103 Ways To Attract More Clients – Part 2
Knowing ways to attract more clients is one of the things most business owners worry about the most.
I have compiled a HUGE list of 103 super tactics you can use to attract more clients and catapult your business growth. Some of these marketing tactics are well-known, while others might be less well known, or overlooked.
Today I am sharing another selection of them with you. But first, a word of caution, though: don’t try to do them all.
Instead, find the handful of tactics that feel right for you and your business and then execute well. Before long, you’ll figure out the fastest way to marketing success for your business and have clients chasing you.
Webinars
Webinars are powerful and valuable in connecting with your ideal clients. You can provide an in-depth experience without you OR your clients having to travel anywhere.
A webinar can be as long or short as you’d like. The most common lengths are 60- or 90-minutes. These longer interactions give you a chance to share a bit about who you are, what you offer, provide some valuable content and invite people watching to go deeper with you.
There are many platforms you can use for webinars including:
And many others…
- Webinars that you host
You can create a webinar any time – just decide what you’re talking about, when you’ll host it and invite people to join you.
Depending on your platform, you can use slides, video or a combination.
- Webinars that you partner up with others to guest host
You can also find another business owner to partner with to offer a webinar. You can each invite people on your email lists and in your networks to join your session.
Teleseminars
Don’t want to deal with slides and/or video? Go the teleseminar route!
This is a conference call where people dial in and listen to you teaching, sharing and offering value. There are many services you can use for this (some even FREE) including:
And more… these are easy platforms to get started with because you simply show up, dial in and talk. No fancy slides, webcam, designer background or makeup needed.
- Teleseminars that you host
In less than three minutes, you could sign up for a conference call service, have your number and schedule a call.
All you need to do is bring in the audience. Again, this is a great time to go to your email list, your social network and perhaps even advertising to bring in an audience.
- Teleseminars that you partner up with others to guest host
You and another business owner can jointly host a teleseminar. The bonus is that there are two of you talking, so it can be more conversation-like AND you can both reach out to your prospects and clients to fill your audience.
Again, in just minutes you can have this set up and ready to go. No major tech skills needed.
Telesummits
A telesummit is a virtual conference. Your attendees get many of the benefits of an actual conference – a great speaker line up, lots of valuable information – but they don’t have to travel anywhere.
Telesummits can happen all in one day or over the course of many days depending on how you want to run it. I’ve seen some that have back-to-back speaker lineups from 7 am to 7 pm, and I’ve seen some that happen at a set time each day over the course of 21+ days.
The bonus is that each speaker in your telesummit draws on their audience – people in their networks, on their email list, their clients and even friends – so if you have 10, 15 or even 20+ speakers you could potentially get this in front of a huge audience quickly.
Here are some ways to get started:
- Telesummits that you host
No need to wait for someone to invite you to join a telesummit – you can organize and put one together yourself.
Don’t underestimate the amount of time, money and effort this will take though. You will want to have a plan, connections and some tech chops to pull this off well.
- Telesummits where you are a guest host
Letting someone else host the telesummit and showing up as a valuable guest expert is another great way to go. You’ll want to be visible – networking, speaking, writing and connecting with people both online and offline to be invited as a guest host.
Love it or hate it, Facebook is a powerful place to connect with potential clients. In July 2015, Facebook reported 1.49 billion monthly active users. That’s not people who have accounts. That’s almost 1.5 BILLION people on Facebook every month.
Your ideal clients are probably there too…
There are a number of ways to take advantage of Facebook as a connection and visibility platform including:
- Facebook personal page
Your personal Facebook page can be a business connection goldmine. Presumably you are connected to friends and family who know, like and trust you. And depending on your preferences, you may be connected with clients and potential clients as well.
So why not use your personal Facebook page as a platform to showcase what you do, who you work with and what your business is all about?
- Facebook business page
If you have a business, you probably already have a Facebook business page. There are so many ways you can make your business page work for you and your business including:
- Sharing events (like webinars, seminars, speaking and more) with your fans
- Congratulating and recognizing clients and partners
- Creating inspirational moments for your fans to enjoy
- Showing your business personality with fun contests, giveaways and more
- Facebook groups you join
There are thousands (probably millions) of Facebook groups available and more popping up every day. These groups give you a unique opportunity to interact with potential clients and partners in a whole new way.
I think about Facebook groups as a virtual networking playground. I get to connect with people I’d probably never meet in real life AND we don’t have to leave our homes.
- Facebook group(s) you host
Facebook groups have become popular and valuable in building an engaged community. I have a free Facebook group and everyone on there gets incredible insights and value from the people who’ve joined.
- Adding Facebook friends
Expanding your network to add additional Facebook friends can be another way to attract new clients. For example, when you meet someone at an event or online you can send them a Facebook friend invite.
This is another powerful way to allow potential clients and partners to get to know you.
- Facebook ‘ask-an-expert’ Q&A session on your page or someone else’s page
Showcase your expertise by hosting an open Q&A session on your Facebook page or partner with someone else on their page.
This is a great way to connect with people and provide one-on-one value that will benefit the entire community.
In October 2015, Twitter reported over 316 million monthly users on the platform and over 500 million tweets every day.
That’s a lot of people and conversations happening, and chances are your potential clients are on the platform as well.
- Personal Twitter profile
Create your personal Twitter profile to position you as an expert in your business area. Link to your website, your business Twitter profile and other relevant digi-homes to let followers easily learn more about you.
- Business Twitter profile
Like your personal profile, your business Twitter profile can position you and/or your business as the expert. Have a clear content plan and use hashtags that are appropriate to your topic and audience to get found and spread your message.
- Follow others on Twitter
Find others within your business area and/or complimentary areas to follow. Engage with them as appropriate to showcase that you’re part of the conversation.
