Cheers I am also new to the forum!

[bistrostudios]

Hi everyone,

I am also new to the forum, I was working up the courage to say hello! I joined a couple of days ago and have been enthralled by all of the posts since! It's certainly good to know I am not alone in the abyss of sales and marketing haha.

To introduce myself-- my name is Andreanna, I'm originally from Santa Monica, CA but moved a couple of years ago to Denver and I am now in Virginia. Here goes my pitch haha…I just started working for Bistro Studios last week, (Bistro Studios (http://www.bistrostudios.com/)), a small web development company who make affordable, easy to use websites that you can edit yourself. We use our own CMS called Convergence (http://www.convergencecms.co/) that we built in-house.

I have a little background in marketing and sales—so I’m wondering where to begin in trying to get clients, anyone know someone who needs a website? I’ve read some really great posts and links to helpful websites, so thank you everyone! As an aside that piece on cold calling as passé was comforting. Before reading that I was trying to get-up the nerve to call, and was grateful to hear it’s not the best tactic☺

Also, what do you think of our websites and/or our CMS Convergence?

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Andreanna. I noticed you joining a couple days back and was wondering when you might say hello. Glad to know we were able to enthrall you with our words.

Always nice to have a fellow developer among us. There are several of us here already and the more the merrier.

There's more to marketing than can really be covered in a single post, but the basics are:

1. Identify who your potential clients are
2. Figure out where those people spend their time so you can reach them
3. Build a presence, a brand in front of those people
4. Convince them to hire you instead of someone else
5. Do good work so they come back and recommend you to others

Again there's a lot more to it, but that's the basic idea.

Cold calling is probably not the best method to get clients. You'd be trying to get in touch with people without knowing if they have any interest and you'd be interrupting them, which no one likes. Are you trying to get clients for yourself or Bistro Studios? If yourself you should probably get a site of your own going.

I've found blogging to be a great way to get your name out there by providing free information for people. It's a way to get people to visit your site and keep them coming back. It's also a way to make connections with other designers and developers online who you can network with.

[bistrostudios]

Hi!! Thanks for the advice Vangogh! I'm glad to hear cold calling is not the way to go!

I'm actually not a developer (although I have great respect for them, so much coding:), I'm doing the business developing or marketing/sales for Bistro--attempting to get new clients for them. They have done pretty well through referrals and people signing up to try their CMS Convergence, but I thought I might be a little more proactive in helping them get more sales.

That's excellent news about blogging, we have just started a blog and each person will write a piece each week with helpful information--glad to hear we are on the right track!

Thanks for the Welcome,

Andra

[vangogh]

Glad I could help Andra and again welcome to the forum.

[KristineS]

Welcome to the forum Andra. We're a good bunch here, so I'm sure you'll feel at home.

[cbscreative]

Another web guy who also wears the marketing hat chimes in...welcome aboard.

[MostHeather]

Hello and welcome to the forum! :)

[bistrostudios]

Thanks all for the warm welcome! Hope you are having a great Wednesday!