Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for the ‘target audience’ Category

You probably don’t talk to children in the same manner as you talk with adults. Your conversations with close personal friends are likely more intimate than those you have with professional colleagues.

Well, the same holds true for the language you would use to speak with corporate executives as opposed to their employees.

You need to identify the audience you’re working with and the environment you are working in, and then adapt your language and approach accordingly. The areas you focus on and the phrasing you use with end users won’t be the same as those you use with the decision-makers.

You need to understand who your client is and be very clear on what your message to that client is.

The words you use to attract the buyer – the company or the corporation – may be precisely the right words to persuade them to sign on for your services. You may offer them statistics about how poor feedback costs companies a lot of money, how aspects like ineffective meetings waste company time, or how poor communication and personal issues lead to low employee retention rates.

But, these are not the same words you would use when delivering your service to the end user. You don’t want to portray them in a bad light. Essentially, you’ve got two clients. The language that you use to sell your service at one level should be different from the outline of the training that you distribute to the staff.

It’s very important to have that awareness. What is going to motivate and excite the end user – the staff member – does not have the same value or criteria as what inspires the person who is signing the checks. You need to have the flexibility to understand what’s important to both groups and then separately speak to each group in way that motivates them.

The end result is the same for both. Ultimately your objective, and obligation, is to help to improve the company. And you are making life better for the person that attends your course or workshop.

If, for example, you know you can help companies improve the effectiveness of their staff meetings, you would present this to them in a different manner than you would to the employees who conduct and attend those meetings. Everybody wants to participate in more effective meetings, but everybody also wants to blame the ineffectiveness of their meetings on someone else.

In the language to promote the course to the company, you might cite statistics about how ineffective meetings waste X amount of money. You can even evaluate the cost of meetings. One unnecessary meeting could cost an organization thousands of pounds. Then you would sell the specifics of what’s covered in your course.

During the course, your focus wouldn’t be on the cost of meetings to the company, it would be on how employees can make sure meetings stay on track, how to handle confrontational situations or deal with difficult people. The focus would be on making the best use of staff members’ time and talents.

So you are, in essence, presenting the same thing – in this example, a course or workshop – to two different audiences. But, you can certainly structure your language and approach so that it meets with everybody’s approval.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

When you’re just starting out in business, one of your biggest goals is to develop the much-coveted client list. That grouping of potential clients to whom you want to market your product or service.

While it’s very nice to already have an existing list to work from, don’t worry if you don’t have a list right now. I myself didn’t start out with a big customer list. Remember, we all have to start somewhere.

There are still plenty of ways to find the market you want to address. As you implement each one, your list will automatically develop and grow.

1. Set aside your preconceptions
If you think you already know who your market is and what they want, you will miss obvious opportunities. Clear your mind of its preconceived notions and your options, and your list will expand tremendously.

2. Listen
The first area you should focus your attention on is listening to the people around you. Hear what people are complaining about and zero in on responding to those complaints.

Think about all the opportunities you have to listen to people’s gripes and grievances. Visit forums. Participate in networking groups. Then, really listen. What are the members worried about? What are they asking questions about?

Look for the patterns. Look for the issues that come up again and again, and that fit your area of expertise and your interests. You may find a market right there under your nose.

3. Survey.
As people begin to show interest in your product or service, delve a little deeper to see what is attractive or important to them. If they visit your web site or sign up for a service or purchase a product, include a second page where you ask them a question. For example, if you are offering a teleseminar, asking for their name and email address will build your contact list. Then, ask them to take a brief survey before the transaction is completed so you can grow your business from the input of your existing clients. Your lead-in page could say something like, “Congratulations! Your registration is almost complete. But because I want to make sure the information I’m covering is most relevant to you, what is your biggest question about…”

4. Present yourself as a leader.
No matter what your area of expertise, being the leader in your field is the best way to sell your products and help your clients. Listen to the market. Pay attention to their needs and problems .Once you identify those needs and problems, establish yourself as the leader who provides help and answers.

Right now, within a ten-mile radius, there are people struggling and suffering with problems that you can solve. By listening to them with an open mind, and finding out their needs, you will find the market that needs you to lead them toward resolution of their problems.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

“The purpose of marketing is to make selling obsolete” said marketing icon Peter Drucker. If you are seeking to increase attendance to your live events, your goal should be to have prospects seeking you out to sign up, not the other way around. An effective marketing technique which accomplishes this precise goal is the free report.

