Your Ideal Client
Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Business Foundations for Mums. Today I would like to talk to you about your ideal client, why an ideal client is really important and why it’s important to really spend some time working out exactly who your ideal client is, not just who they might be, but exactly who they are.
So first and foremost, why is it important that we have an ideal client? Why is it important that we have a niche who we work for? There are many businesses for whom you can market to a lot of different people, but in the main and for many businesses, having an ideal client having a real niche, somebody who is really specific who you target your marketing at, is really, really important. Because if you are talking to everybody, then you’re not necessarily going to be relating specifically to anybody. If you are selling a service, or a product and you are selling it to absolutely anybody who will take your service, then it’s much much harder to use the right language to get your message across and to get people to relate to you. So if you can start to bring your niche a lot tighter and decide exactly who your ideal client is, then that will really help you to direct your marketing at that person, at that ideal client. Now that’s not to say that you can’t work with other people, it’s not to say that you can’t work with people who don’t fit your ideal client, and to use my own virtual assistant business, I can use that as an example, I market specifically to mums who run their own businesses, and I have been told by a lot of people that that is not niche enough, I need to maybe target one particular sector but actually for me, that level of niching down just working with mums who run their own business that is enough of a niche for me, that works for me, I can do the kind of work that I really enjoy doing with a variety of clients that I really enjoy.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an ideal client and absolutely perfect client and it doesn’t mean that there are clients that fall outside my niche. I have clients who aren’t mums and I have one or two clients who aren’t women as well. But in the main the vast majority of my clients are mums who run their own business and they fall within that niche.
So you need to think about who you really want to direct your marketing to. So if you were thinking that you would be able to sell your products or your services to men, to women, any age bracket, any kind of sector, any type of income bracket, then you’re talking to a really wide variety of people. And if you can pin that down and decide which of those people is your ideal client, it doesn’t mean that there’s other people won’t come to you and it doesn’t mean that you can’t work with those other people but it does mean that you are really targeting everything you’re saying at the person who would be perfect as your client. So being able to talk to your ideal client, how do you figure out who your ideal client is? This takes a little bit of work it takes sitting down and actually really writing down all the details of exactly who your ideal client is. Now if you have a variety of clients or customers already and you know that one of them is the kind of person you would just love to sell to all the time, they’re absolutely spot on. You can use them as an example for who your ideal client is a really useful exercise to do is to sit down and work out who your ideal client avatar is. Create an avatar of that person, if you’re visual, draw them I’ve seen some amazing drawings of people have done in the past of their ideal client where they they draw what they look like they draw the kind of clothes that they wear, they get the kind of vibe that that person has across in a visual image.
For me, I can’t do it visually. I’ve said it a few times before on the podcast, I’m not a visual person, I need to do it with words. So, for me, I like to sit down and I like to write down all of the details and list it all out and have a really nice, long list of all of the details. If you are doing it visually you could maybe write write the details all around your vision, or around your image of your clients, but make it so it really appeals to you, make it so that it really works for you. Equally if you’re, if you want to, you could find an image of someone in a magazine who would be your ideal client, find the kind of vibe that they have in the ethos, if it’s somebody for whom sustainability is really important, you might want to find or create an image of somebody who’s wearing sustainable clothing. Think about all of the different demographics for that person. Now when I’m talking about demographics, we are talking age and I’m not saying that I target mums who are between 25 and 40. I’m saying give them an age create that person create an actual avatar, actual person persona for your ideal client.
So you would say this person is 34 years old, give them a name, make them come to life for you. That really, really helps. Where do they live? Do they have a family? Do they have children? Or are they single? Are they married? What, what are all the details of this person’s life? What kind of house do they live in? Do they live in a house in the countryside or do they live in the city centre? What sort of income bracket are they on as an individual or as a family? Think about all of the details of their life, from that perspective. And then we move on to the really important stuff. This is about their interests. This is about what really matters to them. What are their values? What really makes a difference in their life? If they’re all about family and making sure that their family life comes first before everything else, then that’s the kind of person that you need to be working with. So think about everything that you can, their wants, their needs, more importantly and the most important thing, what problem can you solve for them?
So when you’re doing your marketing, you need to talk directly to this person. Obviously, you’re not going to include their name and your marketing, but imagine that you are marketing directly to them. You are talking to them directly about the problem that they have and how you can solve that for them. How you can fulfil their needs with what you do. Seek them out, seek out people who are like your ideal client. If your ideal client isn’t based on a real person, start to look for people on social media who maybe fit that profile. Think about the brands that they use. Whether they are high end luxury brands, whether they’re sustainable brands, all of those kind of important factors. And when you know those kinds of details, if they’re a person who reads the glossy magazines, and the visuals of their home are really, really important to them, then you can start to tie that into your marketing and the visuals that you use. Look at the kind of language that they use when they’re talking, look at their social media profiles and see the language that they use and when you’re marketing to them you can use this kind of language to talk directly to them to make sure you’re speaking the same language as them. An ideal client is absolutely essential to understanding who you are marketing to. And as I say, it doesn’t mean that you discount anybody who isn’t that ideal client, but it does mean that your message is getting to exactly the right people who you want to be getting your message to and that you are getting exactly the right wording, exactly the right language, exactly the right visuals that will attract the attention of that ideal client. Because although you may not get entirely your ideal clients, if you can start to bring in more people who fit your ideal client avatar, who fit that profile, then you’re going to be selling to the people that you need to be selling to.
I’m going to give you a quick example of a situation that I came across a few years ago. I mentioned in one of my early episodes that I did a business course a few years ago with a fantastic organisation in Australia and they actually, I actually came across them through a social media post and they were inviting people to come and join their free challenge. I remember seeing that post and thinking “They’re talking directly to me. I feel like that post was written directly for me. They are reading my mind. They know exactly the problems that I’m facing in my business right now. And they’re talking straight to me about that.” And that was the moment that I really understood the power of marketing and the power of marketing to your ideal client. I didn’t know about the ideal client at the time. I learned about it when I went on that course. And I realised the moment I learned about the ideal client, that they had been talking directly to me that I was their ideal client. I was the person that they wanted to get onto their course. And you can find exactly the right kind of clients for you by really doing some work on your ideal client, pinning down exactly who they are. Understanding them, understanding their needs, understanding their problems, understanding their values, understanding the language they use, and then talking directly to them.
So good luck in figuring out your ideal client avatar. I hope this has been useful. And I would love your feedback on how you found it.