Posting content to your social media and website has many facets to it. For instance, technical and product-focused tips are great, but have you possibly forgotten about the complementary topics for your content? In other words, what else would your ideal customer be interested in that is relevant to your product or their needs?
Often times as marketers, business owners, or simply humans, we forget that we’re speaking to someone else who has interests and loves just as much as we do. However, if you’re trying to build trust and eventually sell to people in today’s climate, you’ll need to keep this in focus.
Consider this: You’re a single person without kids scrolling through your social media feed and you see an ad for baby clothes telling you how much your child needs these precious items. How likely are you to click on that? Unless you have a niece or nephew’s birthday coming up, I’d wager very unlikely.
The same goes for your content. If you’re not speaking to the people that need your services or products, they won’t hear it at all. So forget everything you want, and put yourself in the shoes of what your ideal customer wants.
But first:
1. Identify your Ideal Customer
This may be a given, but sometimes we gloss over this part believing we already know everything we need to know. However, whether unconsciously or because your ideal customer has changed over time, we need to constantly re-evaluate.
Perhaps you are a solo-preneur and you have actually changed your focus or goals. Maybe you launched a new product that has yet to be market researched. A business is constantly changing and evolving, especially when starting out or going through a growth spurt.
Re-identify your audience at least once a year and see what comes up! You may be surprised at how much it has changed compared to what you expected or what it used to be.
There are a few great ways to do this if you aren’t already:
- Ask them! Either via survey, phone calls, polls, or whatever else you can. More on this in a following section.
- Through your data. Google Analytics has great insights that help identify other interests of your website visitors.
- Social Listening. Identify topics your ideal customer is interested in via forums like Reddit or Quora or via social media.
2. Post Why, Not (Only) What
Yes people need to know the details about your industry, service or product, but they also want some substance. They want to know what they should talk about in an email or video and not just how many words go into your subject line of an email.
People are quite tired of hearing “buy this, buy that” so they look for connections and stories much more frequently than they look to buy a product. This is especially vital to consider if you’re looking for repeat or long-term customers (which all businesses should be)!
“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” – Tom Fishburne, marketing cartoonist
If your product or service doesn’t come across as something your ideal customers need, they won’t buy, right? So make sure you share why you have this product for them, why it’s important to them, why it would make their life better, etc.
3. Find Ambassadors
If you have a product or service that relates to a specific industry, for example, is there someone well respected in it? Try reaching out to and see if they’d like to try your company!
Another great way to reach out and ask to be an ambassador would be someone who already uses and loves your company. Think about the people who have already referred customers to you.
To begin with though, you’ll want to be very clear on a few things before you reach out. For starters:
- What do you want people to tell others about your service?
- Are you AND the ambassador(s) talking about what your ideal client finds most important?
- What is the goal of you reaching out to an ambassador or an influencer? Is it sales, reach, etc?
Another way to find ambassadors are to identify people in your community or following who are advocates of what you do. Find out who has shared your content regularly or engages often and reach out to them to build a stronger relationship.
If you have the resources and you’d rather find a professional influencer, identify who would be best to communicate with your ideal customers through. Use tools like Kred to find the influencers and manage them, or these tips from Later on how to find them.
4. Speak to Previous or Current Customers
This one will take some time on your part to determine what you need to know and what questions you should ask. Then go through your previous clients and actually reach out to them. If you need a guide on how to create questions and interview your target audience, Beth Farris, Business Clarity Mentor has created a phenomenal mini course on exactly that.
It will also take their time to answer questions you have so if you have something to gift or exchange in return for getting their feedback, offer it. Whatever you need to do to get their direct and honest opinions, I recommend doing it. No other insight will be as valuable as their direct comments.
You can even get testimonials out of these conversations or emails with their permission! These are incredibly useful social proof to show that you’re not new to the game. If you are new to the game, this is a great chance to introduce who you are and what you do and find out what their needs are. Perhaps a free consultation or service can provide you those testimonials as well.
5. Consistently Communicate
No matter what route you choose to communicate with your customers, do it consistently!
If someone signs up for your newsletter, they expect to get emails. If they don’t get any, then suddenly 6 months later they get one, they won’t remember who you are anymore and are much more likely to unsubscribe than re-engage. (Unless of course you have a good email marketing strategy!)
Choose the platform that best fits your brand and the ways your ideal customers prefer to be communicated with. Just make sure it’s something you and your company can maintain. People who follow brands and people very often come to expect something from them.
Hint: Email is always an important platform.
BONUS: Be Personable
Assuming you want to gain the ideal customers via your company and not your personal brand, you’ll want to develop and identify the brand voice. Just like your customer can have an avatar, so can your company.
Whatever brand voice you choose to use, make sure it resonates with the people you want to reach and connect with. If you’re projecting a harsh, don’t give a f*** attitude but you run a psychology business, that may not be the right voice!
I say ‘may not’ for a reason because every business, goal, and audience is different. Do what is the right fit for you and your customers.
The Final Word
No matter who your target audience is, if you haven’t defined your company, what its purpose is, ‘who’ it is, and what it helps people with then no one else will know either. So yes there is a catch, you have to know who/what you and your company are before your customer will trust and buy from you.
Once you have these things defined, contact me to create a strategy that resonates with that ideal customer!