Write your Free Report as a Sales Letter in Disguise
When the content of your free report is so interesting that the reader cannot put it down, they have likely become so caught up in the content that they didn’t notice that they were being sold to. A master of accomplishing this feat is Richard Schefren, who so clearly accomplishes this in his Internet Business Manifesto. His manifesto effectively works as a sales letter in disguise. How does he accomplish this? He follows the rule of thumb; he establishes need or greed in the eyes of the reader.

Establishing Need in the Eyes of Your Reader
One proven method of selling is to satisfy a consumer’s need. But, how can you accomplish this within a free report? The first step is to help identify the prospect’s need. If you are offering a course in time management, your goal in the report will be to discuss case studies of individuals and professionals who have dramatically improved their lives by implementing time management techniques. By building a clear need in the prospect’s mind for time management techniques, you can offer your solution as the answer they need.

Establishing Greed
The other angle that you can take is to establish greed. When a prospect salivates at the success possibilities outlined in a free report, they often strive to find out how they may be able to accomplish the same results within their own lives. To establish greed, share stories, testimonials and results that can be achieved with your system or by attending your seminars.

You don’t always have to limit your examples to existing clients, or even individuals who have attended your seminars. For example, if your seminar provides valuable time management techniques and you happen to know that Alan Sugar utilizes this exact technique, you can mention legitimately, that “This is just one of the things that Alan Sugar, powerful leader, has used to help him build an 800 million-pound business.”

Consider examples you can draw from to include within your free report to build credibility and to establish greed among your readers. This is especially important when you are just beginning, as you will not have the wealth of stories and examples of which to draw from. But, this fact does not have to limit you. Build a powerful association with your techniques and teachings by including relevant stories into your report.

So, you can utilize your free report to establish need or greed. As you sit down to map out your free report, ask yourself, “What can I include in my report to get people recognizing that they need the ongoing solution that I am going to offer to them?” Or, ask yourself, “What can I be adding into my free report that will get people excited or inspired regarding the possibility of acquiring and mastering the techniques and skills that I will be teaching to them?”

Answer these two questions as you create your report content, and you will be creating a powerful and effective marketing tool.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free with invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease. Register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

Once you have a great sign-up page and an irresistible offer, it’s time to create some traffic. A steady flow of traffic to your sign-up page is essential to your success. Here are several strategies that can help you quickly build traffic to your sign-up page.

Visualize, Focus Your Efforts and Act. To create new traffic, you must first visualize yourself as having a large client list. This is important, because seeing yourself as successful helps focus your efforts. Set a target size for your list and give yourself a time limit for achieving it. Picturing that success can get a process going that will build your list.

Next, learn which forums your target audience frequents and hang out there. Read their questions and comments. It’s a good way to find out exactly what they want.  Post comments and respond to questions, but be careful not to say blatantly, “Sign up for my free report!” Useful comments with your email address, photo and the URL of your sign-up page in your profile can be very effective in attracting traffic.

You can also borrow traffic from someone else’s client list by connecting with people who sell related products. Decide which related products will truly benefit your clients. Look for websites your target audience is likely to frequent.

Consider ways you can benefit those companies by featuring their products, and ask them to do the same for you. Ask for testimonials or links to your products, and return the favor. Doing so can expand your impact significantly. Use this strategy carefully, however. Handing out testimonials indiscriminately weakens your own reputation.

There’s another idea you might not have considered for quickly building traffic to your sign-up page. Run competitions with your existing clients. Reward them for referring others to your sign-up page. If you have a well-written newsletter filled with useful content, your clients will be glad to share it with other professionals.

Award a free copy of one of your digital products to the 1,000th subscriber and also to the person who referred them. Offer a free copy of that product to the existing client who generates the most traffic. It won’t cost you very much and you can gain loads of new prospects on your list.  If you’re hesitant to give away a product you normally sell, consider the long-term benefit. Gaining new traffic for the cost of one product is a good trade-off.

Steady Traffic Equals a Strong List. Building a strong list requires a steady stream of new traffic to your sign-up page. Start by visualizing yourself with a great client list, and then focus your efforts on increasing traffic. Experiment with forum comments, product testimonials and client contests to encourage prospects to visit your sign-up page.

Traffic-building techniques such as these, combined with a well-written sign-up page and an irresistible offer, can put you on the path to a solid client list that sustains your business.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter – If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

“Begin with the end in mind.” Stephen Covey

Have you noticed that there seems to be a trade-off in every aspect of marketing and sales?  Whether it’s trading information, trading money for products or even trading a free item for contact information….The reciprocity touches all parts of your business.

