7 strategies on how to get clients (with step by step guide from Granny)

“But I can’t do anything, I want you to come up with 7 strategies to get us clients,” in frustrated voice Amy says to recently joined intern Neha.

22-year-old Neha joined DigitalKingdom last week as an intern. Her job is to handle digital marketing projects for their clients. Being digital marketer she is responsible for all the work from SEO, PPC, FB Ads, to managing social media accounts of clients. This is the typical story of normal digital marketer even though all the fields are vast in itself, the company wants you to do all the things.

Dejected Neha looks at Amy for some kind of sarcastic smile but to her disappointment there is none. Amy is serious.

“Look Neha, yesterday our top 2 senior digital marketers left the company without prior notice, and now its all on you. You are the head of digital marketing, I can not afford to have other digital marketers join our team before we get our strategy right and gets some more clients”

“I got it Amy, I will come up with 7 strategies that we can use for continuous client flow” says Neha, still unsure about how to do it.

“Good, You have 48 hours,” says Amy and leaves the office.

Neha tries to search online but she is unable not able to find reliable strategies. She calls her friend Sumit, a Google expert (We always have that one friend who is good at Google)

Neha: “Sumit, help me”

Sumit: “Ya I know, that's when you call me.”.”Shut up, I am not in the mood to fight” says Neha.

“Ya Tell me, What happened?” Sumit replies.

“ I have been assigned a task to come up with 7 strategies to get clients but I do not know how to find them.”

“Oo, just gimme a moment”

Sumit quickly googles and sends Neha a link to 100 ideas to earn online

Neha “Man I already read that article, it has 100s of ideas on how you can start earning online but I want do know what to do after that? We are in service-based business, we have our idea and business in place now we are looking for how can we generate clients for that”

Sumit “I see, sorry but I am just a google expert, what I will suggest is to get in touch with our DigitalGranny she would surely help you”

Neha “a who?”

Sumit “I will share you an address of my DigitalGranny make sure you visit her after your work time

Neha “Man are you serious?”

Sumit “Do you trust me?”

Neha “Do I have other option?”

“Good, she is the one who can help you quickly, she is the best In the world”

“Okay man, don't hype it up, I will take a half day and then I will meet her”

“Good girl, I will message her address on WhatsApp” Sumit replies.

“Bye,” says Neha.

Neha takes a half day,  books a cab and approaches near to the DigitalGranny's house

She sees one big Old haweli with a big gate.

She opens the gate and approaches to the door. The surrounding area looks calm with no trees, pets or human insight.

She Knocks at the door. And boom as soon as she knocked, the door which was filled with the dirt becomes clear and a scanner with green light shows up.

Neha already gets pretty entranced by this and then the door opens automatically with a voice of old lady, “Come inside Neha”

Neha enters the house and sees that Haweli was nothing like how it feels from outside.

Inside the haweli everything is technical, with big rooms filled with more than 10 TV screens and in all screens various videos are running.

Neha sees one big chair in the middle of the room with cigar smoke flames coming out.

Neha approaches the chair, and finally, Neha sees the Granny, the DigitalGranny. A woman in her 70s with fair color, short height, big eyes.

Neha with surprise look gives a smile to Granny.

Granny gives whimsical smile to neha “Hello baccha, kaise ana hua”

“Granny, I am looking for 7 ways to get clients for my service based business but I am unable to find any”

“No worries, I will help you, sit there on the Sofa so we can discuss”

Neha sits on the sofa near to the Granny’s chair. Granny and Neha are just face to face with only 5-7 ft distance.

“Before we begin, I need a promise from you”

“What is it?”

“First give me promise”

“Yes granny I promise, tell me now”

“Good, I will let you know once we are done with 7 ways to get clients”

-----

It doesn't matter what niche you select. If you are not good at generating clients or if you do not have a systematic plan to have client flow coming then you won't be able to sustain your business.

But here’s good news, I want to take this to the next level and share with you 7 strategies that can help you generate client flow for you regularly with step by step guide.

So let's begin.

Strategy #1. Start Contributing to the existing groups

Neha, This is a big one and my personal favorite. Start engaging in existing Facebook groups that are related to your niche.

You may be wondering what does it do. And thats a good question. What happens after you contribute is that after a while, people will start noticing you and assume you as an expert and come to you for all the small to big questions related to the niche. This way you will end up getting clients for your business.

And the best thing is Facebook is giving more preference to Groups, infact their new UI is quite focused on groups. You will get lot of organic reach as well.

Till this date, Facebook groups are generating most of the revenue for me.

So Neha, for you, here is a Step by step guide that I follow.

