How To Pitch Your SEO Services to New Clients So They Respond

Building a business in SEO requires some sales mastery and a big part of that is your new client pitch. If your goal is to be a successful SEO provider, you need to get good at pitching your services.

You know the type of person that puts a business card for lawn services under your windshield wiper?

DON’T BE THAT PERSON. You can’t pitch your SEO services in the same annoying way, but through email, and expect a response. Learn how to give a client-focused pitch, and you’ll see a drastic increase in responses.

How to Pitch Your SEO Services to New Clients

Warm Up the Cold Pitch

Of all the tips I’m going to give you, this is the one that will help you the most.

If you are selling SEO services (or any service), warm up your prospects if possible. How?

Take a few minutes to connect with them online. Not only is this great research to personalize your pitches, but it’s a way to warm up your prospects and get your email read.

WHICH SOUNDS BETTER TO OPEN YOUR PITCH?

I’ve been following you on Twitter, and I’m looking forward to the Spring Sale. I’m the Business Developer over at Raider SEO (a retail-focused local agency), and I know we could work together to get the Spring Sale in front of a larger audience. We did it for Johnson’s Boutique and The Shorts Shop. Can we connect to talk about how we can do it for you, too?

>>>> OR >>>>

Raider SEO is a top-rated SEO company providing the following services: SEO, GMB, blah, blah.”

The Twitter one, right? So, don’t be the second one. Warm up your leads on social media.

Doing a few minutes of research will give you all the details you need to personalize your pitch ensuring your emails get open, read and get a response.

Focus on The Client’s Results – Not Your Services

You probably have a whole speech prepared all about what you do and how great your business is at it. It even touches on pricing and features that competitors don’t offer. That’s all great, but other than your mom, it’s tough to find someone interested in listening about you.

Here’s what matters to your future customers:

  • What can you do for me?
  • How can you prove you’re the right choice?

It’s imperative that you focus on the prospect and what they want. And what do all clients want? VALUE. They want the right solution at the best price, and your pitch should be clear on that promise.

Don’t Waste Time on The Obvious (aka Less is Better)

Does your pitch include sentences like, “We are a SEO agency that focusses on search engine optimization for websites.”

I know you’re thinking no one says that, but you’d be wrong. If the prospect doesn’t know what SEO is then they weren’t going to buy anyway, so don’t waste precious email space on explaining what you do.

Business owners’ inboxes get flooded with cold pitches full of useless words, stupid claims, ridiculous promises, and fabricated results. Wordiness, slick talk, and false claims won’t help you get a response to your pitch.

Be clear and concise about what you can do for the prospect and your eagerness to have a conversation about it. All the extra stuff is not only a waste of time but an energy suck for both you and the prospect.

Show Me the Money Proof When You Pitch Your SEO Services

Is it okay to put your pricing in your pitch? I’m not going with a hard no. But, competing on price is almost never a good idea. And this also goes away from focusing on the prospect.

Yes, the decision makers at the businesses you are approaching will need to know the cost. But what they really need, is to know the ROI of working with you.

Use previous client results or short data-driven testimonials. These work better than a fee schedule or competitor pricing.

Focus on what you can do for the prospect, and you'll have a hot lead that’s more interested in the results, than how much it's going to cost to get what they want.

Typos, Poor Grammar, or Broken Links – You’re Unprofessional Side is Showing

You’re a kick-ass search engine optimizer, right? Not a writer or editor who knows all the right uses for a semicolon. I get it. But potential clients are judging you by your emails. Don’t expect a reply from a prospective client – especially a local client – if you send long, sloppy emails with misspelled words, missing punctuation, bad grammar and links that lead to 404 pages or booking/calendar apps that are “unavailable.”

Once you deliver results for your clients, they are much more forgiving of typos and less than professional grammar choices. But that first pitch? Typos and errors will kill a lead quickly. Why would someone trust a stranger with their business reputation who can’t take two seconds to run spell check?

Have at least one other person (literally anyone besides you) read through your pitch email. Then, run it through a free spelling or grammar checker like Grammarly or Hemmingway for error-free email pitches.

You’re Selling Results, Not Services

Pitch New Clients SEO Checklist Offline Sharks

The perfect pitch is one that plainly sells the outcome – not you or your services. Results are what prospects care about. When you make it clear what you can do for THEM and make it super simple for them to take the next step to work with you, prospects will respond.

ALSO READ:

What are Local Citations

How to Get Your First Client as a New Shark

What You Should Charge For Your Services

Picture of Tom Gaddis

Tom Gaddis

Attended the School of Hard Knocks. A former restaurant manager in Oklahoma, Tom always wanted to be self-employed and free from the butt-smooching of the corporate world. He wanted success bad enough that he picked up his family, including two small children and moved to beautiful Maui, Hawaii. Starting from zero, Tom embarked on building a local marketing consulting business. And promptly fell on his face! It seems Hawaiians were lovely people, until you tried to sell them something! But he persevered and learned from his mistakes. Today he's arguably one of the most successful in his niche and expecting to grow over 100% this year alone.

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