How to approach a business and tell them there website is sh*t

What is the best way to approach a business to let them know there website is aload of sh*t without offending them? and to sell your services.

Because a lot of the time there sites are done by a friend of the family or relative who claims to be a “web designer”

My method of contact would be email so I was thinking of sending them a email along the lines of …

Dear Sir / Madame,

I recently came across your website **it is shit part would go here** I would like to offer you a professional website design for £100, 0000....

Anyone who comes up with a good letter will get 25% of what i earn from my first client by using the email

 

I don't think you should mention at all until the second/third email. You should concentrate on how a professionally built website would benefit their business.

Notting

 

What would u say in the first email then ?

 

In my experience most business who have a website just for the sake of having a website are usually happy with something straight out of 1995.

They are also usually really cheap and won't want to pay even $100 for a new design. That's my experience but it seems there are a lot of business owners who apparently have no experience dealing with marketing, trends, pop culture, or any sort of branding or audience appeal at all who are not willing to pay extra for a better site.

I don't understand this though because if I have the choice of buying a product of the same price from two different websites I will almost ALWAYS buy from the better looking site.

 

I don't approach businesses to offer my services, but what I would do is tell them that the site needs an updated look and propose what should be changes to sell your services to them.

 

If i was a business and somebody contacted me to tell me my site is shit and they ofer there services this has 0 chanche to convince me to use there services (it's an unprofessional aproach olso) and kind of spam

Make a name and they will search for you not the other way around just my 2 cents

 

Actually, it's a pretty proven tactic. Writers especially can have a lot of success doing this. It's all in how you approach a site. Be able to point out very specific problems from a usability perspective, and treat the first email as though you're just a casual visitor. Don't mention your services. Often, they'll just ignore you. If they contact you to thank you for pointing something out (you'd be surprised at how often they do if you're tactful), then mention that it's your field, and that you'd be happy to set up a consultation with them if they're interested.

Jenn

 

Contents is something else anyway i have a bad opinion of people doing this kind of "contacts" and i'm sure many more

For me will be more important to build my name and reputation not "spaming" eventual clients

 

Content and design are both issues that affect a site strongly, and there's really not much difference in contacting them. Of course, you wouldn't just say "hey, your site sucks... pay me to fix it." You need to offer constructive criticism, and do it without blatantly pitching your services in that initial contact, like I've already mentioned. You only mention services to leads obtained through responses... anything else is just constructive criticism from a site visitor, and there's no aspect of that that's spamming.

 

Thanks for that... looks to me like you know what you are talking about.

How is it spam ??

Here is my example... my local golf club has a website which looks like it was made in 1992 , and it a complete load of poop !

This golf club is quite a exclusive place where people pay a few thousand pounds for membership.

If i dont approach them they are just going to leave it how it is ... or someone else is going to beat me to it, i cant see how you can build your name on waiting for people to find you... if business worked like that they wouldnt last long... business is all about sales and marketing, no matter how good your product is.. if you dont do the sales or marketing then you are going nowhere !

 

I think jhmattern's idea is a great one. It is a subtle way of sticking your foot in the door.

If you come straight out and criticise the site, you will have a tough time not being deleted.

You may want to try and turn everything into a question. Things like:
Is your website conversion rate above the industry norm?
Does your website revenue increase by at least 10% a year?

Things like that, that hit at the business impact of why their site sucks.

It will get them thinking, gee, my web site could do better? And then they may reach out to you.

As an aside, how do you plan on getting the email address of the person, if you send it to the webmaster you may end up getting the person who designed the website in the first place.

Morty

 

This is probably one of the most useful bit of advice, i've seen on this forum for a website designer/coder, in which i have given Jenn a rep for because its a very useful chunk of advice.!

 

ok to add to what jhmattern and jmort732 have said...

