marketing, software, sales, consulting, bootstrappingI recently started a small Nearshore Software Consultancy in Mexico, focused on Quality Mobile Apps, I have a client from a previous job, they’re a startup, I’ve also received some inquiries through recommendations from acquaintances, but they’re not the kind of clients I’m looking for (they’re usually individuals with some ideas, but no capital), so I’m not sure about how to get more clients in a consistent way.
We have a highly capable team, and we’re profitable already with this one client, but I’d like to have more income sources to increase our stability. I think I have to attack this problem from a short and long term perspective, I’ve considered the following, but am open to recommendations:
Short term:
Long term:
Please consider this:
What’s the best way to drive more clients? Are there any companies or professional individuals who could help me?
Edit: My target audience is located in the US.
You have short and long term mixed up. At your stage what you need is word of mouth.
Firstly, local clients are an option for you - Mexicans are mostly broke, but there also are a lot of rich ones. (I lived there.) Create a meetup.com account, check out the local chamber of commerce and what have you, and then go to every local event where you think you might find prospects. Do talks here and there. You’ll be surprised by the results. Expand to other conferences and meetups when you figure it out and get results in.
Secondly, work on your website. It takes over a minute to load on a 2014 MacBook Air. That’s intolerably bad. And the white light type against the agave background is unreadable. It’s all working against you. It sucks. Off the bat you’ve zero credibility if you’re positioning yourselves as designers. Sorry to be blunt here, but you need to hear it.
Thirdly, get a unique selling proposition and hammer it across your marketing and your website.
Fourthly, ideally build some kind of e-course on your site to get your prospects into your funnel. Offer an info-product of some kind as a reward, and collect emails using your preferred mailing list’s phone app when going to meetups (Mailchimp, GetResponse, aWeber, etc. all have one). Then throw 6-8 emails to those addresses using an auto-responder to demonstrate your expertise. Don’t be salesy. Stay informative. Until the last one, of course. It works wonders.
Lastly, work on word of mouth proper. Involve your clients in your marketing. You want them to champion you at all stages of your sales process: tell their success stories on your site, show their testimonials, ask them for referrals (try to include this in your contract on a best-effort basis), invite them to webinars and meetups, and so forth. Nothing sells better than a happy client, because prospects like them hear how great you are straight from the horse’s mouth – a horse they can identify with.
Consider this:
Do the startups you are targeting know they need a mobile app?
If they do, that means that they are looking for a solution. Let that be in-house or outsource. Which means that you need to focus on sales and marketing.
If they don’t know that they need a mobile app they are oblivious to your service and you need to focus on educating your target audience about the benefits of having a mobile app.
Because you are in Mexico the latter might be true. The rise of mobile is a new phenomenon and mobile penetration in developing countries is much lower than in developed ones. Many smaller businesses might still not be aware of the inherent benefits of having a mobile app so they need to be brought up to speed, i.e. educated.
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