You’re attracting very few clients or the clients you are attracting aren’t setting your soul on fire.

But you’re marketing your socks off. To EVERYONE. That’s the problem.

The truth is, you need to get clear on who it is you want to sell to so your marketing will stand out from all the noise in this online world of ours, and get in front of your potential clients. 

 “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
– Steve Jobs

In this Blog we’re going to walk through what you need to do BEFORE you start building your audience and try to engage with them, let alone sell to them.

What’s the benefits of being able to identify your ideal client? 

You get better results when you know who it is you’re selling to, what content you need to create for your marketing and where to put it for the best impact.

Know What Problem You Solve

The first part of understanding your audience so you can create your version of your ideal client (also known as customer persona, avatar and dream client) is to get clear on what problem you solve for them.

Start by identifying their problem.

Tell them you know what it is. That niggle, concern, problem, issue, thorn in their side, pain in their you-know-what…

Here’s the thing! It’s not enough to say they want to go to the next level, grow their business, get fitter, want to feel better or be more confident. That’s way too generic. Too vague. Too fluffy.

BE SPECIFIC!

Sticking with a message that’s vague doesn’t connect you with anyone.  And no-one is going to recognise that you can help them so they’ll keep on scrolling until they find someone else. Someone else that’s made it clear, simple and easy to understand what it is they can do for that person.

Use a message that’s too vague and it will have the opposite effect of what you’re aiming to achieve. You won’t be starting a conversation with your audience. They’ll ignore you and move on.

Consider your audience. They could be:

• Mums and Dads with toddlers that won’t eat vegetables

• Students that struggle to plan for their exams.

With the following as their problem: 

• ‘For lots of mums with toddlers, feeding time can be hectic, especially when their little cherub won’t eat vegetables…’

• ‘Students know they have exam time coming, but many of them struggle to know what to study and when….’

You’ve identified THEIR problem.

Customer Persona, Ideal Client, Dream Client or Avatar?

What you call the ideal person you want to sell to is up to you. I’m going to use Ideal Client from here, just so you know The key thing is that you know who you want to be selling to. You want them to buy your product or service. 

Where do your start researching your ideal client?

Start with the demographics of your ideal client.

Why is it good to know the demographics of your ideal client?

This information will help you target them more easily. Make better decisions about how and where you build and engage your audience with your content

What are demographics?

These are, but not limited to: 

Age – How old are they?

Gender – Are they male, female, fluid, trans etc

Marital status – are they single, engaged, married, co-habiting, divorced

Do they have children?

How many? 

How old are the children?

What hobbies do they have?

Location – where do they live/work?

Occupation – what’s their job/career?

Job title?

Annual income?

Let’s imagine you sell stairlifts.

You know the majority of your potential clients are older people.

• You wouldn’t spend your time on the latest social media platform trying to attract your clients

• And you wouldn’t put flyers through the doors of bungalows or hand them out outside of a nightclub

Let’s imagine you own a soft-play business.

Your clients are those that have younger children. Under the age of 11 or 12.

• You’d be on the social media engaging with other social media accounts your ideal client likes

• You’d want to know when the school holidays are in your area

 • You wouldn’t promote your soft-play business to people that lived hundreds of miles away

Being able to identify the key demographics of your audiences gives you a great starting point to building up a picture of them.

What does your ideal client want?

When you know what they want you can then begin to see how what you offer will help them or not. Let’s dig a bit deeper and find out more about what’s going on for them.

What challenges do they face?

These are the testing problems they’re trying to overcome. For example: build their audience so they can get more leads and make more sales. What are their pain points? There’s a few bits to this part of the process. These can be problems they have, hang-ups about themselves and objections to buying from you. Let’s break this one down.

Know and Understand The Problems and Challenges they have

Remember the busy mum who has a toddler and feeding time can be hectic, especially when their little cherub won’t eat vegetables?

What’s her problems and challenges?

• Mealtimes are like going into battle

• She feels guilty because she’s not giving her little one the vitamins and minerals it needs

• She’s worried about what others will think of her

• She’s tried every trick in the book and nothing works

• She’s exhausted

What’s her objections to buying from you?

• She’ll feel like a failure asking for help

• What would her friends think?

• She doesn’t think she should be paying for something that she should be able to work out herself

Are they the decision maker?

In other words, are they the buyer, the trigger to buying or are they influencing someone who can buy from you?

Where do your ideal client’s hangout and source their information?

 “Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.”
– Kevin Stirtz

The cry I hear from many of my client’s is they can’t find potential clients or their potential clients can’t find them. And my best advice is to be where they are and to be where they’re looking for information that helps with their problem. That can be summed up in two places – online and offline. But you get better results when you dig deeper.  

Consider:

 • Websites they like

• Blogs they read and comment on

• Social media platforms they are on and use

• The books they read

• Magazines they read• Influencers they follow on social media 

• Events they attend – conferences, networking events etc

What does a day in the life of your ideal client look like?

Once you start building up the elements of your ideal client, you can start to write their story.
It helps you to step into their shoes.

Be them for 20 minutes or as long as it takes you to do this.

• What does their day look like?
• What worries do they have?
• What problems do they face?

And because you’ve stepped into their shoes, remember to have empathy with them.

• What do they think and feel about their situation/problem?
• What do they see?
• What do they hear?
• What do they say and do?
• Who else does their problem/situation impact upon?

What would their story be like after they’ve bought from you?

With your help, where does your client see themselves in 3 months, 6 months and a year?

Financially – what benefits would your client have by working with you? (Making more money, wasting less money, saving more money etc)

Emotionally –  what benefits would your client have by working with you? (happier, excited, empowered, confident etc)

Physically – what benefits would your client have by working with you? (less stress, weight-loss etc)

Who don’t you want as a client?

So many business owners focus on the clients they do want they forget to include the clients they don’t want.

• Do you want late payers?
• The excuse makers?
• The ones that are always late to appointments or miss appointments?
• The ones that won’t put the work in and think change happens by magic?

Get clear on the ones you don’t want too.

Summary

Know the problem you solve
Know what your ideal client wants
Understand their emotions
Know where they hang out and go looking for their answers – Be there!
Tell them their happy ending
Be clear who you don’t want as a client 

More Resources

How to answer “What do you do?” so your audience wants what you offer

Why you should stop worrying about marketing and do this instead

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