Starting sales campaign

[iberlian]

Hello small-business community,

We are in the process of starting a paid directory (free for users, paid for advertisers) and were wondering the best strategy for contacting our potential clients. Basically I was wondering what others might of done to start a successful campaign? We are giving away a few free months to our potential clients to show them the benefits of advertising with us, in the meantime we will be doing extensive SEO work to climb page ranks in addition to more traditional forms of advertising. Any tips or suggestions out there? We were thinking starting with cold-calling as well as a mailer, but we are new with no track record. Do you think this is the best first step?

[Harold Mansfield]

Here is my opinion...I'm assuming that you are talking about a web directory. In my experience, no one is going to see the benefit of a web directory, especially not until it is doing traffic in significant numbers...even still traditionally web directories are not good for generating traffic to your website because people don't use them.

With the exception of the Yellow Pages and other local directories (or Yellow Book or whatever they call it in your area)...but they have built decades of credibility.

I think before you even get into how you are going to market it, you need to put a different spin on just another directory that is going to truly be beneficial to business owners.

But to answer your question...there isn't anything that you can do to attract people to advertise a new directory that has no traffic except run an aggressive ad campaign of your own to assure people that their ads will actually be seen while you are building up your traffic sources.

You will need to give a lot of space away for free to fill it up and then charge later once you are showing actual results. JMO.

Is this to be a local or just general web directory?

[iberlian]

Yea that is exactly the strategy we are taking (aggresive marketing while hosting all listings for free for a few months until we have traffic). It will be a local market targeting a select type of doctor.

What would you suggest would be the best way to make intial contact? We we're considering a combination of calling and information sending via mail and email. In the email we were considering adding a video explaining who we are, benefits of advertising and how we intend to grow their business (practice).

[Harold Mansfield]

Local or niche is definitely the way to go. If you are looking to attract doctors, the design has to be top notch. Doctors ( and most people who don't do the web as a living) only understand a nice design, and how their business will be presented on it...and then any potential traffic. In that order.

I like videos..everyone does. I'm actually working on one myself for my Facebook page. Initial contact is hard no matter what kind of business it is. Depending on how aggressive and well thought out your marketing is, you are likely to get more calls for it, than any other types of solicitations, so remember to let that campaign serve two functions.

Cold calling and email marketing is hard. The success of it really all comes down to the presentation and even then the conversion ration is low.. Again, I'd say your marketing of the actual directory itself will be the best way to attract people that want to be a part of it.

[nealrm]

Before you sink too much money into this, take a very long look at the potential earning on the site. To get this up and running you are going to need to spend a lot of money with your competition (TV, Radio, Newspapers, etc). Basically, you need to make sure that the local people think of you when they need a doctor. Compare the money spent on your ads versus the ads you sell to the doctors. Internet advertising today is extremely cheap.

I wish you luck.