When it comes to marketing your business, so often businesses feel they need to promote their brand across as many channels as possible and randomly throw content out, hoping some of it will stick. Without having a strategy in place of where you are, where you want to be and how you are going to get there – it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Research is key to knowing who your ideal client (or target audience) is and where they hang out, so you can then connect with them strategically. Without this knowledge, you’re working blindly and just promoting to everyone rather than concentrating on those that actually need your product or service.
“If you form a strategy without research, your brand will barely float and at the speed industries move at today brands sink fast.” — Ryan Holmes
Profiling your ideal client is an essential step in the process of creating a successful marketing strategy. You may have heard this referred to as an avatar (no, we’re not thinking of the tall, blue people) and you can have more than one – but – any more than 3 or 4 will get confusing. It’ll help you to focus your resources on exactly who you need to be talking to and thereby, create a message that they can identify with. This helps you plan and launch your marketing campaigns, optimise your marketing communications and effectively reduce your marketing spend, as you’re not wildly scatter-gunning the whole population all at the same time!
What is an ideal client profile?
An ideal client profile is a detailed break-down of your target customer that includes demographics and attributes such as values, goals, pain points, and purchasing behaviours. This will include looking at the target age group, geographical location, their jobs/education, interests, if they have children, which social channels they use and how they make purchasing decisions, amongst other questions. This is the starting point for you to then devise your marketing and product development strategies. It can be time-consuming to do, but it’s 100%y worth the effort to save you time and money in the long run.
Don’t forget your existing customers!
As it costs on average 5 times more to attract a new customer than retain an existing one, it also pays to analyse your existing customers and identify the ones that are most profitable and are happy with your products or services (and you can also contact for testimonials).
Once you have an understanding of your ideal client profile, you can then tailor your marketing messages and campaigns to attract and/or retain them. These are also the ones who are excited to work with you, realise the value of your work and who are happy to pay your full fee, not trying to knock your prices down. By defining who it is you really want to work with (and not just who pays the bills) you’ll get results faster, because when you focus on the clients who set you on fire, who you know you can add real value to, you’ll gain so much more clarity.
If you need some help to get started on profiling your ideal client, here is a questionnaire that you can download with a set of questions to help get you thinking and on your way to marketing in a more efficient way. Download it here