Principle number six in my book is about understanding your target market.
Who is YOUR target market?
Targeting clients means that you focus your energies on the EXACT person who is most likely to hire you and most likely to have a good experience working with you. This is often, someone just like your favorite clients. To begin developing a target client profile, it is just fine to start with a sample of one or two.
Take a close look at that favorite client of yours and describe them:
- How old?
- Gender?
- Business or professions?
- Ethnicity?
- Life style?
- Location?
- Other interests?
- How did you find them/they find you?
- Size and type of transaction? How did you work together?
- Attitudes?
Find as many ways as you can to describe them.
Then talk with them. Say, “I have loved working with you. This has been a great experience. I am looking to expand my business and I would like to have more clients just like you. How can I find more people like you? “
Engage your “right on target” clients in helping you. Happy clients know that it takes referrals to keep someone in business. They want you to stay in business; after all, they had a great experience with you. And, they love to be asked to help. It is not only flattering to be asked, it is enlightened self interest to help. Go talk with them and build that relationship.
Find out where your target may hang out. What they may read, what events they may attend, who else they may know that you know. All of this information will give you clues about where to spend your time and energy.
What works in marketing these days is for you to be very targeted, not scattered. Know who you are looking for and go after them. Make sure that all of your marketing materials, especially your web site, are optimized to use the language that people use when talking about your work. How do you know that language? You ask your referral sources. You say, “I so appreciate your referrals and I am trying to grow my business. What would help me is to know how you talk about me so that I can use the language my customers use, not just the language I use to describe my work. Can you tell me exactly what you say when you talk about my work?”
These four elements will help you find your target market:
Being clear about your unique value proposition.
- Knowing exactly how many customers you actually need to find to provide the revenue you want. (November Newsletter Article…. make sure you are signed up to get this monthly!)
- Using the words your clients use about you.
- Engaging happy and satisfied customers to help you find more business.
Being clear on these four things will focus your efforts to get sales from exactly the right customers and keep you from wasting time on the wrong work and the wrong customers.
Do you know who your target clients are?
How do you find them, please share, we’d love to know!
Please share this blog so that other creative entrepreneurs will know some tips and tricks on where to start finding their target clients.
