How to Attract New Clients Without Spending Money
Sounds intriguing, right?!
There’s a catch (there’s always a catch):
There is always a cost with acquiring new business. By opting not to spend money, you’re going to spend time.
There is no way to acquire new business without spending time or money doing so. Get over it. Welcome to the real world.
Over the course of my 5 years as a full time, self-employed wedding photographer, I was able to shift from word-of-mouth based referrals making up the bulk of my clients to new clients I attracted through marketing tactics first and foremost.
How did I do it?
1. Make the right connections
Ok ok - this answer is cheating a little bit because, in a round-about way, it’s still a word-of-mouth referral. But I would argue that because marketing and business is about people, any form of it is related to human-to-human connection in some way.
As a wedding photographer, I knew this to be true: clients usually book their venue first, and their photographer second.
This meant befriending florists, caterers, makeup artists, DJs, or decorators really had no noticeable benefit to my business. I could benefit them by referring my clients to them, but the only people that could refer me new business (consistently) were wedding venues.
It took a long time, but eventually I shot a wedding at every major venue in my city. And I was sure to use that as an introduction to getting to know the marketing managers in those venues, who I would try to build relationships with in hopes they might send me business.
Much to my pleasure, they did. Eventually. But first I had to offer them something of value (free knock-your-socks-off photos of their venue they would be compelled to market with) before they’d offer me anything in return (referrals for clients).
In your business or work, look for other businesses with whom you share a client base with. Befriend them. Help them. They may eventually help you.
While once in a while you’ll find a competitor who will refer you business, generally it’s not true. You’re better off finding businesses with services that compliment yours, rather than directly compete with them.
All of this is easier said than done. And you have to build relationships strategically or it’s just so obvious that you’re being selfish about it. But if you can manage it, making these connections is hugely beneficial.
2. Invest in your website
Hot take: 99% of businesses are underutilizing their websites as a marketing tool.
Why is that? Because it takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, and a lot of time. But: I think for the 1% of businesses that are willing to invest all of those things, they will find their website pays dividends in the long run.
By and large, my website become my primary source of new clients after a few years.
How did I do that?
Publishing new work regularly
Creating resources that were beneficial to my target audience
Cross-linking with other work I’d done
Cross-linking to other vendors so they’d get SEO kickback
Making my website super visitor friendly with tons of information
Using—but not overusing—keywords as part of my SEO strategy
Being upfront about my prices and availability
Showcasing my unique approach at every available opportunity
Making sure my website was optimized for mobile
These are just a handful of the ways I made the most use out of my website. The amount of other wedding photographers that did the same things as I did was shockingly low. Very few did everything I did, a handful did most of what I did, and most people did only a few of the things I did.
I can’t overstate it: building my website into a consistent lead-generation tool took a long time, but eventually saved me a ton of money by not needing to pay for it to benefit me. I firmly believe many businesses could find the same.
3. Appear busy on social media
Hear me out before you skip this one! I promise it’s not boring advice.
Even if your business isn’t as busy as you’d like it to be, you must appear busy.
There’s an entire episode or two of Mad Men (greatest TV show of all time, don’t @ me) that covers the agency’s struggle to acquire new business after they lose a giant client. The perception of their brand is that they are sinking and will go bankrupt in a few months time.
Against the odds, the company manages not to do this. They eventually sign new business. But it is hard work, because the negative assumption about their business is already widespread.
What’s the take-home lesson for you and I?
Appearing busy is more important to attracting new clients than actually being busy.
This should be a giant inspiration for anyone just starting out, or who is not operating at the capacity they dream of yet. You can reap just as much benefit in attracting new clients as a business who is considerably more successful than you: and all you have to do is fake it.
Now, I’m not at all advocating you be dishonest with your marketing. Don’t pretend to be drowning in work if you’re only ankle-deep in the shallow end. But posting regularly (once a day) and engaging actively are often two simple things anyone can do that will immediately help you appear more busy than you might actually be.
4. Find strategic opportunities
In #1, I spoke about how to make connections with the right people. In a similar vein, look for opportunities that arise that might benefit you later.
For example: if I were a wedding photographer who wanted to get into destination wedding work (not as glamorous as it seems, but that’s a separate blog), I would be very smart to shoot a destination wedding for free my first time around. Heck, I might even be taking on a loss (cost of travelling, hotels, car rentals, etc.) if the opportunity is right. Because I know: once I have that wedding in my portfolio, my foot is in the door to attract more of it.
Is working for free or with a heavy discount advisable? Most people would say no. I would say a giant “YES”. If the opportunity is right for you to utilize what you gain in that opportunity, you’re going to be laughing.
The money and time you spend doing this is not a loss: it’s an investment.
Be smart enough to know the difference. Think of it as a shortcut to more success. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Just don’t get fooled into taking everything that comes your way. Some sheep are wolves in clothing.
5. Be worth more than you charge
How do you get people excited about you and your business? By making them feel like they got a deal.
Once you’ve done the work to get someone onto your website or browsing your social media, the way you help entice them is by offering far more value than what you’re charging for it.
Is this hard work? Yes.
Is it worth it? Yes.
No one starts at the top. (Er, at least, no one like me and you.) If you want to earn better paying clients, you should be treating a $1000 client like a $2000 client. What would a $2000 client expect? Give that to the $1000 client. And continue this trend as you gradually start earning more.
Feeling like a client got a deal is a way they feel positive about their experience with you. They see your rates as not an expense but a huge investment. They’d be stupid to pass this up!
If you can find any and every creative way to make this your reality, you’re on your way to recurring work that doesn’t involve tons of ad spend.
6. Be useful
I touched on this briefly in #2, but it bears expansion.
Work hard to be useful to the people hiring you: beyond what they’re paying you for. Chances are, the longer you’re in your industry, the more you’re going to learn about things all around it.
Utilize that knowledge and put it to work for you.
This blog is an example! See how I have a small library of content? What good is it all kept up in my head? I’ll answer: it’s very little good to anyone except me. And that’s a bit of a shame.
Why not share what I know? It’s only costing me my time. And because genuinely helping people derives me great joy (I’d imagine most people with a pulse would find that same joy), the time-cost feels hardly like a cost at all.
In every aspect of my business, I have tried to make myself available to anyone who might benefit from my experience or knowledge. Only 15% of my clients come to me beyond the standard amount, so for 85% of my clients, knowing that I’m available is still enough to make them feel excited about me.
If you can write a blog, write an eBook, make Youtube videos, write educational social media captions, take phone calls or meetings, or otherwise do anything that will help people without necessarily attaching a dollar value to it, I believe you’re putting yourself at a huge advantage over everyone else.
In Conclusion:
I’ve tried hard to stay away from theoretical, simplistic ideas here and give you what has practically helped me massively in business.
There is an element of luck with everything in life, so none of this is guaranteed to help you. But it is the truth that it helped me, and recognizing the way some of these principles have helped other business owners I know, I have a strong belief they can help you too.
Like I said: nothing is free. By saving money, you’re spending time. But if you can build this into your cost of operations as a business, one day you’ll have arrived at this very same place that I was in and probably not even realize it.
Keep your hand on the plough. Keep going.
