At the most basic level, your ideal clients are the group of people to whom all of your communications and advertising are aimed. But in reality, they’re so much more than that!
Your ideal client base is the heart and soul of your business. They are the people that really need you. Your products and services were created to specifically serve them – and if you’re not reaching to these clients, you’re not making money. If you seem to be drawing in entirely the wrong crowd (or worse, no crowd at all), you need to go back to the drawing board.
Possible Reasons Your Clients Might be Ignoring You
You don’t have a well-defined audience because when you first created your marketing plan, maybe you weren’t specific enough in defining your target audience. To be clear, you need to be super, SUPER specific.
-Not good:-Small business owners
-Good:-Women aged 30-45 who own fitness and/or health coaching businesses, are single, don’t have children, and enjoy hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities in their free time.
There is a possibility that your product or service doesn’t appeal to your ideal client. If health and fitness coaches aren’t contacting you about your fancy homemade bacon jam, it’s not difficult to figure out why. You need to choose an audience appropriate to the services that you offer. (And if you really are trying to sell fancy homemade bacon jam, your ideal clients should be hipsters, probably in the 25-40 age range.)
Is Your Product Unique?
No matter what you’re doing, there are tons of other people doing the exact same thing. You need to stand out from the crowd. It’s called a Unique Selling Proposition, and it’s what makes you different from everyone else. You need to give your ideal clients a reason to believe that you will benefit them in a way that no one else does. Maybe it’s your image that you’re not communicating correctly. You need to come up with a concept – from what you’ll say, to the images you’ll post, to the ads you’ll run – that will speak to your ideal clients. Check out where they’re hanging out and what they’re doing online to get some ideas of what they respond to.
Nail It!
If you don’t have a consistent message, when it comes to branding, everything you do, everywhere, has to look exactly the same. Your website, social media, newsletter, blog, opt-ins – everything has to be recognizable as your own. That means using the same headshot, logo, and tagline everywhere you go. It’s impossible to reach everyone on the Internet all at once, and that’s why it’s so important to nail down your target and build a strategy around your niche and offerings. Without really knowing your ideal clients, your business can’t succeed. Take the time to get to know and understand them before you do anything else, and you’ll be setting yourself up for a long, fruitful business career.