Winning New Clients in Today’s Environment

With Summer nearly over and kids going back to school, we were stupidly happy to bring back the ‘Bring Your Own Lunch’ webinars. Our new monthly series kicked off with an in-depth look at the question: How do you focus on winning new clients when you can’t meet face to face?

There’s no doubt the impact of Covid 19 has disrupted existing markets in lots of ways, but one of the big effects has been the disappearance of opportunities to meet new prospects through events, workshops, meetups and seminars. So, last week Anthony Story interviewed a panel of Katie Street, Vinnie Romano and Puff Story, who shared their experience and expertise on differing approaches to attract new clients in today’s environment.

Despite working in different sectors, all three speakers emphasised how important it is to stay consistent, be regular and get your messages out there! Don’t give the competition a chance to supply information to your customers, you need to do it. According to Katie Street, founder of the Street Agency, “If you stop talking to your audience they’ll be getting advice somewhere else”…“the production of helpful content is what it is all about…create white papers, run webinars, stay close to your clients… providing value is what makes you the No.1 ‘go-to’ agency.”

There’s no end of effective marketing options out there, but there’s no point producing a white paper or running a webinar for the sake of it. You must find a purpose for each communication method and think about the delivery of your marketing to support the customer journey according to, Dough founder, Vinnie Romano, “for an effective strategy, you must carefully plan and stitch your marketing together to enable you to put your brand in front of the customers at a point of learning and discovery”…”this will enable you to put yourself in better positions in the market to have better conversations”.

During Q and As, many of the audience admitted how hard it is to decide what the right opportunities are to create these ‘better conversations’. Puff pointed out that people often overlook the network of people they already have – all those people they’ve connected with over the years. Not only in business but in personal life too. She suggested putting more time into creating synergies within personal networks. Don’t be crass about it, but work can come from many different sources, you just need to make sure people know what you do and what you offer: “I urge anyone who has a bit of time to go back over your network over the years. Reach out to them to see if they’re safe and well and see what organically comes from it.”

There was little doubt, the panel agreed that creating valuable content and constantly talking to your network (old and new) is critical in winning the trust of your customers, no matter the environment. Winning that trust can take time, and it doesn’t mean you’ll convert customers as soon as you start, but creating a strong network will certainly ensure stability and brand affiliation in time to come.

This theme emerged from a packed discussion, full of helpful advice and, really helpfully, the panel named some of the tools and resources they use to research prospects and manage those relationships. If you’d like to listen in to the full webinar, check out our Vimeo link here

Make sure you stayed up to date with the latest news and events coming from Silicon South, as we constantly look for new members to our network so we can raise the recognition, ambition and capabilities of the people and companies in the Digital, Creative and Tech sector in Dorset.