How to Sell Your Services Online ? Creating a Long-Term Strategy
The Internet has given us lots of opportunities to sell your services. We are lucky to be living in the Internet era!
From B2B services (writing, marketing, coding) to traditional services (lifestyle professionals, real estate agents, etc.), there are many opportunities to build your client base through the Internet.
Here are the most effective ways I was able to find so far:
1. Find clients and leads through your website
In addition to actively looking for clients by applying on job boards, using cold calling and outreach or online ads, adopt an inbound approach where you attract clients to your website by publishing relevant content. This takes time and patience, so you will need other methods to keep those clients coming, but it will be worth your time in the long run:
- Develop a homepage that comprehensively details what you do. Set up different landing pages that cater to the specific needs of your potential clients.
- Promote! Share your published articles on your own social media accounts and other channels, like Viral Content Bee. The idea is to be seen by your audience.
- Track and measure performance. Use Google Analytics and Tag Manager to see which channels provide the highest CTR to my landing pages.
- Rinse and repeat. Improve landing pages, write more content, test, test, test!
Most importantly, make it easy for clients to reach out to you or perform particular actions on your site – make sure to set up different contact forms that they can fill out if they are interested in your services. Make the CTA buttons big and colorful so it stands out from the page.
It’s a fairly simple process but it takes a lot of time to truly develop a sustainable system that lets you acquire clients through this method.
There are lots of smart solutions to help you convert site visitors into clients and leads.
- For B2B service-based businesses, there’s Demo Desk allowing them to build interactive and reusable demos and letting their site visitors become instant leads by setting up a demo for a day and time that suits their needs.
- For lifestyle professionals, there’s Goldie which makes it easy to set up an online booking page for your site visitors to book an appointment for an available date/time and even make a deposit by paying online.
- For just about any service-based business, there’s Nextiva that offers a handy IVR solution managing inbound phone calls by collecting information about the customer inquiry before transferring the call to the right department. This information is also saved in the system so that you can access all the records when converting that lead into a customer.
2. Build up contacts and recommendations
Knowing a lot of people is key to serendipity: You just need to be out there in the community sharing knowledge, helping someone for free without expecting anything back and treasuring every contact you build.
This has always been the only way I’ve made income since day one. Sometimes the work has come indirectly, through a recommendation, but always through contacts.
This is the most powerful way to grow your service-based business because your lead comes with the trust they already have in you and what it is you have to offer.
Obviously, you need to do a good job for your contacts and prior clients to recommend you. It is also essential to grow your knowledge, then to share that knowledge in a public forum so others can see you are a good guy and your reputation grows as a result.
Speaking or simply showing up at industry events is another great way to meet people and find actual clients. The thing is that you can meet a lot of successful entrepreneurs and small business owners who may be looking for a related service, but do not know where to start. Meeting in person gives them faith in your abilities and lets you build a closer bond with them.
3. Set up a blog
Blogging is one of the best ways to get found through solving problems. The catch is that you have to write something that stands out, so quality and originality count most, much more than quantity.
I do get a lot of requests coming into my website, through the search engines, social media or places where I have been interviewed or quoted. You have to set your website up to make your articles visible, to offer your services and to funnel interested folks into your lead generation process.
Using keyword research, you can identify those keywords that may drive targeted traffic to create an effective SEO strategy.
Blogging is also the most powerful way to build your reputation by positioning you as an expert in the niche.
4. Work on your reputation
Speaking of your reputation, that’s your biggest asset. Make sure your website, blog, landing pages, social media accounts reflect your unique personality and build your personal brand recognizability. It takes a lot of impressions for people to finally remember your brand, so make sure they are reminded of who you are every time they see any of your channels:
- Keep your branding consistent throughout all those channels
- Set up your blog authorship so that it is obvious who is the expert behind each article
- Set up your email signature and brand it well
- Create a detailed About-us page telling your story and listing your achievements
- Work on your social media bios for them to trigger some curiosity and encourage a click to your website
- Set up detailed profiles on these websites that increase your online visibility
- Search for your name on a regular basis to ensure you can be found. Treat your branded SERPs as your business card as every other client may Google you prior to dealing with you.
Conclusion
Creating a long-term strategy to sell more services is not an easy task. It is quite likely that you will spend months or even years without seeing tangible results. However, if you keep building your online presence consistently, you’ll finally see clients coming your way without you having to actively invest in finding a single one.
