There’s a well-known adage in the business world that says, ‘If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no one’.
This is because when you try to target everyone in your marketing strategy instead of focusing on your ideal client, you can end up wasting time, money, and effort on those who are unlikely to buy your services.
This is why defining your ideal client is essential.
Defining your ideal client typically includes researching their demographics (facts about them such as age, gender, location, income, etc.) and psychographics (beliefs and values, i.e., what makes them tick and motivates them to buy).
In short, you should target those who need your product or service and are willing to pay for it.
Here are 5 steps to consider when defining your ideal client.
1. Start with what you know
Before you make a list of your ideal client’s demographics, think about your past clients. What do they all have in common? Are they all within a specific age range or gender? Do they work in a particular industry or share a profession or a location?
Furthermore, have you enjoyed working with them – have the projects turned out well?
While defining your ideal client, you should also consider who you would prefer not to work with. If you’ve worked with someone and it didn’t go well, it might be because your product or service wasn’t a good fit for them.
If you have yet to have any client experience, now is the time to think about who would be a good fit for your specific product or service. Who would you bring the most value to?
Demographics is a good starting point, but don’t stop there.
Which brings us to the next step.
2. Understand challenges from your ideal client’s point of view
When defining your ideal client, it’s important to know what problem you are solving for them. As many a great marketer has said, ‘What keeps them up at night?’.
Try to view the world from your ideal client’s perspective.
So, for example, if you are a weight loss coach, your ideal client might be women in their 40s who want to lose, let’s say, 10 kilos within a specific time period. What keeps them up at night might be health-related issues, or they could want to lose weight for a future important event, such as their son or daughter’s wedding.
Once you understand your ideal client’s goals and motivators, hopes, dreams, lifestyle and the challenges they face (psychographics), you’ll be better able to serve them and get them the desired results. You’ll also be able to target them better with your marketing as you’ll be speaking their language (see point 4).
While it may be tempting to spread the net wider (in the above example, market to anyone who wants to lose weight), you’ll lose the potential clients who are looking for specific results and want an expert who understands their unique challenges.
3. Find out where they hang out online
Where can your ideal client be found online?
For example, if you sell high-ticket performance coaching services to C-suite executives, LinkedIn would most likely be a better place to market these services than posting videos on TikTok.
Once you know where they hang out, you can create content your ideal client is looking for and position you as an authority in that subject matter.
In the weight loss example mentioned earlier, you could create content that includes helpful weight loss tips or create food planners as a lead magnet to get people to sign up for your email newsletter. (You can read more on email marketing in our blog post here.)
For C-suite executive coaching, you could share case studies showing how you’ve helped other executives achieve their goals and discuss what is going on in your specific industry—all the while showing a deep understanding of the challenges they face.
Discovering where and how your ideal client spends their time on social media is also a great research opportunity to assess their hopes and fears and deep-dive into the problems they are facing.
4. Take note of the language they use
When researching your ideal client, whether via surveys, speaking to past clients, online research, or social listening, as mentioned above, take note of how they express themselves and the language they use.
How do they talk about their problems and challenges?
If you use the same language as them, you’ll be better able to communicate and build trust and connection with your ideal clients. You’ll know what to include in FAQs.
By using their language in your marketing and copy, they’ll know that you understand the challenges they face and solving them will become synonymous with your brand, so you attract even more ideal clients.
5. Know when to say “no”
Who isn’t your target audience? Who don’t you want to work with? Who isn’t a great fit?
Knowing who isn’t your ideal client and who to say “no” to is also part of the equation.
When starting your freelance journey, it can be tempting to take on all the work offered, but this can be detrimental if you take on clients who aren’t a good fit.
That’s why it’s important to market only to your ideal clients. Attracting your ideal client also results in repelling those who are not for you, which will save you time, money, and stress down the line.
If your intuition is trying to tell you something, listen to it. It’s not a sin to turn down work. In fact, if your prospective client is not the right fit, you’ll be doing both them and yourself a favor by saying no.
Work on attracting the right clients for you so you can do the work you love, work with great clients and get even greater results.
~
Once you’ve nailed your ideal client persona and are winning clients you love to work with, you’ll want to have good software to streamline your invoicing and make it easy for clients to pay you.
Invoice Ninja is a leading free invoicing software for small business invoices, fast online payments, expense tracking, and billable tasks. It also includes attractive, professional invoice template designs you can customize with your logo and brand colors.
Perfect for freelancers and small businesses – whoever your ideal client is.
Try it for free here.
