Need advice on how to acquire the first paying customers
👋 Hello everyone,
I need some advice from you talented folks out there.
After spending a year and a half as a freelance marketer, I just launched my own online marketing agency (https://www.marketingimpactonline.com/) with an aim to increase my profit margins and scale my overall operations.
The problem is, my client pipeline is dying a slow death with every project that’s coming to an end.
I have tried and failed at getting referrals from my past/existing clients (who—by the way—were very happy with my work). I was able to get their testimonials though. 🙂
Now, I don’t know (yet) how or where to find new customers who can benefit from my services.
I’m good at organic marketing, but that takes a long time.
Right now, after lending all my savings to a failed business (a story for some other time), I’m kind of in a hurry to make at least some amount of money to provide for my family.
I’m considering running online ads, outsourcing lead gen to business development or sales development experts, or running a cold email/outreach campaign for my target audience (i.e., small business owners in the U.S.).
Again, all of these either demand money or time—and I don’t have either of them at this point.
And although I’m open to hiring a team and scaling the agency, I want to keep things small and flexible until I’m ready to grow the agency to the next stage. Therefore, I don’t have a niche picked out just yet.
One of my immediate goals is to acquire a set of 4–5 repeat clients and earn at least $5K in monthly profits.
What do you think? How should I proceed? Is there anything I should change or add in my current strategy?
I’d really appreciate advice from people who have gone through a similar experience first-hand. 🙏
You probably want to work a little bit on your landing page. I’ve taken a look and, things are floating around, color is everywhere like you don’t have any identity and text is unreadable.
Each visitor may be a prospect, and they have to feel right away the value you can provide from your own website and from other work that you did in the past.
Before hiring and going big you probably want to have all the chances on your side. I’ll recommend not hiring, go for a minimum and do things for free here and there and use it as material for your marketing effort.
Thank you, codeibrahima! This is the exact kind of feedback I need at the moment.
Unfortunately, I'm not an expert in website design. The website is a work in progress and I'll keep working on it to make it better.
Once again, thank you for taking out the time to respond. 🙏
If you have testimonials, can you use these testimonials to reach similar type customers through an email campaign? Perhaps, using a tool like apollo.io can help.
Here's a post by another indiehacker that outlines how to get your initial customer base: https://twitter.com/KarthikS2206/status/1379656690740568067
Thanks, Prateek. That was a great thread to read.
I'm right now toying with Sno.vio for cold email/outreach. Let me see how apollo.io fits in.
Thanks again!
When you and your expertise are the product, I'd put more about you on the website. Your picture, your story, your qualifications, etc. If people connect with you as a great local marketer in St. Louis, it's easy for them to buy.
After reading the site, I don't get a concrete sense of what you're best at - your niche. "I solve these kinds of problems for these kinds of customers." I think the decision to delay picking a niche is not going to work well - pick one to three niches and put them out there specifically as the things you do better than anyone.
From the customer testimonials, it looks like you're good at creating marketing content as a finished product, for customers who only have a rough outline or some customer quotes. If that's right, then put that out front as your niche.
So...
i) be specific about the concrete services I offer
ii) niche down, and
ii) be upfront to put your past clients as references
Thanks, @JHercules!
Hey Max - I would recommend cold outreach (email and cold calls) to prospects similar to ones you've done work with or have worked for in the past. I'd also start posting on LinkedIn regularly and engage with marketing posts. It looks like you work with b2b SaaS marketers and those DMs are all over LinkedIn. I wouldn't hire anyone until you've figured out your sales process yourself. You're in a bit of a commodity space too so you'll need to niche down, imo. The more specialized you are, the better chance you'll have at getting those first 4-5 repeat clients. Let me know if you have any questions!
I think you're right about not hiring too soon and niching down.
I used to be super active on LinkedIn until last year. But it's become "meh" lately and nowadays it's a hit-or-a-miss.
A follow up question is: how do I find prospects similar to ones I worked with? Just Google their name and type "vs" to let autofill do the work?
Is their a smarter way to find these prospects to run an outreach program?
LinkedIn being "meh" is correct and exactly why there's opportunity. The bar is low for interesting content. We got half our customers from LinkedIn at my last startup.
You could do autofill but that's limiting. You should use G2 or Capterra to see what other companies are in the category. Make a list.
There are tools like apollo which you can use that get you access to the contact database that has filters you can use to segment your ICP. https://revpilots.com/what-is-apollo-io/
All good points here! Definitely agree with creating signal among the noise that's out there in LinkedIn.
I'm not sure if G2 or Capterra are good places for me to find competitors though since our business is in the agency domain. But those places can be helpful for me to find prospects.
I'll certainly check out apollo.io since everybody is recommending it. Thanks again!
check out clutch.co for agencies