This is more of a marketing question, but I am wondering what people have found is the best way to contact potential business owners. I do writing and want to offer copywriting and other creative services.

Is it better to 1) send a letter in the mail OR 2) send an email? It seems to me it is easier to ignore an email or forget to respond, but a letter in the mail I would read. Is it too old fashioned to send a good ol' sales letter? Should I look more at the expense and time of snail mail and just do email, which could also get a much faster response?

What has worked for others?

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Lindsay
www.writingthatsizzles.net

One interesting tip I've heard is to find a company's brochure (or Web site, or newsletter, or ...) and use your red pen to "proofread" it, identifying typos and poor grammar and making suggestions for how to improve the content. Then send it to the company along with your marketing materials. It's an unusual way to show them your value

Deb

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Deb Howard Greenleaf, Certified QB ProAdvisor
Virtual Bookkeeping & QB Consulting

The red pen approach makes me nervous. Yes, it would show off your abilities, but do you really want to start off with a negative? I don't know the best approach because everyone does things differently and everyone responds differently, so you just have to decide what way you are comfortable with and go with it. Just be careful to not offend anyone in the process.

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Pam
www.adminetcetera.com

I was just going to say it makes me nervous too! I wouldn't want to offend another writer. All I know is I have gotten jobs in the past with just a letter, nothing else. The last time I did the letter idea was 2004, so I'm just wondering if letters are no longer the "thing." It's so much cheaper and faster to do email, but I'm not sure how the results will be. Especially, a cold email where you are introducing yourself and your service. Gosh, maybe I should just do both!

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Lindsay
www.writingthatsizzles.net

There are several ways to communicate with a potential client:

1> Email (Send a news letter along with links to interesting articles and such)
2> Fax (Fax over a brochure)
3> Call (Give the owner a call and talk to them about your services.)
4> Mail (When mailing, send your brochure with an introduction to your company and services.)

Good Luck~
Andrea

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Action Jackson Virtual Assistant|

I agree with Pam, the red pen move makes me nervous as well. I would feel as though I am showing some sort of arrogance. While, it is a good idea, I'm not sure if it is the way to start a business relationship. I would be afraid it would offend the business owner to a degree.

Has anyone ever hand delivered materials to small business owners in your area? I don't want to email because I feel it can easily be dismissed and my husband pointed out that some may think of it as spam and delete immediately. It seems as tough it would get quite expensive to pay postage on all the packets I would want to send out - so I though maybe hand delivering. Has anyone done this? Is it not a good idea? What are your thoughts? I'm going to be needing some new clients soon as my personal friends are having to cut back on work due to their businesses not being as profitable as usual.

For my initial mailing, which I'm kicking off next week, I'm sending out letters with a business card. I figured, why waste higher priced marketing material, not to mention postage, on prospects who are never going to want my services. I figure I'll wait until they call for more info before sending out the more expensive items. Since cost is a factor right now as I'm starting things up, I thought this would be a nice compromise.

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Jodith Allen
Administrative Arts

Jodith, that's a great idea - to save the more expensive material for those truly interested later on. Let me know how it goes. I sent out some letters last week and am going to try to do some every week. I have also thought about hand delivering my information, but my elevator speech needs some work! I'm much better on paper right now.

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Lindsay
www.writingthatsizzles.net

That's what I'm doing, sending some out every week. I'm planning on 50 a week. I can get partial mailing lists from Experian Small Business Services, and later get another chunk without repeats, so that's what I'm doing. That way I can afford to do a little at a time as I have the money. Man, mailing lists are expensive. I had no idea until I started researching it. I had never been in the position of acquiring a mailing list before. Everywhere I worked had it's own in-house mailing list that we used, so we never had to purchase one before.

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Jodith Allen
Administrative Arts