7 Ways to Attract Business and Corporate Clients

Small balloon businesses dream of landing large business and corporate planner clients because just a few big projects per quarter can keep your business healthy. The problem is that corporate contracts can be very challenging to land.

In general, the common marketing methods you’ve learned in the past or even currently use are the ante at the table but don’t actually help you close winning business clients. The large business event planners don’t spend much time on social media finding vendors, they do, however use Google.

And while LinkedIn is the biggest social media network for career professionals, experts report that 58% of CEOs use the platform. They leave out that most of these potential clients aren’t that active or an assistant manages their profile. Moreover, these clients don’t attend as many networking events, and their calls and emails are usually screened. 

So, let’s take some time to look at how large business and corporate clients find their vendors and the digital marketing tactics you can use to get sales conversations going.

Example business clients include:

• Auto sales
• Auto service
• Furniture and mattress stores
• Retailers
• Major events
• Community events
• Venues

When we refer to a business client we’re often targeting an owner, general manager, store manager, director, or someone in Human Resources.

Example corporate clients include:

• Amazon Fulfillment Centers
• Major sports franchises
• National franchises
• International mobile phone carriers and their local franchises
• S&P 1000 companies

When we refer to Corporate clients we’re often specifically calling out an employee who spends their time organizing and planning events.

If you want to attract business and corporate clients to your balloon business, be sure your website features a service page for corporate events. This is the perfect place to showcase your skills and show that you have what it takes to pull off their designs and meet their needs. 

It’s also a great step to help search engines index your website for the correct services. This way, your site will show up when someone locally searches for the service. 

Further, the website should not be covered in pinks and pastels either in design or the work being shown, these are not business or corporate colors. Use stronger colors and show a variety of work if you’re targeting multiple groups of very different customers.

Start with the biggest fish in your local pond. There’s an excellent chance that you already know someone who knows people at these companies. Having this “in” makes it easier to contact decision-makers, and you’ll be perceived as a friend rather than a stranger looking to sell. 

Studies show that business decision makers put much weight into a vendor’s location. So, the closer you’re located, the more attractive your services are. 

On the website and social media you can take this to the next level by showing the type of work and colors that someone from your target business client would be ordering.

If you’ve located potential corporate leads but don’t have connections within the company, you must find other ways to contact the right people. During your research phase, learn about the company’s strengths and weaknesses, plans, history, and who the decision-makers are within the company. 

Learning who you need to connect with and knowing a bit about them will help you know how to talk and appeal to them - this is crucial.

Trust and trustworthiness are two important factors in decision-making for large corporations and businesses. They are willing to spend more to get it done right the first time. Balloon decor is an item on the checklist for them and they want to spend little time getting that checklist item done. To help with this, highlight your team’s expertise and experience while sharing stories from clients with the same needs. 

There are lots of ways you can highlight your team, but here are some of the easier ideas:

• Create biographies for each team member on the “About Us” page
• Include examples of their past work when possible
• Attach a quote or some other personal effect
• Show Google reviews where your team members are called out by name
  

Do you have any large past clients with whom you’ve worked? If so, reach out to them and ask if they can provide you with a written testimonial or Google review. Including these in your proposal or website looks great and is an excellent way for a potential client company to verify your skills and experience.

And speaking of a proposal, you’ll need to create an uber-professional proposal to win the business of a large corporation. Most large firms have protocols in place that may require approval from multiple people within the organization. So, submitting a clean, organized, and professional-looking proposal that’s easy to share is a must.

The key is to understand their purchasing process as soon as you’ve determined you are a good fit for filling their needs. Directly ask, if we choose to move forward, what is the purchase process at [company name]. Note the steps and provide documentation or a proposal that fits their specific needs.

Become a client and you will have access to our Members-only content where we provide more tools and resources that you can use to directly plan and sign up more business and corporate clients.

P.S. Referrals, Cold Calling, Warm Calling, and Networking are also great ways to get to decision makers at large businesses. These are not digital marketing tactics specifically so we left them out of this article. If you want to learn more, become a client, we have some expert level articles about them in our Members section.