How to Attract ANYONE With Your Marketing!

Before you sit down and finish skimming this article, I need you to follow a very simple request:

On a sheet of paper (or, electronically for all my Earth-loving peeps), complete the following sentence:

“My/Our ideal customer is _____________.”

Now, if your sentence looks something like this:

“My/Our ideal customer is?anyone who?_____________.”

??. . . you’re going to have to dig a lot deeper.

Do You Really Want To Attract?Anyone?With Your Marketing?

See, the title of this blog,?How To Attract Anyone With Your Marketing, is actually a ruse. Because you can’t win customers if you work hard to attract?“anyone who . . .”?I mean, how do you think you’d sound if your best friend was looking to set you up with someone special and your only benchmark for quality was?“anything I can get . . .?”

You grow your clientele by connecting with people who are already in the market seeking the solution(s) you offer. Therefore, whether you manage marketing for a large company or you’re a solopreneur, the key to attracting your ideal clients is to be crystal clear about who they are. Then, to coordinate all your efforts around them. You definitely don’t want to attract just?anyone?with your marketing.

I know Halloween is right around the corner, but some people consider a company constructed around a specific type of person to be a scary notion. But believe me when I tell you that this objective is one of the true keys to establishing a business that is both profitable and sustainable. Hence, the more specific you are in your message, the more your ideal customers will nod his or her head and know you?get them.

So, by now, you may be thinking, “what are the characteristics of my ideal customer . . .?” Take a look at your client or customer list and pull out a few people you think personify your optimal relationship (in other words, who you’d like to clone). Once that’s done, answer these four questions about each customer:

1) Did he or she immediately perceive value in what you offer?

2) Was he or she willing and able to pay you for it?

3) Did your service or product make a profound impact on his or her life or livelihood?

4) Has this person referred your company to their family, friends, or colleagues?

Were there people who received a “yes” for each question? Did you notice any similarities between them? Did you have any revelations?

For example, I work with a client who owns a successful video production company. When we first started her biggest concern was that in her quest to land customers with larger budgets. She was concerned she would alienate the medium-sized customers that helped build her business, whom she did not want to lose. We began working through the ideal customer identification process when she realized that both types of customers had the same needs! This may not sound like a huge revelation to you, but it was to her. With this knowledge, she can now create website content, email marketing, social messaging and networking language that evokes what I like to call the “Gotta Have It!” factor in all her ideal customers. (Find out about my services?here).

In closing, I’d like for you to imagine the perfect handshake. Notice the firm grip, unfaltering eye contact, and the purposeful commitment from both parties. Why try to attract anyone with your marketing when you can attract only the people who really want and need precisely what you have to offer?

While you may go back to Facebook-ing, reading the news, or whatever you were doing before stumbling upon this article, try completing the above exercise instead. It could be one of the most important things you do for your business today.

Thanks for reading (and I welcome your thoughts).