You've spent your money on lots of gear and sorted out the acoustics sorted on your rooms; now it's time to get people through the door and money in the bank. You may have the best gear in the world, but without any clients then all you have is a nice showroom.
Here are 5 tips to getting people into your studio.
Get some testimonials, in other words ask some clients or friends who have worked with you to say something positive about you and your work. No-one likes to work with a newbie or an unknown quantity, so the more people can be given confidence in your previous work, then the better chance you have of getting them to work with you in the future.
Have a presence on the web. It used to mean a website, but it may be a blog. The more professional the better. It may be cheap and easy to create your web identity on Myspace, but it may look a bit amateur to your clients. However you do it, then make sure it looks good, make sure it gives as much information about your studio, clients and staff. There are a lot of FREE web site packages out there.
Put samples of your work on your website. If you selling sound then don't forget to include it in any marketing. Deoending on the kind of clients that you want to attract then make sure it has that kind of music on it. You can create a Souncloud page to host the samples at www.soundcloud.com
Create an offer. It could be anything from 25% off to book 4 days get 5th FREE. It doesn't matter what the deal is, but everyone loves a great deal.
Create relationships with partner companies. For example find a great video company and offer to do work and find clients for each other, or someone who makes CDs and create an offer between you. This is my number one business development strategy, the more partners you find to grow your business the more work you will get - fact! Even competitors can become partners, for example if you want to record rock but keep getting enquiries to record Hip Hop, then find a Hip Hop specialist who has the same problem in reverse, then push work to each other - trust me it works!
So there's 5 ways, how about sharing your tips?