Do you ever wonder why your marketing messages aren't producing the kinds of results you were hoping for?
Have you started to question the effectiveness or value that you're getting from your social media and other online marketing efforts?
If this is true for you, you're not alone.
But have you ever considered that you might not be speaking to the right group of people, or alternatively that you're not speaking the right language to get the attention of your ideal clients?
In my last article How To Get Your Marketing To Attract Your Ideal Clients, I shared how to define and identify your ideal clients. And while being able to define who your ideal clients are is an important first step to being able to market successfully, it's not enough if you hope to connect with this community and build a relationship with them.
"Profitability depends on delivering pertinent content and desired solutions to a specific audience."
~Steve Olsher
Once who you know who your ideal clients are and how they identify themselves, you need to go deeper and understand them - what's important to them, the challenges they face and the language that they speak.
One size most definitely does not fit all.
Understand & Speak The Language of Your Ideal Clients
Understand Your Ideal Client
Before you can speak directly to your ideal clients, you need to understand them.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself about your ideal clients to better understand them.
Think about things from their perspective - in other words, take a walk in their shoes and look at life through their eyes. Be sure you answer as if you were your ideal client.
And don't hold back.
Understand The Fears of Your Ideal Clients
- What do they worry about? What keeps them up at night?
- What do they not look at because it triggers too much fear?
- What's the worst case scenario for their life and/or business?
- What's a worst case scenario for their life or business that's FAR worse than their current worst case scenario?
- Where will they lose power, influence, and control in their life if things don't change or if they get worse?
Understand The Hopes of Your Ideal Clients
- What do they secretly wish was true about their life or business situation?
- What's the dream solution for their life and/or business that they would pay almost anything for?
- If their perfect dream solution happened, how would that look?
- How will others respond to them if their fantasy situation comes true?
- What will they be able to do, get, or achieve if their fantasy situation comes true?
- Where will they be more powerful and influential in their life if their fantasy situation comes true?
Now that you've spent some time in their shoes, it's time to go deeper and be even more specific.
You've just provided the solution for an issue challenging your client. What primary emotion or set of emotions is your ideal client feeling at the exact moment the client is buying your product or service? What's going through your client's mind? What specific words does your client use as he or she thinks about you, your service, or product and the potential results they will experience because of your help.
Write down everything that comes to mind from the perspective of your client. Writing AS your client allows you to include what the client might be thinking but would never say out loud to you.
It's All About the Language
One of the biggest mistakes marketers can make is to use language that represents their creativity rather than the language used by their ideal clients.
It's essential that you do your homework and speak the language that your ideal clients use.
Using the same language that your ideal clients use is incredibly important for two reasons:
First, if your keywords don't match the terms that your clients use in searches, they won't be able to find you.
For example, let's say you're a branding consultant and you describe yourself as a "branding expert". Your ideal clients, however, when searching for a branding consultant, use the keywords "marketing consultant" or "marketing expert". As a result, they don't find you in their search.
The second reason is that what you put on your social media profiles needs to resonate with your potential clients when they find you or they'll keep looking for someone else who does.
Let me share an example of what I mean.
First, imagine you're a business coach, and you want to work with clients who are looking for ways to grow their business and make more money. You begin to think about your approach and the marketing message you will create to attract clients. Which of the following two options do you think prospects might be more likely to respond to?
- Are you seeking more abundance and financial freedom?
- Are you a business owner looking to attract more clients and make more money?
The second speaks to their problem, the first may not resonate with most people as they can't even comprehend abundance and financial freedom when they're scrambling just to get by.
The best way to know the words and phrases your ideal clients use is to:
- Listen to the language used by your current ideal clients in person, on the phone and on social media
- Pay attention to the language used when a prospect approaches you to learn more about what you have to offer
- Use the answers to the questions asked by your prospects
- Join groups or communities on social media where your ideal client's hangout and listen) to the conversations they're having with each other
Being aware of the words and phrases commonly used by your ideal clients is very important because those are the words and phrases you definitely want to use in your marketing copy, your content and social media posts.
Create A Powerful Marketing Message
On each of the social media channels you use, in the content you create and on your website, speak directly to your ideal clients, their problems and how you can help them.
You want your potential clients to know they're in the right place and that you are the person who can help them with their specific problems.
You do this by incorporating the challenges or hopes they have with the language that they use.
For example, on LinkedIn it's beneficial to identify the types of clients you work with (using the labels you defined from my previous article) and then speak directly to them about their problems and your solutions to those problems.
This allows prospective clients to recognize themselves and to know they're in the right place.
Wrapping Up
Understanding your ideal client's deepest fears and greatest hopes will help you understand what motivates them to buy, and by combining this with the language that they and other members of their community use, you'll be able to communicate with them in a way that they understand, which will increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
With this knowledge you're ready to locate and connect with your ideal clients, which I'll cover in my next and final article on attracting your ideal clients.
The post Speak Directly to Your Ideal Clients in Your Marketing appeared first on Top Dog Social Media.