Our topic this week is where to start when it comes to working with your dream customer, as you probably know, working with everybody is not going to be your cup of tea, craft beer, or a kombucha. And the best way to stop casting that wide net is to think about who you want to work with. So here's why you need to narrow down your dream client right from the start. Don't spend nine months like I did doing this.
I'm going to give you some simple strategies to make that happen. So I love the food and beverage industry. I've worked many years as a marketing manager for hotels, restaurants, breweries. And when I found myself starting a new business, it was taking work from any place I could to pay the bills. And it was a total disaster because some of those clients weren't a good fit for me, and I knew that and it wasn't my passion.
When you narrow down your dream customer, this is how you figure it out, okay? This is what helps you. When you narrow this down, you figure out these following things. You figure out where they hangout online or even in person. So you'll discover Facebook groups, which social network they prefer, what networking groups they like to go to. The whole online thing really depends on the age and where those people are hanging out.
The other thing this will help you narrow down is content and messaging that really connects with that client and what they're struggling with. And when you figure that out, it's like the magic happens. It helps you figure out places to hang out and target, like Facebook groups, online advertising, events, hashtags, podcasts to be guests on, targeting for your advertising, who to reach out to on LinkedIn. So that is why you want to figure out who your dream customer is and what they want, and then solve the problem.
Easy peasy, right? This is not an overnight process at all. I spent two years spinning wheels before doing the research, talking to those dream customers, and implementing what I found out in that process. I don't want you to make the same mistake. I always say this. If you know me, this is something that I harp on all the time, don't make the mistakes I did. That is why I'm telling you what to do.
This process takes several weeks and we're going to walk through baby steps each week on how to do that. Now I have talked about this before, but I'm narrowing it down and making it even more simpler.
If you don't know where to start, sit down and really think about who you want to work with. Grab a piece of paper and give that person a name, age, location. You could pick your ideal, somebody that you're working with who's your ideal customer and have that person be your ideal customer.
For example, I had a coaching client named Christina and for years she was my ideal client, and so whenever I did anything; social media posts, email marketing, targeting, I really, really, really honed in on what would Christina want? And yes, I talked to Christina and asked her, and that's how I found out.
The second part of this is, once you figure out who this person is and what they look like, think about the solution to what's keeping your dream client up at night and how you can solve that problem. So over the next several weeks, we're going to dive into the nitty gritty of attracting, talking to and directly getting in the heads of that dream client.
Shannon Hinderberger is a social media coach who lives in Bend, Oregon. She works with small business owners on how to grow their business using simple digital marketing strategies so they’re less overwhelmed, get results & save time.
She has over 20 years in the online marketing space and loves helping business owners make an impact in their business.