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dpf
Posts: 7126
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
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Soliciting buisness from existing sites. - 11/29/2005 14:18:44
I would like to hear ideas/experiences about approaching buisnesses that already have sites. by phone or mail or personal visit? just how do you come out and say "your design looks childish and unprofessional? what do you offer them?
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Dan
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dpf
Posts: 7126
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
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RE: Soliciting buisness from existing sites. - 11/29/2005 14:40:22
quote:
Just stay away from my websites!! i dont venture more than 100 miles..lol
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Dan
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Nicole
Posts: 2845
Joined: 9/15/2004
From: Nambucca / Kempsey, Australia
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RE: Soliciting buisness from existing sites. - 11/29/2005 15:14:14
Hi Dan,
If you go way back to the very first few pages of this Wed Business forum, you'll see many of the topics discussed back then were on this topic.
Also, I believe your idea of suggesting that they wouldn't use the same advertising campaign year after year, so why hasn't their website changed since 1999? Use the Way back machine to check when these sites were created and if they've changed since then.
Look for the site designer and see if they arre still in business, see if it was actually a designer or if they did it themselves or a friend did it.
Send them an email about something or fill out one of their forms - see how quick they respond, or you might discover that they don't use the site or the internet much.
Suggest changes rather than telling them their site is awful. If it fails to comply with W3C or cross-browser compatability or accessibility, let them know, but offer solutions and tell them it's not difficult.
Offer them a few different options rather than pushing yourself on them, make some of those solutions things that don't involve you redesigning their sites.
Try and deal with individual decision makers, not committees or other groups of people.
I wrote about this somewhere else on these forums recently and mentioned that I'd received something like 22% of favourable responses to my letters recently, these were to committees though, and all are yet to bear any fruit, most probably won't, but those that do may take a year or more to.
Keep in touch with them on a regular basis if they show any sign of interest. Not weekly but perhaps bi-monthly or so. In the meantine mock up some examples of your work with their logo and things.
Nicole
Edit: Please excuse the typos and missing words. It's 7am!
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Mojo
Posts: 2441
From: Chicago
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RE: Soliciting buisness from existing sites. - 11/29/2005 16:40:06
Another approach is to build a competing site, but build it better. Make it rank better in the search engines and then approach the prospective client with the opportunity to purchase a better site. If the mark doesn't want the site just add Adsense or start selling whatever they do. I have done that once so I know it works.
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traveler98
Posts: 362
From: Dallas Tx USA
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RE: Soliciting buisness from existing sites. - 11/30/2005 9:49:02
quote:
ORIGINAL: dpf
I would like to hear ideas/experiences about approaching businesses that already have sites. by phone or mail or personal visit? just how do you come out and say "your design looks childish and unprofessional? what do you offer them?
Dan-
I have had pretty good luck when I tried something like what you are suggesting. In fact I don't know why I don't do it more often. I LOVE finding sites where they post something on the bottom like last updated XXX or mention some upcoming event that lets you know it has not been updated in quite a while.
I will CALL not email (how much spam do you get a day) or stop by if possible and talk to the owner or manager and mention that I noticed the site had not been updated in quite a while.
Sometimes they don't realize it, and sometimes they just admit they don't have time to keep up with updates. In almost every case when they ask me to update their site, it usually leads to an entirely new site soon.
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