek:

in my experience seachto, I've closed thousands of sales for different things but never closed one via an email.
Whether you phone in or go face to face comes down to your skills. I always found the phone harder, because its easier to build a rapport face to face with someone, and to get them to trust you.
Some people have a great phone manner and are able plough through lists of leads.

Fergal C

seachto7 can you use your SEO and SEM skills to promote your own services and get business that way? It will be easier to sell your clients on the benefits of marketing online, if you can demonstrate how it has worked for you and if you are confident that it was actually successful for you personally.

By the way optimization is spelt with a "z" in my English dictionary.

seachto7

I'm not targeting the US market, so I am using the UK/Ire spelling "optimisation".
Yeah, I'm reluctant to say "I can do all your SEO, and I can do a great job" as long as my site doesn't appear anywhere online!
If I was ranking well for "multilingual ppc" or "multilingual content optimisation", then I could use the argument that I made my site rank well by doing the following things SEO wise.
If someone asked me could I do something, then I would say yes, and refer it on to more qualified SEO experts.
I think I would like to add some more content to my site, and maybe say that I can offer a multilingual aspect to SEO. So there could be potential clients/business who are already doing SEO through English, but might need help to translate keywords, or localised phrases and so on.
I suppose it's trying to "sell" that service effectively online....
I don't want to turn away potential business either by people thinking I don't do anything in English , just in French and/or Italian...

John368

seachto7

I assume that you are targeting firms here who would like to get business from Italian and French-speaking people.

I have in the past worked with German people in business. I am intrigued as to what type of service you provide. Are there people who provide a similar German service through which I could get some German clients? I can speak a little German, but not enough to cold call in German.

John

EIREHotspur

Firstly...nice website.

I always click on a website fearing the worst but congratulations on a website that is very modern and Web 2.0 standard designwise.

You seem to be talking yourself and your skills down a bit and are not clear enough on exactly how your going to go about this.

What was the business guy's strategy in your old agency.

If I were you I would look to produce some video adverts for youtube to advertise yourself.

As your a Lone Ranger then you need to be able to market yourself.
Advertising is expensive as as you want to target the US then Internet Marketing is very important.
You should get in touch with Bord Failte and see if you can offer services to companies they come in contact with.
They at least may point you in the right direction.

If you didn't build your website then I presume you are not very techie?

What you do is a very valuable skill in today's climate.

Good luck with it!

seachto7

John368 wrote: »

seachto7

I assume that you are targeting firms here who would like to get business from Italian and French-speaking people.

I have in the past worked with German people in business. I am intrigued as to what type of service you provide. Are there people who provide a similar German service through which I could get some German clients? I can speak a little German, but not enough to cold call in German.

John

Hi John368. Yes, I would like to target firms/businesses etc. that would get business from Italian and French speaking people. This could involve looking at their landing pages in French/Italian, or if they have a .fr or a .it website, looking at their keywords/content etc. and making suggestions that could help increase their business from those markets.
I speak a little German, and have done German PPC before. It's easy enough to build keyword lists etc, But there is no reason why it couldn't be rolled out to include other languages, as long as the same methods were being used along the way.
Ideally , it would be great to try and provide the service for firms in France, Italy, Germany etc. who would do business in Ireland or the UK. Trying to get in touch with those firms/clients is something I have to try and figure out quickly, maybe it will be a case of "buddying up" with an agency in France who could outsource to me..

seachto7

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Firstly...nice website.

I always click on a website fearing the worst but congratulations on a website that is very modern and Web 2.0 standard designwise.

You seem to be talking yourself and your skills down a bit and are not clear enough on exactly how your going to go about this.

What was the business guy's strategy in your old agency.

If I were you I would look to produce some video adverts for youtube to advertise yourself.

As your a Lone Ranger then you need to be able to market yourself.
Advertising is expensive as as you want to target the US then Internet Marketing is very important.
You should get in touch with Bord Failte and see if you can offer services to companies they come in contact with.
They at least may point you in the right direction.

If you didn't build your website then I presume you are not very techie?

What you do is a very valuable skill in today's climate.

Good luck with it!

I didn't build my site, though I am able to make changes to content, add tracking code, meta tags, meta descriptions etc.
I am also contacting more established agencies who outsource, to see if I can get some things there. I have done it already with a bigger agency.
That's a good idea about Bord Failte. I have already gotten in touch with some regional tourist offices to try and get a database of hotels or guesthouses who may require this service..

Fergal C

seachto7 wrote: »

I'm not targeting the US market, so I am using the UK/Ire spelling "optimisation".......

My dictionary is a UK English one and it uses a "z". Also have a look at http://dictionary.cambridge.org. I'm not a language expert, so apologies if I'm wrong.

seachto7

Fergal C wrote: »

My dictionary is a UK English one and it uses a "z". Also have a look at http://dictionary.cambridge.org. I'm not a language expert, so apologies if I'm wrong.

http://www.9xb.com/blog/blog-google-and-uk-spelling-optimisation-vs-optimization.html

Possibly you would have more using "optimization" , so I might consider the American spelling..

Turns out after last week, I might have an extra service I could add to the site....so might shift my focus slightly over the next few weeks....