Being based in Cape Town we can call ourselves lucky. Cape Town is prospering and there are new companies popping up left, right and centre. This means there are lots of companies in need of websites.

But how to find these companies and convince them we have the solution for their web needs. Well, we have made the experience that sometimes it takes just a few hours and two e-mails to get the quote signed off and the first designs flowing. Some other times though one needs to go and pitch the client in person, then a few e-mails flow, then one sends the quote and never hears from them again, knowing one sent a great quote and sure they would take it. Sometimes you know a company wants to save money and you want them to switch over and you send them a long e-mail explaining why they should host with you and how it would save them 75% and they come back saying they decided to stick to their existing host.

This causes two questions to pop up: Are we doing something wrong? and Does the company understand what we offer?

Well, indeed marketing is a tricky affair, especially in our business where a website is not always a website. You have ASP and PHP, templates and WYSIWYG, Joomla, osCommerce, MySQL and MS SQL. One company wants a shopping cart with credit card facilities, the other wants a product catalog with no order option. Some companies want full administrative interfaces and others want static five-page websites.

With all these options and usually a few one specializes on as a company it is difficult to explain to the unknowing client what one offers, what the advantages and disadvantages are and why they can't use it to check their bank accounts.

But, apart from the orientation and description of one's services, one has a much more complicated question to answer: HOW to find the client. Either one prints ads in papers, one relies on online ads and the power of one's website, one hands our flyers and approaches possible clients directly or one relies solely on word-of-mouth.

The latter has the highest conversion rate, while the print ads are most costly, yet have high exposure and can provide some bargaining power if the brand becomes known. Online ads are most useful for companies selling templates or webhosting directly on their website, but someone looking for a quality webdesign company with personal meetings and lasting commitment is unlikely to follow the online ads. They will rather look you up in the yellow pages or in the normal Google results, then e-mail you.

Flyers and direct approach can be very successful if targeted right. This is probably going to be our primary marketing technique going forward, while word-of-mouth is generally always around and good to have (offering a referral commission can hugely increase leads). The best way to move forward with the direct approach/flyer technique is to find companies that are appropriate, in our case SMEs, then find out if they have a website and should they have a current website in need of a redesign or not have one at all either e-mail them or in the case of walk-in business such as shops go in with a flyer and speak to the manager.

Also going to shopping malls and handing flyers to all those shops you suspect may not have a website yet. Business parks offer the same opportunity, especially if they have post boxes all together at the entrance where you can pop in 50 flyers in a few minutes.

So, all in all hooking a client can be easy but finding them may be hard. sometimes you need to invest substantial time and persuasive skills to win someone over but somtimes they will come to you read to rock!

Hope this helped and we would love to hear your insights and ideas regarding webdesign marketing.

Mike