Hi Guys,
So I have been doing this method for a while now and this method has helped me to scale revenues of my company to 500k$ a month from offline sales.
This is not some rocket science method, actually a very basic method but some times simple things which we tend to overlook just work.
Last year, I was spending $1000-2000 a month of trying different online media buys but when I discovered this I was just flabbergasted.
The first step in this method basically involves buying a BIG billboard in a most busiest part of the city where brick and mortar business owners will see it day and night.
Since am based in Mumbai, India I have done it in my city, but am sure it will work in every high populated city like NYC, London etc.
So I bought a large billboard in the center of the city (lokhandwala circle in my case) and put just 1 line of text on it. Just 1 line so its very prominent, readable and draws attention without distraction. You have just a moment to catch their attention and get them on phone to call you,so you need to be as short and precise as you can. The billboard costed $1800 a month and add $200 for the cost of the flex, so over all spend = $2000.
This was the bill board text.
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Generate More Sales for your business ! Partner with Google!
Call us now - My personal cell no.
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This text in large bold text with Google as Google's logo colors which every one can recognize and connect to, and my number in large red font which is clearly visible in day and night. I have tested few color variations and few other texts but this one has worked best so far with respect to call volumes.
This area gets like 1,00,000 - 5,00, 000 daily visitors, mostly business owners as the circle is center of lokhandwala market and they see my billboard ( yes don't be surprised ,this is Mumbai, India's most populated city, all you need to know is how to sell and no one can stop you from turning your dreams to reality.)
Business Owners easily connect to the Google's logo and name and they have just heard that how others are increasing sales by going online, so out of inquisitiveness they call. Also they hear about Google from their kids etc . I get many calls asking me to explain the concept and many think that Google is some MLM company trying to sell MLM plans and if they would have to recruit new members bla bla etc. So yeah its fun dealing with all these noobsters from all over the city.
Initially I used to get 5-10 calls a day, but then after a month or so the calls shot up to 100+ a day and was getting difficult for me to manage so I had to get 1800 number from Knowlarity. Its an awesome product I would say, makes my life lot easier and streamlined and not a single missed opportunity. Now I have a 10 people team just attending inbound sales calls and fixing meetings for my sales guys.
Initially when I started I used to go and meet the business owners and explain them the whole concept. Most of them didn't had a website so first they needed a website, I gave them a simple wordpress website for 600$-1000$ (yes they paid 1000$ , as its chump change for some of these businesses and they make 10x of this daily. I charged them depending on how much they can pay). If they have a website made by some school kid I would explain them the problems of it and why its not good fro SEO etc and why their website needs a facelift. Just show them a competitor's responsive wordpress website done by me on a Sony Experia or an Iphone 5 and explain to them how this website works on mobile and how it is superior than what they have and if they don't upgrade why they will loose customers on mobile and mobile is the future etc etc. 99% of them get convinced and pay for what you are selling.
Then I upsell them Adwords and Social PPC ads and give them free $100 google adwords ads and free $50 FB ads. I also submit their business to directories like zomato, justdial , asklaila etc ( Indian version of yelp/yellowpages etc). I also put a special knowlarity number on their website so I can track the calls the website is generating and also give out coupon codes on the site so offline sales can be tracked by coupon codes if they generated via the website.
There are several other things which I do but not able to list of them here, if you can find everything here on BHW though. Its all about increasing their online exposure and connect them to customers who are looking for them. That's it.
After first month I go back to them and show them traffic I got, the calls they received from the website and the allover ROI on the business due to going online and my promotions. Remember, Small Businesses don't understand analytics, they suck at it, so you have to convert your analytical numbers to revenues, like for example 1000 business inquiry calls made 100 sales which made you 5000$, so my services made you 5 grands extra this month, are you willing you continue it and pay me $100 a month for doing what I did last month for you.
Most of the business owners get super excited when they see this. I usually sign them up for any of these monthly plans $100,$200,$400,$500 a month depending on how much they can pay. Yes you got it right, I ask them based on how much I think they can pay not on how much I spend, as I spend hardly anything. All I need is to take care is that they are ranking for their brand keywords and some local niche keywords which is relatively easy to rank.
Most of these businesses don't know that people are searching for them by their brand keywords but since they don't have an online presence, people cant find them online.I just filled that gap by making their website and listing them on local websites and now they get all that brand search traffic and are uber happy to pay a monthly fee for it.
Right now am servicing close to 3000 customers a month just from Mumbai and all I do is just make a call once a month and ask them if everything is all right and they are getting customers from my marketing. And end of the month I send them a detailed call report from knowlarity and coupon's requested via sms and they pay for the invoice happily. A couple of clients have paid for year upfront as I give 50% discount if they pay for the year.
A lot of business is generated by word of mouth as well. As your first happy customers refer you more clients. And then are several more channels of making money, I sell them software development and app development etc which is added revenues.
Growth Hacking and Blackhat
So my initial set of customers came from riding on the brand value of Google. People saw oh wow Google, let me call them right away. They trusted Google as a brand and connected to it.
Had I put something else or my own company no one would have cared to call.
Many might say its border line illegal and that Google can sue me for copyright infringement. Actually I would disagree and state that whenever I met a client I represented myself and my company as a Partner of Google and in the marketing prints which I left with them I would talk about Google products and in the bottom put that Google's logo and name are trademark of Google USA in red. The usual fine print.
Also if you read Google's Engage program's Logo and Brand usage policies you can just work around on that and put this very beautifully and legally. I worked with my lawyer for 2 weeks to get it right and draft all the marketing material so that it gives out the correct message and also keeps us legally safe.
So in layman terms, you are partner of Google under their Engage program and you are offering them Google's service as a partner and by signing up for Adwords etc they are partnering with Google and you are facilitating the process and hence the Ad text - Partner with Google.
So everyone is legally safe and protected, you and your customer as well. So far I haven't received any calls or complaints from Google, but if I get am ready to explain them that am only helping them get more customers for their products lol.
Learnings -
The way I have written this for you, I might sound very simple to do, just buy a billboard, get a knowlarity number and done. But trust me this can be an operational nightmare if you don't plan how you will scale this up. There was a time my phone used to ring every 5 minutes and I had to miss many calls because the first caller would end up speaking to me for 20 odd minutes and I was not able to focus on anything else but this.
Final Aim -
I want to expand to other areas in Mumbai and other big cities of India in next few months. May be will post a journey thread about that. Although I might hardly get time of update it. I have learnt a lot of things which I do in my day to day marketing on BHW, so I thought of sharing what got me started.
What you can do?
Copy this same method in your countries and cities and share your experiences here.
Good Luck to all of you and may the force be with you :)
~ Indianbill007