The thing about marketing is that it is not a difficult process. It doesn’t have to be complicated. There is a very simple way to market your business to your ideal client. And, embracing that will really make marketing feel less scary and more accessible for you.
Dating Your Ideal Client
Here at Virtual Marketing Experts, we have a process that we call, Dating Your Ideal Client. Marketing is scary for some people. There are terms people don’t understand, there are processes people don’t understand, so, the idea of marketing their business can be scary. When you can correlate marketing to what it really is (which is relationship building) you’re better able to understand the process and work through it.
The dating your ideal client process is all about taking the traditional idea of dating and applying each of the stages of dating to the relationship-building experience that happens between a brand and a buyer through marketing.
Relationship Building
I focus a lot of my marketing strategy, for myself and for my clients, on relationship building. I do that because people do not buy a product or a service. They buy the person that is selling it. Think about the big brands, like Amazon or Mcdonald’s, that use celebrities to sell their products. The reason they use celebrities to push their brand is that the public already knows, likes, and trusts that person and is, therefore, more likely to buy what they recommend.
This is also how influencer marketing works. They promote products to their audience. And, if they’ve done a good job of building a relationship with their audience, their audience already knows, likes, and trusts them and will purchase what they suggest.
Let’s be honest. In business, it is great to continually bring in new clients. We love that. But, it’s even better to have repeat customers or clients. Taking care of current clients and having amazing customer service will help to establish that client for the long term. We want our clients to stick around and we want them to continue to buy from us.
For instance, if you’re a coach, you might offer an initial service that is low cost, but your clients can continue to work with you in bigger and better ways. That is how we want to develop our client journey.
What does Dating your ideal client look like?
When it comes to dating your ideal client, we break it down into the same steps that we would if we were actually looking for a partner.
1. Introduction
When you’re looking to date someone, you have to first find a person you’re interested in and introduce yourself.
In your marketing, the introduction is in the lead generation. Knowing where your ideal client is hanging out and how you’re going to connect with them is a critical step in the introduction phase.
While looking for leads, you should focus on three key elements:
- Who is your ideal client?
- What does your ideal client need to hear, see, or do in order to work with you?
- What strategies will work for both you and your ideal client when it comes to building a relationship?
2. Flirting
In this phase, you’re building on your communication. The flirting phase in marketing is when you are working to warm up your cold audience. You are making them aware of who you are, what you do, and who you serve, by sharing your content with them. Use this phase to establish your content and connect with your ideal client.
3. Dating
Here, you take your warm audience off social media (or outside of networking events) and get them onto your email list. We do this because we want to have control over our ability to communicate with these warm leads. This step also qualifies your lead. By giving you their email address, it confirms that they are, in fact, interested in you.
4. Commitment
This, my friend, is where you want to be. This is where people are buying from you! At this phase, you want to use every resource available to you to move them through to that purchase.
If you are the BEST at what you do, allowing people to pass on your service is really a disservice.
5. Keeping the Romance Alive
Just like in the dating world, when we’re committed to someone, we can often lose track of that relationship.
We want to avoid doing that in our business. Provide customer service and connection with loyal clients so they come back time and time again and also refer us to everyone they know who has a problem we can solve.
The Keeping the Romance Alive phase is just as important as the introduction phase!