I'm an officer of a international honor society chapter at my school, and I thought about offering free online-based technical support to our members (of 300+). Our members are hardworking, high GPA college students. My offering of free technical support to our members' benefits package is one way I though about getting the word out about my little startup. How can I gain some clients out of this free offering (if I decide to do it)?
offer to solve an immediate problem for them and throw in a free months worth of tech support , then a very small monthly fee , which they can off set every month they get two other people to join your club, with the new prospects do the same , should give them the incentive to find you more prospects without any hard work on your part .
^Thanks AJ. Anyone else want to offer some creative ideas on capitalizing on a large pool of prospective clients to gain more clients? What other ways can these individuals (who are receiving a free service) further promote my service to other individuals, who can become clients? How can I use this large pool of people to "work for me" to acquire clients?
Just like with any business, happy clients being in more clients. Ask for reviews of your services and post them on your website.
Great! Service reviews! I like that idea. Anything else? How can you leverage a pool of non-clients to acquire clients for you?
It sounds like a reputation based business, which means it mostly rely on mouth-to-mouth recommending and promotion. You have to invest a lot of money and energy on the starting-up phrase. If your first group of custmers are happy with you, you'll gradually be recommended for others and expand your client data-base as a result. Try to build loyalty program after a while, when you are charging fees, offer your initial clients with big bargain and benefits if they bring new clients (it is kinda like direct marketing). You'll find it definitely worth it.