How to search for clients for a small regional web studio

Unfortunately, we did not have these.

I want to share our experience in attracting customers for the newly created web studio. The basis of our web studio can officially be considered August 31, 2012, it was then that they gave me a certificate of registration as an individual entrepreneur. From this point on, many methods of attracting clients to our young web studio were tried. All future employees still worked in the same places of work and made websites in the evenings, and I, in turn, tried to find clients by combining several small organizations with the eniquidity (and that happens, the manager from the enikeyschik). None of us had been involved in developing websites professionally before, and naturally, they didn’t know how or who to sell websites either. Everything was done by trial and error. At first, there was not even a programmer, there was a designer and layout designer in one person (not very strong at the time), and I, as a manager (also frankly weak).
Let us proceed to the enumeration of what was done, how it worked, and what did not bring results:

Acquaintances

To begin with, we went through all the acquaintances with the proposal to make a website and received several small orders. At this stage, if they had found some serious order, they would not have taken it, due to lack of experience and knowledge.
Conclusion: The method certainly works, but is quickly depleted.

Went to the offices

I thought that when I personally contact potential clients, I’ll get an explanation of why the site is needed and how it can help them. I went to the office centers, went to each office. But everything turned out to be not so simple: the decision makers were absent from their workplaces, and those who were did not take me seriously. Plus, it took quite a lot of time to get around a large number of offices.
Conclusion: It is not always possible to get to the decision maker and you must have the qualities of a good sales person.
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Cold calls

We decided to try cold calls to the same offices. It was difficult to overpower myself to pick up the phone and call an unfamiliar person who is often not happy about your call. But as it turned out it was worth it. During the day, it was possible to make quite a lot of calls (about 100), which gave a large sample, with 100 calls it was possible to find 3 interested and 1 ready for the meeting. There are many articles on creating cold call scripts, someone is selling them. As it turned out, even the simplest call with a head-to-head question can be effective:
- Good day.
- Hello.
- I wonder if you will offer to create a website?
Of course, calls with the use of methods for obtaining a decision maker, a competent offer, work with objections, etc. are more effective. But if there is a fear of cold calls, then this simple script will help to overcome it.
Conclusion: A very good way to find new customers for studios operating in the low price segment.

Contextual Advertising, Targeting and SEO

Although in many places I met that for the low and medium price segment it is possible to successfully attract customers from the search - we did not succeed, as we did not try. We launched Yandex.direct, tried advertising in VC, brought the site to the top to bring the site to the top failed, reworked our site 3 times and none of this gave a good result. The client who came from contextual advertising was only one, not quite adequate, which as a result had to be abandoned. Although we made a website for a window company and promoted it in search engines with both contextual advertising and SEO. Even in this highly competitive area, we managed to achieve high results: the site is in the top 5 with 6 high-frequency queries, contextual advertising works just as well. The client is pleased with our work.
Conclusion: Contextual advertising and targeting do not work well in the field of site development services. Maybe SEO works, but it's hard to get into the top.

Recommendations (word of mouth)

2 clients came to us on recommendations. Both turned out to be very interesting projects in terms of site functionality. The most important thing here is to keep the maximum number of clients satisfied and ask for recommendations; no one immediately gives, but in the future they will remember you.
Conclusion: Word of mouth leads very loyal customers who are easy to work with. But it cannot be controlled (when it “shoots” it is not known).

Links to sites

On each site of course it is better to leave links. Especially if the site with good attendance. It also has a good effect on the image and recognition of the studio. We received 2 calls from people who saw our links on sites. Orders could not be obtained, most likely due to selectivity and distrust of our web studio.
Conclusion: It works, for the sake of links and a portfolio, you can make websites to well-known companies with discounts.

Registrars PI and LLC

There are organizations that are engaged in helping to register new LLCs and individual entrepreneurs; these organizations are being approached by newly-minded entrepreneurs for help; according to our assumptions, they needed a website for a new organization. We have agreed with 4 similar organizations of our city that they will recommend us to their clients. For this they receive 20% of the order. Not the most stable source of clients, depends on many factors: the interest of the staff of the registrar firm, the correctness of the filing and recommendations of our studio, the number of clients of the registrar.
Conclusion: The working channel for attracting customers, it is only necessary to find such organizations and agree with each one individually.

Third Party Projects

The designer proposed a startup for creating free logos on requests. We created a site where we accept applications and post new logos every day. From this site came one very good client, with whom we have been working closely for more than one month, and he, in turn, brought another one.
Conclusion: It is worth engaging with third-party projects, we brought a competent and regular customer.

Leaflets on offices

The cheapest that I could find in our city is a scattering around offices with photo confirmation: 7.5 rubles per leaflet. We decided to make not one sheet, but a booklet on 4 sheets, where we described why we need a website, how it works and examples of our work. A4 print booklet of 4 sheets 46 rubles / pcs. We ordered 300 pieces for a sample, the result: 9 calls, 4 orders. Order value: 4012 rubles.
Conclusion: It works, the cost of the order is acceptable, we will use this method in the future.

Participation in events

Participated in 2 local IT conferences as listeners (have not yet figured out what to say). No result, you must participate as partners or tell something interesting. Now there is an idea for organizing a web design exhibition.
Conclusion: It may be good PR if you do not participate as listeners.

Although cold calls remain the main channel of attraction now, I think we have achieved significant results: taking into account that we do not advertise anywhere, there are incoming calls; there is a well-established good portfolio; There are famous customers in our city. We work full time in our own office. Very much grown in terms of design and programming, able to take on projects that renowned studios refuse. With this post, I wanted to show that only three people who do not have deep initial knowledge of marketing, management, design, programming, and without start-up capital are able to create a successful web-studio and work at their pleasure.