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How to I market low cost web designing service?

By Shravan on 8 Comments / 1770 views

I want insights from experienced Rodinhooders about marketing a low cost web designing service.

What exactly is low cost web designing service?

As the name suggests, low cost web designing service allows small local businesses, brands, etc. to get their own professionally designed website on domain of their choice for a very low price. A basic but well designed 6-7 page website with a .com domain and hosting will cost somewhere around 5k (All Inclusive) which is less than half of what is charged by agencies.

What makes it different?

There are thousands of small and big website designing agencies in India. There are lakhs of small businesses, brands spread throughout the length and breadth of the country. Hence I believe that the market is large enough to accommodate everyone.

Most of the agencies look for big projects (with high revenue) and charge exorbitant amount to their clients whereas most of the small businesses are not willing to spend a lot of amount in getting a website designed. I am trying to fill this gap by providing low cost website designing solutions. I will cater only to small businesses and provide personalised service to them.

Problems I am facing:

1) How do I generate targeted leads for this service? How do I market my service? Will cold calling help? The target customers are manufacturers, small local businesses, hospitals, hotels, guest houses, small brands etc. who don’t have an online presence.

2) What’s the best way to accept payments from outstation clients? As of now, I am working from my home as a freelancer and I feel sharing personal bank details with clients for payments wont be professional. 

Your insights, suggestions and comments are highly appreciated

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8 Comments

  1. shravan,

    do you have a twitter handle?

    do at it at the end of your post for sure. and tweet this post. twitter is very effective for sme’s. perzen of bawi bride generated most of her initial leads from twitter!

  2. 1) How do I generate targeted leads for this service? How do I market my service? Will cold calling help? The target customers are manufacturers, small local businesses, hospitals, hotels, guest houses, small brands etc. who don’t have an online presence.

    – You should start from sending customized emails to your targeted audience featuring your services. After Email there are various sources to generate leads, SEO, PPC, Social Media.

    2) What’s the best way to accept payments from outstation clients? As of now, I am working from my home as a freelancer and I feel sharing personal bank details with clients for payments wont be professional. 

    – You can use paypal for payments it accept credit and debit cards.

  3. Hi Shravan,

    You’ve got exactly what I am looking for.. I’ve been thinking about making a website for our joint family business (wholesale trade) to even avoid the 5K bucks but for the lack of time and the excessive internet search I’ll have to do before(Non Tech background) I have been deferring the idea.

    However, I have interacted with a lot of similar SME’s (Competitors/Customers/Suppliers) who acknowledge the power of Internet yet are skeptical to be a part of it. Some of them have given-into Indiamart/Tradein etc. and chosen to have there costly and standard website design packages & are not really happy with them too.

    There troubles are:-

    • Lack of personal touch by the SP

    • SP’s don’t deliver what they promise

    • Most of the sites in a trade are similar(same set of WordPress themes etc.)

    • Difficult and costly customization as the product life changes/new products enter

    • Hidden costs in terms of annual charges/domain charges etc.

    • Once the site is through, no feedback or CRM from the SP

    • No visibility/ Data analytics to show them the reach and hits

    You could also offer website promotional services alongwith your website designing business, Bulk SMS provisions/Toll Free nos. – All this at throw away prices and I believe you’ll have good traction.

    I’ve a database of close to 200-250 SME’s from towns as small as Kottayam, Kerala to Akola,Maharashtra to Raebareliy,UP who could be your potential customers if they are englightened about the power of internet further.

  4. The thing is that I am not active on Twitter. But since you shared story of Perzen about lead generation by using Twitter, I’ll use it and add the Twitter handle here later.

    Thanks for suggestion and help.

    Shravan

  5. Thanks a lot Prateek for your valuable reply. Even during my initial discussion with SME’s, I found the same things mentioned by you in your comment and I am trying to address all the problems currently faced by them by providing cost-effective personalized solutions.

    I am planning to start with web designing services and then expand to Bulk SMS, digital marketing etc. all for an extremely affordable price once I get a few initial clients. 

    I have sent you a friend request and a personal message. Let’s connect!

    Thanks once again for your valuable reply!

    Thanks,

    Shravan

  6. Thanks a lot for your valuable reply Mansoor. Even I believe that personalized emails would help a lot. Personalized emails are extremely effective and require no money/investment!

    Coming to payments, as far as my knowledge goes, Paypal in India doesn’t support debit/credit card payments. You can accept payments from only international customers via credit/debit card. Please correct me if I am wrong.

    Thanks once again for your reply.

    Regards,

    Shravan

  7. Regarding the payment options you’ve been discussing with Mansoor, I have this to say-
    PayUMoney is an excellent tool to collect Money over the internet without much hassle, a certain percentage does go in form of commissions but it is safe and a reliable source than setting up a payment gateway, there are other payment gateway SP’s too(can’t recall) BUT, you are dealing with SME’s, some would not be confident enough to pay you over the Internet, I suggest regular banking channel would be the most suited option.

  8. Thanks once again Prateek. I have already got in touch with major payment gateways in India and most of them allow only those people who have registered a business in India. So most of them don’t allow individuals/freelancers like me to use it. However I am not too sure about PayUMoney.

    I agree with your point that SME’s and other small businesses would be more confident making payments via regular banking channel instead of online payments. However, in that case it would be difficult to collect payments from outstation clients i.e they would have to go through hassles of making a cheque, couriering it to me etc. as many don’t use net banking. Also I would have to give them my personal bank details which wont sound professional. I would be glad if you suggest something for this.

    Regards,

    Shravan

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