One thing i've learnt from working in retail is to ask appropriate open and closed questions.
Open questions will get them to respond(hopefully)which will open dialogue and further communication,which later on at the right time introduce your service.
an example for an open question might be like this
"What did you do in the holidays?" <this gets the customer to open up. ok my example isn't perfect..its 1am..I should be in bed.
Anyway,
a closed question is when answers are simply yes and no. One thing in retail is to guide the customer in the direction you want the customer to go in.
Ask relevant questions to the product being sold.

An idea might be to list some thought provoking yes or no questions in the opening email,and close it with an open question rather than a demand or insult along the lines of inviting the person for further discussion./consultation for free?! no obligation even.

2moro i might try and come up with a draft letter

 

Nearly choken when I saw post title..
Ive wondered how to approach clients also like this

 

Yep, questions are a great sales tactic.

A truly great book on selling, is a book called Customer Centered Selling by Robert Jolles. It reviews successful long term sales strategies (and not your generic hard sale or Tom Hopkins stuff). These are strategies that some of the most successful sales forces use. They aren't sell and leave strategies, they are strategies that you use when you want to develop a long term partnership with your customer (which I think applies in the web design /marketing business)

A very high level example (and I am truly simplifying) is the following tactic.

1) Ask identifying probes.
Such as "Are you concerned that your web sites sales aren't where they should be?"

2) Develop that probing question.
So if the person says yes (and to be honest who wouldn't say yes)
How do you currently manage your web site sales? And then LISTEN. (You would be surprised at how hard it can be to truly listen ).

3) Impact questions (aka Ask questions that get them to think about the impact / consequences of not changing/improving).
Depending on what the customer says ask something like:
"So if I understand correclty, X is currently doing this, but you really want Y?"
"What do you think the outcome will be if your web site sales continue on this path?"
"Do you think your competitor faces the same issues?"

When you develop your sales letter, if you use "Probing questions #1", you increase your chance of getting them to stop and think and consider if they need this service. If they aren't in this mindset, then it will be a hard sale all the way. So if your sales letter gets them in the mind set, there is more of a chance that they will respond.

And when they do, just hit them with #2 and #3 style questions. Most likely they will be impressed that a web design company cares that much about their business and that you are taking the time to understand what their needs are (instead of just throwing a redesign pitch to them) that they will establish a non defensive dialogue with you, and then from there it becomes a soft sell.....

Hopefully this makes sense, it is hard to convey these concepts....

Morty

 

You do not need to mention all their errors. Just mention the 2-3 major mistakes.

 

Another thing drummed into me is,

features and benefits.

point out benefits to the client/customer.
I guess this has pretty much been covered in other words..

To illustrate using a widescreen tv as an example.

*A feature ;-72inch LCD screen.
*A benefit;- to the customer is a large enough screen that friends and neighbours would be jealous of and durable.

After a question you could introduce a benefit (which in a web designers case would be a solution. )

Questions get the customers engaged,but to make the sale you have to introduce the benefit to the customer. Don't ever mention anything negative.

 

My approach would be to have my own website in place first, offering a list of services that I offer, as a web developer or graphic designer or SEO...

Next, I ll put a 'get a free quote', or 'get your site reviewed for free' thing on my site. I would then approach website owners with an email, and mentioning my website along with the email so they would know who I am. Then in the 2nd or 3rd email, I'll actually point out the problems, and what I can do for them (with estmiated costs and time frames)

 

A tactic I use for existing businesses with poor sites is if there is content that is outdated, you can offer site maintenance services which will allow them the opportunity to update their content and also add features. You do need to be smooth and almost take a "I happen to notice" approach without being overbearing. I've gotten a few customers like this and found that they wanted to make changes but never addressed them for whatever reason. Also some designers simply abandoned them when the project is finished and provide very poor support. You do need to make sure you are established in particular with your own website, clear contact information to be considered seriously.

 

If you want to sell your services you should probably approach those local companies around you that would profit from online sales/advertising. Printing companies, law firms, dentists, etc.