Hi,

My name is Jennifer and I am co-owner of Savvy with Mobile.  My partner and I create mobile friendly websites for small businesses.  We are located in Phoenix, AZ.

Our main problem is lead generation.  We’ve tried many ways to get in contact with small business owners, with pretty much no luck.  Our target client is a small business owner who runs the business solo or with a small number of employees.  They don’t have time to bother with designing a mobile website themselves, nor do they have the money for a custom site.  That’s where we come in–we will create and manage a mobile website for an affordable monthly fee. 

The problem we’re having is getting to speak with potential clients.  We’ve tried talking with them in person, on the phone, and mailing postcards.  Basically, they say they’re not interested, or they don’t need a mobile website (even if they do).  We put out an ad to hire a salesperson to help us, but got only a few responses and those people weren’t interested any further.  I’m going to start doing some Facebook messaging, basically, just messaging a business with a short script I wrote to see if they’re interested.  Aside from that, how do you connect with a small business owner?  Most of them are too busy for their own social media management, so how do I get them to follow me on social media?

Here are some examples of mobile websites I did:

http://www.apiofcolorado.mobi/ (this was done for a relative)

http://www.avisbarbersalon.mobi/ (this was done for a local barber my partner met)

Thank you very much!
~Jennifer

Here are my links:

savvywithmobile.com

facebook.com/savvywithmobile

@elizabeth-jamieson, I’ve heard of Facebook marketing but haven’t tried that, so I’ll keep that in mind, thanks! 

@rich-brooks, thanks for the ideas.  I think part of my problem though is my target audience, for the most part, isn’t the type to go seminars.  They are solo business owners or only have a few employees, and are pretty much just focused on running the business.  That’s why it’s so hard to get to talk with them.  They tend to brush off all our attempts to contact them, saying they’re “too busy”, “not interested”, or that they already have a mobile website when they don’t (they’re seeing their desktop site on their phone). 

Regarding the FB ads, I remember briefly looking at them awhile back, but there didn’t seem to be a way to target them only to businesses?  Has that changed now?

Thanks for the advice!

~Jennifer

Hi,

I find that sponsored stories on Facebook work even better than the geographically targeted ads.

Sharon

I  didn’t know you could target specific business owners @jennifer-bradshaw !  I just used whatever the default ad was and saw results within hours on a budget of $5/day.

this may be a bit too common sense but…when people are telling you they are not interested…the might actually…not be interestedindicating that you have no market.just because you think mobile sites are a good idea and all businesses should have one and you are offering ‘a great deal’ dosent make it true…

I just got a chance to read this, but don’t have the time to comment on it. We also did mobile and had a lot of bells and whistles. We finally decided to build these sites for free- targeted our best potential customer and then set up a time to show them what we did, if they liked it, they purchased, if they didn’t or had no interest it was lost time, but we gained some good customers

By the way the new twitter for business, Glyder or Vine. Now you can embed six second videos on twitter through vine an app owned by twitter. Glyder it’s a good way to make announcements through twitter they have some free cards for you to use. I hope it helps.

I’d have to agree that you will need to narrow down your market. Not all small business owners need a mobile site. Think about which type of businesses stand to gain the most and focus in on what the benefits of that mobile site are for them. How is it going to help them get more customers? How does it save them time? How does it increase their ROI? the more specific you can be the more people will respond. Give an example and be specific. Create a case study.Honestly, I’ve had people approach me to make me a mobile site and that’s insane waste of my time and money for what my goals are. You’ve got to hone in on who’s world is going to be rocked by this. then go talk to a few of them directly, make a site for one of them, get some results, then use it as a case study to show to business owners in the same field how valuable it is to their bottom line.