Step 1: Search on facebook with query related to your niche. Eg. “dog lovers” “hiking tips” etc

Step 2: In the search bar Tap “Groups”

Step 3: Join groups that are having more than 1000 members

Step 4: Start commenting on other people’s posts. Make sure your comments are meaningful

Step 5: Post valuable content that will help the people

Step 6: Keep providing value to the group by commenting and posting

Step 7:  Connect with people who comment frequently on your post

Step 8: Look out for potential clients and engage more with them

Step 9: By the time you reach this step, you should start to see inquiries related to your work coming in your inbox.

Difficulty level: Easy

Strategy #2. Become moderator of a community

This is little more intermediate than the first one. But if you do this properly then it works like a charm.

Finally who doesn't want someone who can manage group activities like "accepting member requests" "Approving posts", admins will be thankful to you and you will get a chance to earn recognition in the established community. And in return you will earn few clients.

Step 1: Message existing admins of groups of your niche

Step 2: Tell them that you want to be volunteer to be a moderator of this group.

Step 3: Rest of the steps would be same as last way, but this time you will be more authentic and people will see you as expert.

Difficulty level: Medium

Strategy #3. Start Facebook Group

This is the second stage after you start contributing to the existing groups, there will come a time where you would want to start your own group. Creating your own group with the large audience means you will establish yourself as an expert in this field and everyone will look for you to get the clients.

Step 1: Follow the #1

Step 2: After a while create a group related to your niche

Step 3: Build it and own the stage

Difficulty Level: Hard

Strategy #4. Cold Calls

The evergreen tactic “Cold Calling”. And this works if you do it properly. But it is also the most scariest task. Even by thought of it, your hands will get sweaty and your body will start shaking.

But don't worry I got your back  Follow this simple step by step guide

Step 1: Buy a newspaper

Step 2: Search for people who have ads related to your niche

Step 3: Call them

Difficulty level: Hardest.

Strategy #5. Cold Emails

Cold emails are little easier than cold calls. Finally you don't have to communicate with prospect in real time.

But hang on, do not take it for granted else your emails will be ignored or worst ends up in spam folder.

“So what to do DigitalGranny?” Asks Neha

“Do not worry my child, I got your back”

Here is step by step guide:

Step 1: List out prospects emails

Step 2: Craft out a email (follow this resource by YS team)

Step 3: Make sure your email is spam free by using this tool

Step 4: Send the email

Step 5: Follow up after 48 hours

Step 6: Follow up after 96 hours

Step 7: Follow up after 7 days

Do you know the money is in follow up?

Most beginners do this mistake of not following up with cold emails, thinking that the receiver is not interested. But it's a big mistake. Do not repeat it. Always follow up with all of your cold emails. Sometimes it could be possible that people are busy and forgot to respond to your email. That's why always do follow ups with them.

Difficulty Level: Medium

Strategy #6. Paid ads

Start running ads for your business. Focus on Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads. If you are in B2B then you can also leverage the LinkedIn ads.

Other platforms like Pinterest, Reddit, and Twitter ads works smoothly too.

Here is a simple strategy to run Facebook ads:

Step 1: Write a compelling ad copy

Step 2: Create a knowledge bomb video (do not pitch your service)

Step 3: Create custom audience of people who watched 50% of your video

Step 4: Retarget these custom audience with pitch ad

Step 5: Start with as low as $5, with 3 different audience interest

Difficulty Level: Hard

Strategy #7. Content marketing (Blogging, social media posting, SEO)

This one is important. Start doing strategic content marketing for your targeted audience. Content marketing is the big game and it will help you in long term.

Doing content marketing will help you in becoming brand in your niche.  Make sure content you are writing is valuable and making you look authentic, trustworthy, and reliable.

All your content should be systematically planned out for converting the readers into newsletter into your prospects.

Step 1: Plan out month’s content

Step 2: Start writing the content

Step 3: Make sure it is SEO friendly

Step 4: After you have 3-4 articles (1000+ words) start publishing one article each week.

Step 6: Promote it across various social media profiles.

Step 7: Engage with comments

Difficulty: Medium

That’s it Neha, those are the 7 effective strategies I have always used to get constant client flow for my service based business.

“Do you have any question?” asks Granny.

“I am still absorbing it Granny, but I will let you know in the comments along with my other friends who are going through these strategies” replies Neha.

"Sure, Now comes the promise part which you were waiting for"

"Yes Granny"

"Neha you promised that you won't be using all 7 strategies all at a same time, you will pick one or two strategies and master it completely. All the strategies are good enough to get you constant flow of clients so focus only on one or two and get some clients quickly"

"Makes sense, I promise that again" says Neha, “You are a rockstar Granny, thanks for sharing it. I know Sumit always points me in right direction” with concluding remarks.

“My pleasure, see ya” replied DigitalGranny.