One aspect that’s important in reciprocity is that you have to give before you get.

I’ve always encouraged the use of speaking engagements as a way to establish your expertise in your field, generate leads, and hone speaking skills.  All this is done whilst selling your product and offering valuable information to the audience.  But there’s another trade off that can take place during a speaking engagement, and that’s gathering key marketing information for future use.  Not contact information, which is another opportunity in itself, but information that allows you to develop an empathy towards your client’s business.

At the beginning of each speaking engagement, take a few minutes to talk with the audience and establish a relationship.  Ask them what they’re looking to take away from the speech.  Notice the key issues that come up over and over in their responses.

This is valuable information that will help you understand the issues that your clients are facing.  Not only will you be able to develop empathy for them, you will also be able to transfer those issues into your marketing materials as well.  The more you are able to empathise with your clients’ needs, the better you will be able to meet those needs.

The same can be said for overcoming objections.  Empathise with your clients’ objections to your product or service.  It could be the cost factor, or the ‘it won’t help my business’ objection.  Use that information within your speech to address each of these points and detail why they are not valid objections.

When you’ve gathered important, helpful information from your audience, you’re going to be giving the same in return.  Your audience deserves that since they’ve taken their valuable time to attend your talk. At the same time you’re “planting the seeds” of need and overcoming objections whilst offering valuable content.

It is this content that will help people arrive at their own conclusion after your talk.  That conclusion should be that the next logical step they take is to accept the solutions that you present to them.  When a client reaches the conclusion on their own that they should buy your product, it’s so much more powerful than when it’s done through a direct sales presentation.

Setting up your speech to give the audience the opportunity to make their own conclusion will help seal the deal of any special offers that you’ve put together for that event.  Whilst making immediate sales is a nice feature of speaking engagements, the information trade off can be invaluable to your business.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

Before ramping up your marketing when sales are disappointing, take a step back and ask yourself, “Do I know what my market really, really wants?” Being able to answer that question is the key to growing your business. By focusing on what people want, rather than on what you hope to sell them, you can begin to see the kind of success you desire.

If you suspect you’re wasting time by marketing something people don’t really want, here are some principles to ponder:

People buy what they want, not what you think they need.

You’re going to get a lot of resistance to your marketing if someone thinks they’re being shoehorned into buying what they don’t want. No matter how loudly you proclaim your product’s benefits, your market won’t respond if they don’t want the product. To continue doing so is a lot like speaking a different language and shouting to be understood.

People need to feel good about what they’ve bought.

One way to zero in on what your market wants is to develop empathy with that group of people. You must connect emotionally with how they feel about purchasing. When you’ve put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you begin to understand how they feel. What are their hopes and dreams? What do they fear? What keeps them awake at night?

If you’ve done a good job of pinpointing a target market, you should be able to learn these things easily. Until you do, you’re wasting time on marketing that won’t work, because you don’t yet know what products they’ll feel good about buying.

People buy products when they feel they’ve been understood.

No matter what logical explanation someone can give for buying a product, underneath it is the belief they’ve been understood. Someone knew enough about who they were to make a product that fits them.

So, how will you know when you’ve learned what your market really, really wants? You’ll know, because that’s when it all becomes easier. There’s no need to push or shove someone into buying, because they want what you’re offering. It will be such a revelation to learn how easy selling your products can be when they’re what your market wants.

Once that happens, you’ll begin to hear from your clients how grateful they are for your products. Everything about how you do business will be transformed, because you’ve taken the time to learn what your market wants. You’ve made the effort to step into their shoes and understand what makes them tick. And that effort pays off in products that really meet the needs of your market.

So, if you’re still struggling to sell your products, or it feels as though you’re pushing people into buying what they don’t want, it’s time to take inventory. Here are five questions to answer before trying again to sell your products:

1. What is most important to the people in my target market?

2. What problems keep them awake at night?

3. What is the desired end result they’re hoping for?

4. Does my product help them solve their problems and reach their goals?

5. Do I need to change my products so that they do?

The process of stepping closer to your target market and understanding that group of people may take time and effort, but it will definitely be worth it. Once you know the people in your market very well, the products you offer them will meet their needs. And that’s what people really, really want.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

Writing articles relevant to your target audience is a great way to build your list. By providing potential clients with content they can use, you’ll give them a reason to visit your sign-up page. Here are three tips for effectively using articles to build your list.

