How do you go about marketing to ideal clients?
I recently had a conversation with a close friend. She’s been a business owner for decades, but her business has shifted its focus over time. One throughline has been helping people through one-on-one appointments.
Recently, she found that people have been canceling at the last minute. I suggested a pay-ahead policy, but she was wisely concerned about the root of the problem. “Am I not as valuable to my customers any longer?” she asked.
Knowing what she offered, I was confident she had value to bring her clients.
I was reminded of a story from my college days.
A Digression
In school, I was one of those irritating people with a CV as long as my arm. I did comedy and music and belonged to multiple honorary fraternities and societies. In one such group, I was in a leadership position.
One year, we had a lot of attrition. One after another, people were quitting. I want to a small liberal arts college (Roanoke represent!), so losing six people was a significant amount.
As members fretted and wondered what was wrong, they brought in some experts to study the situation. When I was questioned, I brought attention to the pattern I noticed.
Five of the six people who left were from the same pledge class. The sixth? The person who trained that pledge class.
Just like that, we could shift from what went wrong with the group as a whole to what went wrong with that class. With fewer variables, it was a more straightforward issue to solve.
What Do Lost Clients Have In Common?
In the present, I asked my business-owning friend what the people had in common. As it turns out, all the last-minute cancelers originated from the same initial referring customer.
“These are not your ideal customers,” I told her. “We need to focus on marketing to ideal clients.”
At that moment, she was able to feel better about her value and begin to implement a plan to attract people who would reflect that value back to her.
That’s where I come in!
Implementing Marketing to Ideal Clients
Every business owner has had good and bad experiences with clients. We have some customers we wish we could clone and others we don’t mind if they go elsewhere. Sometimes, you may feel like you have to take whatever you can get, but what if you could attract precisely who you want?
Part of marketing is attracting your ideal clients.
Who Are Your Ideal Clients?
The first step to marketing to ideal clients is figuring out your perfect client. If you’ve been in business for a while, you may clearly understand who that is. If not, you can still figure it out.
First, with the luxury of experience, think about a great customer. What made you two jive so well? Was it that they knew what they wanted? Were they super easygoing? Very hands-on or hands-off?
What’s perfect for you might not be the same as what’s perfect for your competitors, which means you may not want the same customers. And that’s truly perfect! Whatever it is, identify it. One thing we all want is customers who pay their bills!
What Makes You A Good Fit for Those Clients?
Perhaps even more crucial to your success in marketing to ideal clients than what makes them ideal to you is what makes you perfect for them! I wrote about company values and company values in another blog so that you can read about it in depth there, but let’s do a brief refresher.
What makes you different than your competitors? If you’re the cheapest in town, brag on it. If you’re not, don’t pretend to be!
Maybe it’s your customer service people love. Or perhaps there’s a product or service you offer that no one else does. Whatever it is, identify it and flaunt it.
Hot Tip: If you’re unsure where to put your focus, ask your favorite customers what they love about working with you or read your five-star Google reviews!
Time for Branding
This is where having a professional marketing company or in-house marketing pro comes in handy. You should create your brand around what makes you different and create content that appeals to your ideal customers.
There are timeless ads that utilize this technique. People still talk about the Maytag repairman today. For those who don’t know, he was always bored because the Maytag equipment never broke! Please don’t squeeze the Charmin branded Charmin as the softest toilet paper.
Brand-wide, Apple has branded itself as cutting-edge and cool. But no one buys an iPhone because they’re looking for a bargain!
Content Marketing to Ideal Clients
If all this sounds a little too simple, that’s true. Marketing to ideal clients takes a lot of work, upfront and afterward. But so does any marketing, so why not be effective?
Of course, you’re often best off hiring a professional marketer, but if you’re beginning your journey alone, this will give you an excellent place to start. Once you’ve defined your value and values, you must create content that demonstrates it.
That begins with your website. Your website is the first impression of many people. It’s the hub the rest of your marketing stems from. So start with a strong one, and you’re off to a good start.
Proper SEO techniques will help you stand out from search engines. You’ll demonstrate early what makes your company different with your emphasis, which will also help your ideal customers find you.
Lastly, you’ll reinforce it on social media. Use your posts to appeal to your ideal customers, and remember to use the 2QC formula!
Or better yet, hire a pro like POP!
