Hello,

As most of you know I have a tech support based business. So far I have a few accounts and I'm trying to pick up some hotel chains and other business that might need a 24 hour based tech support company. Currently, I am at a loss on how to attract more businesses.

Can anyone give me any ideas on marketing?

Your website is a good start for creating a favorable impression, and it could be improved if you go beyond who you are and what you do, and add "where". Other than that, your site is very well done and professional, so perhaps adding your physical address at the bottom of each page will help convince viewers you are a credible tech service company.

If the geographical area serviced is limited to one city, or Missouri, or a 500 mile radius (or whatever up to the entire world), that needs to be understood clearly on your site. From your question, my guess is residential clients are a base that helps support you day to day, but your real target is the hotel chains.

My daughter happens to be a senior manager of a national chain within the Hilton family of hotels. She's sharp, and I'll get her opinion and advice soon and post another reply.

Meanwhile, what have you done for marketing? Your website can sell 24/7, so you need to attract visitors there as well as some form of print advertising even if it's post cards. The big hotel chains will not find you without you banging on their door. You can begin researching how they operate and who makes the decisions by contacting hotels that are nearby.

Earlier this year I started writing small business advice articles related to web design and graphic art, plus general topics, and had them distributed through article directory sites. The increase in backlinks (one way links or "votes" to my site) was incredible. Here's just one example:

Last week Microsoft IE7 was released on the 18th, and I had an article written and published with advice on IE7 for the small business owner the next day. I checked 6 days later and a search of "IE7+degerstrom" returned over 500 search results in Google. That's 500 "votes", one way links, in less than a week, and the effect on my business just writing free advice articles keeps me very busy.

Finally, on your site, you may consider adding testimonials. I went through my first hard drive crash (in 10 years) last July, and I have an appreciation for techs and what you can do in an emergency. Tell your visitors stories from happy clients for added impact.

I'll let you know once I have feedback on "hotel advice" from my daughter. Good luck.

Marketing advice, or selling advice? Here's a little of both.

The web or the yellow pages will be a great way to reach the people who need your services, but don't know where to go. That's because they'll be used as a directory by customers who are actively seeking a solution to their problem. The cons with this approach is that they're passive; they'll stay dormant until the customer takes action, and you're right next to all your competitors.

If you're selling business-to-business, most of the time you are trying to take the business away from someone else. That will take relationship building, trust building, and getting your service presentation directly in front of the decision maker. And that involves cold calling the people who you think would benefit from your service, and face-to-face, or a presentation over the phone. The good news is that cold calling is a bit easier now days because most companies have e-mail addresses on-line, and you'll have a chance to introduce yourself with an e-mail, then a follow-up phone call, and then a personal sales call if it's a local business.

Good luck!

Thanks for the compliments on the website.

Agreed, I am going to put some more information on it including the city of service. Testomonials sounds like a great idea, I think I will indeed add that as well.

So far, we have been putting up ads online. We have put up a listing in the yellow pages and just relying on word of mouth at this point. On the first of this month we have a nice account starting up that will give their employees access to our 24 hour tech support. As far as hotels, that would be mainly a local thing. Although, providing 24 hour tech support to hotels for their guests is in the works. I just need to put up more information on these types of accounts.

I look forward to your daughters advice.

First off, answer your phone and/or have an answering machine. I know this sounds obvious but let me tell you what happened to me.

About a month ago I got a worm on one of my pc's. Symantec didn't stop it and didn't even find it when I did a scan. Ad-aware found it but couldn't fix/remove it. I called a local pc repair shop on a Saturday morning and got no answer and no answering machine. I did some research online and started working the issue myself. I called this business again on Monday morning. Again no answer and no answering machine. I finally got it resolved myself over the course of five days with the help of www.techsupportforum.com. I got it fixed for free but would have gladly paid somebody to fix it in one day. The company I called and tried to hire will never get a call from me again.

I think the best thing you can do is just keep your name in peoples minds so that when they have an emergency they'll know who to call.

Very good point. Actually we have a phone system and my call center is going live on the 1st of November so that kind of situation won't pass us up.

You've been given great advice so far. I'm thinking the name of your business is too vague. I visited your web-site and wasn't sure what the business name was until I got to the price comparison page which confirmed that it really was "Lowtech". Of course, I saw it on the other pages, but for some reason I wasn't sure until it was next to the names of your competitors.

On your web-site, this isn't a problem since the site does such a good job explaining what you do, but when your business is presented in other media (i.e. business cards) a more descriptive name might help. You could make this name work if it is always attached to a great tag-line. Such as Lowtech - support for PC related problems.

Update.

Here are comments as promised from my daughter who is a manager within Hilton. (She rescued my message from her junk mail).

"The large chains have contracts with major corporations such as IBM for systems and service, and others for software. Hilton also has local, regional and national IT support within the company, so the chances are slim for a local independent.

The best opportunity is to approach smaller, non name brand hotels and motels. Look for properties that are self contained and not a part of a larger hotel/motel portfolio. You’d be surprised - 6 Best Value Motels owned by one company or person could have created its own network and integrated its sales force. Look for boutique hotels, bed and breakfasts, etc."

Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.

If you have previous clients that you can write success stories about, I would suggest putting together a 2-page "case study" that looks like a newsletter (yes, print) where you feature 2-3 success stories of how you solved a problem for similar clients.

Then call on your targeted list of prospective clients, introduce yourself, and offer to send the special report. Include with it a way for them to get back to you.

If you can't get a hold of them by phone first, then mail it, and do a follow-up call later.

The key about busienss-to-business, is that it is nearly always a mix of direct marketing and sales (phone calls or personal visits).

One of the amazing things about a service company is that you can create your own market. Create a turn key package deal for small hotels/offices where you supply networking hardware and software, cabling, wireless, maybe some management software, anti-virus, productivity software, and PC's. You could even go with a VOIP provider, and possibly even partner with a local ISP if you don't provide that service already.

You can partner with other providers for the cabling and VOIP. Place a reasonably low price on the setup to get in the door but tack a premium on a 24 month minimum service contract. If they decide to abandon the relationship before the 24 months then they owe you $X amount of dollars for the initial hardware purchases and setup services.

You could take this anywhere and the advantages of the package are great for everyone involved. Your customer gets a complete data management package, you get a system that you have a great deal of control over so its likely to run well. The customer gets regular service and maintenance, and you start to get great market share.

Real estate offices, Dr. offices, and other small office environments would be likely candidates as well.

As you get more of these you can start to leverage your buying power with your hardware providers and your partners to create bigger and better packages that will move you into bigger and better client brackets.