Tip #1: Survey Your Target Audience First
Fusing the needs and wants of your target audience into the titles of your articles will ensure what you’re writing is relevant. Take time to find out what they really want to know, what kind of information you can offer that will have them turning to you for more.

An effective way to find out what they want is surveying, and there are some great tools available. Two popular, easy to use tools are AskDatabase.com and SurveyMonkey.com. Ask the people in your target audience what issues they struggle with, and then tailor your titles and content accordingly.

Tip #2: Create Your Article
As you write your articles use key words and content that will demand the attention of your target audience.  Some of us enjoy writing our own articles, but if you don’t, you can still create great content. Buy a digital recorder and record yourself answering the questions your target audience is asking.

You can also record yourself whenever you give a talk to a group. Once you have some recordings made, hire a transcriber to transcribe your audio. At that point, you can either edit the transcript into separate articles yourself, or hire a copy editor to create the articles for you.   By recording yourself and then having a good copy editor create articles from your transcripts, you’re more likely to meet the requirements of the editors on article directories.

Tip #3: Submit Your Articles
Once you have articles ready to submit to article sites, take advantage of article submission services to do that for you quickly and easily. Submitting articles yourself is time-consuming and distracts you from doing things only you can do for your business.   Be sure to provide a link back to your sign-up page.  As people read your articles, they should be directed back to your site.

Put Your Article Strategy in Motion. Writing and submitting well-written articles filled with useful content relevant to your target audience is an effective way to build your list. Consistently creating and submitting articles won’t build your list overnight, but great articles can definitely drive traffic to your sign-up page. If you haven’t tried article submission, it’s time to add it to your overall marketing strategy.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

Are you waiting for that “aha!” moment to finally figure out your special role on the world’s stage? Do you expect that one day your specialty will just hit you like a bolt of lightning?

If you’re waiting for the light bulb to turn on, you may end up sitting in the dark for a very long time. More often than not, identifying your niche and your specialty is more like a silhouette emerging through the fog.

In my own experience, picking a niche always comes about gradually. You’re working on one thing, and then another thing similar to that, and before long, you are being associated with a specific specialty or setting.

You probably don’t even realize it as it happens because the process of creating your niche is steady and progressive – the feeling isn’t at all like your expectations. No fireworks, no clashing symbols.

The whole evolution of my own niche probably took 12 to 18 months. I didn’t just ask myself one day, “I wonder what my niche is?” and the next day decide to be a cold calling expert. And, once I became a cold calling expert, I didn’t stop there.

You need to just keep going and continue defining yourself in your business. Ask yourself, “What is it that people are struggling with that I can help them with?”

I honed in on the area of appointment setting and appointment making. At that time, no one else was really offering courses on that specific topic. That helped me to stand out in the marketplace. Part of the reason that I stuck with that niche was that the market kept me on track.

I’m not where I am today because I decided at a very early age that I wanted to be an appointment setting expert. If there is a demand for what you are doing, the market will tell you whether you should continue in that direction. It just may not be a direction you ever saw yourself heading in.

Keep it simple.  Look around you and ask yourself, “What am I seeing that’s coming up as a problem for people time and time again?”

You can look at the needs of existing clients, read trade magazines for your industry or visit online forums to find similar topics that come up again and again.

There will be some that you’re drawn to and others where you don’t have that same attraction. Follow up on the ones that you feel a pull toward and see what happens.

Don’t confuse identifying a niche with “what’s my purpose in life?” That is a much bigger question. You are a magnificent being with so much to do on this earth. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to boil it all down into one sentence.

But, that’s actually exactly what you need to do when you pick a niche. Boil it down. Pick one phrase. “I help ____ to achieve or to solve ____.” Maybe you help moms who want to start their own business, or need another example here.

If you’re approaching your niche as a life purpose question, it’s going to be nearly impossible to answer. Take yourself off the hook and take that pressure off yourself.

Your niche will evolve with your business. Again, learn from my situation. I didn’t stop at being a cold calling or appointment setting expert. Today I’m teaching people how to find new business. The way in which I’m helping people and the types of people I’m helping is completely different from what I started out with.

So, don’t be concerned that what you decide today is irreversible. The market may take you in another direction over the course of time.

Approach finding your niche more pragmatically. Identify the area where you think there could be demand and where you feel you’ve got some expertise and can add some value. You don’t have to have it all perfectly figured out from the outset.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

If there’s one challenge new entrepreneurs share, it’s the need to close more sales. They work very hard, but never seem to meet with enough people to reach their desired goals. There’s a better way to meet your goals and it’s called “sales automation.” Once you learn to automate some or all of the sales process, your closing ratio, and your income, will increase dramatically.