- Build your followers on Twitter
Hashtags, a relevant and engaging content plan, some entertaining/lighter tweets, shoutouts to followers, retweets and more. As your tribe grows, engage with relevant followers to further connect and drive deeper conversation.
- Periscope + Twitter
Whenever you’re live on Periscope, invite your Twitter followers to join you. Answer common questions, invite followers to join your Scope and invite Scope participants to connect with you.
This is a growing and powerful platform to showcase your value, expertise and personality while connecting into the Twitter connections you’ve already created.
Buy Marketing Lists
I don’t ever recommend purchasing an email list (even though many companies sell them), but for some clients it’s very appropriate to purchase a mailing list.
Now that email has taken over, sending a postcard or other direct mail item can be a great way to stand out and get noticed by potential clients.
- Buy a mail list from a list broker
There are many reputable list brokers out there who offer snail-mail addresses and contact names for your ideal clients. Some that I’ve used include:
- Buy a list from a local Chamber of Commerce
If you’re trying to grow in one particular area, contacting the local Chamber of Commerce to purchase their membership list is a great way to find potential clients. These lists are extremely accurate and active.
Video
Video is an extremely relevant way to reach potential clients. According to YouTube, the number of hours people spent watching YouTube per day is up 40% since March 2014. With over one billion users, people around the world watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube every day.
Here are a few ways you can take advantage of video:
- Create a video blog
Use video on your own website. You can host the video on YouTube or another platform (like Vimeo or Wistia) and embed it directly to your blog posts on your site.
- Develop a YouTube channel
Take the time to create your own YouTube channel and regularly upload videos so subscribers are kept up to date on what you’re offering. It’s also a great way for new clients to discover you as they are searching online for products/services/offers that you have created a video about.
- Be a guest on someone else’s YouTube show
Reach out to someone else who has a popular YouTube channel to see if you can be a guest expert on their platform. This is a great way to reach all of their subscribers and increase your visibility online.
- Create a Periscope presence
This is a growing and powerful platform to showcase your value, expertise and personality in a dynamic and off-the-cuff manner. Periscope can connect directly to your Twitter account or stand on it’s own. Many people are on there daily searching for topics that you could offer to this engaged and dynamic audience.
- Connect with others on Blab
Blab is a live video streaming platform that allows 2 – 4 hosts per broadcast. This can be a powerful (and free) platform to partner up with other collaborators which allows you to draw from their audience and increase your reach to potential clients.
Direct Mail
This is the ‘old school’ way to market, yet with so much online marketing these days, direct mail can sometimes be a great low-tech, high touch opportunity to reach potential clients.
- Send out postcards to prospects
One of the simplest and easiest ways to jump into direct mail is to create a postcard and mail it out to your list. There are a multitude of ways to either have someone design it for you or use an online tool to customize a template.
Great resources include your local printer, online properties such as Moo, Vistaprint, PsPrint, UPrinting and more.
- Create a direct mail package to send to prospects
Who doesn’t like to receive presents in the mail? Create an irresistible package that your potential clients can’t wait to open.
This will be an investment of time, cost and attention to detail, yet when done right the results are powerful (see this article for an example).
Network Outreach
If you really think about it, you can probably come up with at least 100 people whom you could contact about your business.
People like family, friends (maybe not to hire you, but to tell their network about you!), past co-workers, people you went to school with, current and past clients, your doctor, dentist, people at the gym, etc…
That list of 100 people represents hundreds, if not thousands of additional people whom you could easily connect with if they only knew about you and your product/service.
- Send emails to past clients/friends/professional colleagues
Once you have that list of 100, it’s easy to send an email to everyone on the list. Simply compose an email about what you’re doing, who you help and ask if your contact would think about just one person who could use your services.
- Send letters or postcards to past clients/friends/professional colleagues
Similar to the email above, you can go the old-school route and simply send out letters to your contacts. You could even include a few business cards or some other item for your contact to pass on as they think of someone who could use your services.
- Call past clients/friends/professional colleagues
Save some time and pick up the phone. Catch up with these key people on your list and then move into the purpose for your call.
- Offer a client referral gift/reward
Give your contacts a reason to actually reach out to their contacts by offering an incentive for referrals. This could be an entry into a monthly/quarterly drawing, a gift certificate, a donation to their charity of choice, or something else entirely.
Press
The press can be a powerful credibility and business builder for you. With the press, you always need to think about what would be interesting, valuable and enticing for their readers. Nothing overly promotional – so think value first.
- Write for your local newspaper
Depending on your ideal clients and your local newspaper readership, this could be a great way to establish your credibility locally. Think about 10 or so articles that you could write about in your area of expertise and work to establish credibility and interest from your local editorial team.
- Sign up with HARO to be interviewed by top journalists as an expert
Help A Reporter Out (or HARO) is a place where journalists from around the world can post a need. Oftentimes they are looking for someone to interview or give a quote for a story they are working on. It’s easy (and free) to sign up at www.HARO.com.
- Create a press release
Got something interesting to share? A cause you’re involved with? A client success story you want to showcase? Some other news-worthy article? Create a press release and send it out.
There are free and paid ways to get your press release out to the world. One of my favorites is PR Web.
- Pitch yourself as a TV guest on your expert topic
Have a unique viewpoint, a book or expertise that needs to be featured on TV? Create relationships with your local/national media and pitch yourself as a guest expert.
But wait! There's more! We haven't talked about Pinterest, websites, or advertising! Check out the first part of our marathon list of 103 Ways to Attract More Clients, and the final installment 103 Ways to Attract More Clients – Part 3.
The really amazing thing is that there are WAY more than only 103 ways! What have I left off that you do?
Which of these are your favorite methods for attracting clients? Leave a comment below!
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