Your marketing pitch is useless if you are talking to the wrong person. Worse you may not be able to get your foot in the door of the business you want to pitch to. Spamming a potential client is not going to make your job any easier so how can you get to the right person to make a sale?
Who handles marketing?
Stephen Douglas commented on a previous post saying “Find out the name of someone inside the medical organization that handles marketing, then send them your pitch.” Its a great point but it can be easier said than done.
Going local
There are places in your area that are perfect for making contacts. Local barbershops or diners are full of local potential contacts. Getting to know the owners of these businesses can get you introductions to many other local business owners. They in turn can give you further contacts and so you can build an increasing web of contacts.
Using the businesses you frequent
I am sure you have a dentist and a personal doctor. Perhaps you also see an optician or lawyer now and again. I have complemented these business owners talking about their websites but also mentioning some ways it could be improved.
For example, I mentioned to my dentist that putting his phone number on every page would improve the number of people that contacted the office. He then started telling me the story of how the website came to be and then he mentioned that he wanted to get more case examples up there but never had time. He said “I keep meaning to get it redone”.
This opened the door for me to pitch the advantages of a good domain name and allowed me to make a referral to a web design company I had a relationship with. I have also given a percentage off the price if the owner will refer me to other business contacts.
Read, read , read
There are many marketing books out there with great information. Marketing a domain name or website is not really different from marketing any other products in its fundamentals. These books will teach you marketing 101 and then you will need to put the effort into making it work.
Friends and family
Friends and family are a great way to get your efforts started. They have a natural network of contacts so ask them for introductions. Consider doing some work at a major discount or even free if it will promote your work or products to more people.
Always be professional
Reputations can make or break a sale and even make or break a business. With an intangible product like a domain name, reputation is even more important. Resorting to cheap salesman tricks or spamming potential clients will not help you get referrals so make all your interactions with clients highly professional.
Using other people’s reputations
Partnering with a service provider who already has a good reputation will open doors you would have problems with by yourself. For instance, yesterday I was getting my hair cut at my local barbershop. One of the service providers to that shop came in. He was there to sharpen their scissors.
So if I wanted to market to barbershops, here was someone who had already build up a good reputation and business with many of these potential clients. Instead of having to find a way to target each barbershop separately, you would only have to convince the scissors sharpener to give you introductions to his clients.
Do not be scared of the phone
Domainers are so comfortable behind their screens that they often forget they are part of the real world also. Their every day encounters with people are potential marketing opportunities. Making polite cold calls to businesses are acceptable if done correctly. Pitching directly to someone is a skill that can be learned. Broadening your marketing skills beyond email or the Internet is essential for long term growth in my opinion.
Finding your own path
There are some many ways to market and they vary so much depending on your business model, personal style and your target clients, that I could not begin to cover them. So when you find something that works, optimize it and keep looking for new ways to build contacts and market.
Have any stories of how you made contacts inside businesses and made a sale?