Getting Past Your Objections to Automation

When we’re talking about “sales automation,” it simply means putting your sales process into a format that doesn’t require your physical presence. That may mean writing a great letter that causes prospects to want to buy without needing to meet with you. It could also mean setting up a website and email system that reaches out to prospects and makes your offer in a compelling way that leads them to buy.

Right now, you might be saying, “Oh, no, selling my product requires face-to-face interaction!” Here’s the thing— there are only so many hours in a day and so many prospects you can meet with personally. If your company’s success remains tied to your ability to shake hands with every prospect, you’re severely limiting your future income.

Instead of being the bottleneck to your company’s success, find a way to package what you’re offering so that the sales process can be automated. When you do, you’ll be on the path to a big jump in income. Learning to use automation tools like sales letters, webpages and brochures as your sales force will increase your closing percentage exponentially.

Packaging Your Offer for Automatic Sales

The first step, is packaging your product so it fits in an automated process. Even if you’re the product, as coaches, consultants and other professionals often are, what you’re offering the client can still be packaged.

What do you say when sitting face-to-face with a prospect? Pull that together into a package that can be presented over and over without your actual involvement, and you’ve got the key to automated sales.

Get started by creating a sales letter that focuses on your product and the need it meets in your target audience.

There’s a lot of discussion about how long online sales letters can be, but it’s important to remember you must answer every question when you aren’t physically in front of the prospect. Otherwise, they’ll simply move on to the next offer.

So, practice writing your prospects a letter that answers every possible objection and points them toward a sale. Open that letter on your website, and make sure the sales process is completely automated. A well-written online sales letter can become a powerful “sales force,” automatically selling your product without any involvement on your part.

There are other ways to make sales more automatic. A carefully written brochure that moves the prospect from initial interest to “I’m ready to buy!” can eliminate the need for personal sales call.

Moving the people toward a sale really doesn’t require being eyeball-to-eyeball with them. It simply takes packaging what you do in a compelling message. Move past your own objections to sales automation and let it help you grow your business.

By putting your products in front of more people, without requiring your own time and effort, a good automated sales process can increase your sales dramatically. Find a way to package your product and increase your exposure dramatically through sales automation.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet

How easy is it for clients to say yes to what you’re offering? How aware are your potential clients of the huge improvements you can make in their lives?

It’s up to you to make them aware; to make it easy for them to say yes to your services. Basically it comes down to this: You need to make the intangibles of your business tangible.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re a healer or a coach. You’ve helped your clients lose weight, stop smoking, find the love of their life or double their business sales. Your process produced amazing results that literally changed their lives.

If you are able to create these incredible transformations in the lives of your clients, you have to be able to explain what it is that you do. You need to put your process into words so that new prospects are able to wrap their head around what you’re offering.

Generally, people can only experience the results of your services after they’ve tried you. In their minds, they are essentially taking a risk, because they don’t know exactly what the benefits are going to be for them until they try your service.

So, it’s your job and it’s your duty to make the intangible tangible.

How do you go about doing that?

Start by getting good at quantifying and spelling out the benefits of what you offer.

If you’re like many people, you may be resistant to this step. You may feel like you’re bragging. Or you might resist out of a sense of integrity. Maybe you’re worried about making a claim that you can’t follow through on. Maybe you feel that just because you helped one client drastically improve, you don’t want to assume that you can do the same for everyone.

Well, your that viewpoint is actually hurting you, and it’s hurting your potential clients.

Because while you’re not willing to make big bold promises or big bold statements, even about the results that you’ve already delivered for others, sooner or later someone else, who doesn’t share your integrity, will.

And all of those potential clients who are confused, looking for help and for solutions, will be seduced and taken in by the cowboy or the charlatan who offers a similar service, but doesn’t share your integrity.

While you’re sitting on the moral high ground, worrying about whether it’s okay to say something, there will be plenty of others perfectly willing to lure in vulnerable people in need of help. Your prospects will fall prey to them, unless you step up.

If you don’t, someone else surely will. And it won’t be someone with your abilities, values and integrity. It will be someone who is just focused on the money.

So, it’s time for you to get in the game. Instead of letting clients feel like they’re taking a chance on you, give them what they need to feel confident and assured in their decision. Make your services concrete. Once you spell out exactly what you do, how you do it and how it will benefit them, it will be easy for them to just say “yes.”

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Tweet