How to Get the First Client for Your Small IT Consulting Business?
Have you done all you can to attract the first client to your IT consulting business without much success? The problem is that the approach you use is boring, and needs to change. When you send a marketing email to your prospects, avoid using corporate language that talks down to the recipients. Doing so only waters down your message and turns off the reader.
Despite claims that email marketing is dead, it remains to be the most uncomplicated method to attract customers to your business. In 2019, for example, approximately 293.6 billion emails were sent and received. The figure is set to increase to 347.3 billion by 2022. That staggering amount of daily emails is proof that email communication is still alive and growing.
Besides, 21% of all sent emails are opened within the first hour after they are delivered. However, this doesn't mean that the recipients respond to the call of action accordingly. What, then, can you do to ensure your emails generate the kind of response you want to get you your first client?
Personalize Your Emails
One significant factor that makes email marketing effective is relationships. How well does the recipient know you, and do they trust you? For a long time, personalization has been about addressing the email reader by their name. While this adds a nice touch to the email, it may create the wrong impression. The practice of using the recipient's name in the salutation is no longer as effective as it used to be.
Today, there's a high level of concern about cybersecurity. With all the identity theft, phishing, and credit card fraud incidents, consumers are now wary of emails from unfamiliar sources. The type of personalization that uses the recipient's name in the first instance could be harmful. When you force familiarity too soon, your efforts come across as suspicious.
However, various forms of personalization exist which are not off-limits and can work effectively. Neil Patel identifies six reliable ways to personalize your emails:
- Asking the right questions, like the readers' reasons for visiting your website or subscribing to your emails, can provide invaluable insights. This will help you to created targeted emails that can increase your click-through rate by 161%.
- Building customer personas: use relevant data like website behaviors and download history to understand your prospect.
- Capitalizing on location and time: certain times of day have better response rates than others in email marketing. A/B testing of the optimum time to send emails can help you make the right decision.
- Set up automated behavioral trigger emails: these behavior-triggered emails will show you how your customers use your products in real-time. For example, when Facebook emails you that you haven't logged in for two days, that email is behavior-triggered. This type has a 152% higher open rate than traditional emails.
- Personalize your business as a way to diversify email personalization. Brand Personalization can soften the edges of your business and add some human connection between you and the customer.
- Match your personalized emails to the relevant landing pages to push the success of conversion even higher. Ensure the look of the two is consistent, and both have the same personalized call to action for a unified customer experience.
Email personalization goes beyond addressing prospects by their name. It entails making potential customers more engaged with your business as a way of enhancing email marketing.
Incorporate Originality
Your message branding is crucial for the success of your email marketing strategy. Authenticity and credibility are two other factors you must incorporate to win the readers' attention. Authenticity refers to original and genuine content. If a prospect is to buy your products or services, this is one thing they want to see in your messages.
Why is authenticity essential? One thing you must remember is that your prospects have an overload of options. Your business competes against millions of other similar companies. If you structure your message in the same way as businesses do, the chances are high that you won't impress anyone.
It also helps to carve out a niche. For authenticity, it's highly unlikely that you can cater to everyone's needs. You stand to be more successful if you specialize in offering consultation for a specific service. While you might have a smaller audience, you are likely to get more business because you deliver something specific to their needs.
Credibility will help you build your reputation and be more accountable. If you can't deliver what you promise in your marketing message, don't mention it in the first place.
Inject Your Unique Value Proposition
Your unique value proposition is the one thing that makes your business stand out from the crowd. It refers to the specific benefit that puts your business on top compared to others in your industry. You must be deliberate about forming an opinionated unique value proposition. This way, you can quickly and easily influence your branding, messaging, and copywriting, all of which play a role in the success of your marketing efforts.
At the very least, your value proposition should answer your potential customers' most immediate questions. It should tell them what sets you apart from the competition and the strengths you bring to the table. A compelling value proposition should:
- Focus on what your prospects care about
- Be assertive but defensible and justifiable. In other words, it should force you to make a case against the competition as opposed to being generic.
- Come across as more than a slogan. It should be something you can easily embody in every other area of your business and not just in the motto of your business.
While it is not necessary that what you sell should be unique, the message you build around it has to be.
Final Thoughts
Email marketing is still one of the best strategies you can use to get your first client for your business. It also goes a long way in establishing a long-lasting business relationship. However, it won't work in your favor if you approach some aspects of email marketing the traditional way.
You have to let go of the boring messaging approach that is characteristic of most marketing messages. Incorporate originality, personality, and a unique value proposition and see your msp marketing efforts bear results. If you'd like more help with your email marketing strategy for your small IT consulting business, Ulistic is here to help. Contact us today for an initial consultation.
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