Part of the work I do for my clients is to help them connect with more prospects and generate leads for their business through LinkedIn and other social media platforms. To begin, I ask them who they are trying to reach with their marketing and networking efforts. I’m often met with silence and a blank stare. Or, I’m met with a niche that’s too broad.
For example, if you sell telecommunication services. Your market should not be “people who use telecommunications.” This is simply too broad and doesn’t identify the type of client you serve best.
Instead, consider the questions below to identify the traits of your ideal client.
- Are they male or female?
- What is their age range?
- Are they single or married?
- Where are they located?
- What is their education level?
- What industry are they in?
- What’s their profession?
- What is their biggest challenge?
- What keeps them up at night?
- What do they need that you can help them with?
- What is their motivation for working with you?
- How much money do they make?
- Are they willing and able to pay your fees?
- Where can you find them?
Using these questions as a guide, our telecommunications sales person might realize that their ideal client is someone who is between 35 – 50 years old in a management position of the retail industry who’s biggest challenge is keeping up with work and personal matters while traveling. Can you see that you start to visualize this person in your mind? You may even have names of people you know come to mind. This is exactly what you want.
Once you have identified your ideal client, all of your marketing efforts should be focused on speaking to that particular group. Your blog posts, articles, videos, social media posts, etc should all be developed with your ideal client in mind. Then you can take your message (and your content) to those identified as matching the traits of your ideal client.
Hi Cathy, I really enjoyed your post. I’m in the process of identifying my ideal clients now so I appreciate the questions you listed. They will be helpful for me to launch my new program!
This is so true, not just for social media but for marketing in general. By knowing who your ideal client is you can speak to them in their language in the places they are found. An absolute key to understanding your business!
Timely topic. I was just writing about this topic this week. I am just now understanding the importance of this step (target audience).
Without this pinpointing of your ideal client it is pretty difficult to just shoot your message out there hoping someone will bite.
Thing is with this work out of the way, you won’t have to ‘work’ to get leads or sales, they will be drawn to you.
Exactly Sara, with a concise message your target market will be able to find you.
[…] you must be able to define your ideal client. After you know who you are looking for, there are some easy ways to locate them on LinkedIn and […]