There are hundreds of books on small business marketing and much of the advice works if you put it into action.
But we don't have time to read hundreds of books let alone put all that advice into action right from the start.
I'm also guessing you don't have between £3,000 and £10,000 that an agency would cost.
If we have a good, solid marketing plan we can get into action. And we can do this in a fraction of the time it would take us to research and test all the available options.
Experimenting and testing with your marketing makes a lot of sense. But right now we need a doable plan so we can get into business and start earning, fast.
Think about this. If you did use a marketing or advertising agency, how long would it take to recoup your £3,000 to £10,000 investment?
And what results would you get? It's difficult to run conclusive A/B tests on a small, low traffic site. So you might still be using best practices backed up by user tests. Which is the same system we'd be using with our more cost-effective plan.
Many books compare marketing to judo or big game hunting. But does that work with you, when you're comparing professional service businesses?
A second-hand car salesman might only deal with a customer once. And his tactics might be very different to ours.
Basing your dealings with your clients on honesty, integrity, and trust makes sense. Especially for a professional service business. Get this right and you could keep clients for life, not just a single job.
There are many ways to drive qualified prospective clients to your website. You just need to know where they hang out on-line or off-line.
Once you know where your prospects are, you need to present the right message to them in the right way.
Web designers have been building websites that win clients for more than 20 years.
Methods that do work and methods that don't have been tried and tested. We kept the methods that do work then honed and refined them.
We now have a solid understanding of what works. And we know what's needed to sell your professional services through your website.
Filling your diary with well-paying work from the right sort of clients is not easy.
But with a simple and proven formula, you've got a better chance than many of your competitors. Because many of your competitors are just guessing at what to do. Or they're doing no marketing at all.
Did you know MailChimp offer free mailing lists for up to 2000 subscribers.
That's more than enough for most small businesses to get started.