ReInvest In Your Business: How To Find Your Ideal Client

Like many small businesses across the world, the Tap House crew is finding different ways to generate revenue and keep our business afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. The downtime imposed has not been an easy pill to swallow. First came panic then came a complete pivot in priorities with many emotions in-between. Now that we’re a few months into this giant mess, we want to share a few online techniques we used to revisit and reinvest in areas of our business that are typically neglected in ordinary times when we’re in full business “go mode”.

Reinvesting often begins with examining the fundamentals and getting the basics done right. The techniques I’ll discuss are meant to help you unlock your online growth potential and also prepare for a new business trajectory when the downtime has ended.

As it stands, people are searching online now more than ever. If your business is stuck in the background searches you’re going to have a difficult time generating new revenue right now (during the downtime) and even when you’re picking back up and building momentum. So where do you begin the reinvesting process? At the absolute basic part of starting a business – identifying your ideal client or customer.

This is such an important part of owning and operating a business because when you stop trying to be all things to all people, you’ll stop feeling confused and overwhelmed in your business approach, you won’t have to “reinvent the wheel” for each new client or customer, and you’ll most likely increase business revenue in the long-run, not to mention you’ll have complete clarity in your marketing initiatives which will naturally attract your perfect client.

A great way to do this is by manually creating a profile. Get a pen and paper and write this all down. You can start by giving that ideal client a name and create a story about them. What’s their age? What is their family and socio-economic status? What’s their level of education? Where did they go to college? What’s their current occupation and where do they hang out? You get the picture. From here, think about their most pressing problem and how you, the business owner can help. You’re going to want your ideal customers to know that you get exactly what they’re feeling and what pain points they have. Download your copy of the Digital Marketing Toolkit to build (or rebuild) your ideal client profile with ease.

When you can effortlessly articulate their problems better than they can, they will begin to see you as their solution. Describe to your ideal client, what exactly you do. You can even paint a visual picture of your process. So, they can see what their experiences will be like. Giving your ideal client a roadmap of how their experience will play out, will help them to fully grasp what the result of their purchase with your business will be.

Now, truth be told, your ideal client profile will change over time and this is a totally normal and expected thing as a business owner. But, creating your ideal client profile, preferably before launching your business or very early on, will help you be laser-focused on your niche so you can spend less time with trial and error and content development and more time growing your community of followers, members, donors, and customers.

The benefit of doing this research as part of your before launch plan is that you can start out with a strategy rather than throwing out ideas and seeing what sticks, which makes it so much easier to implement a marketing system and saves you oodles of money in the long run. Believe me!

Now, if you’ve been in business for a while and you’re saying to yourself, “Well, I know who my ideal client is”. This is still a great exercise to revisit. You may be surprised at how your business has evolved over the years and how your client needs have changed. You can start by reviewing your list of clients and determine what segments of your business are driving the most revenue. This will be a great place to evaluate what skills you should build on and what services are worth expanding on and really where you want to put your marketing budget to. Revisiting your messaging is also a great idea. Oftentimes a business or organization’s mission evolves with significant growth.

Another great strategy while defining your ideal client is to do some competition and industry analysis. This sounds more difficult than it really is. Basically, you’re going to want to find your local and perhaps national or global competition and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and weigh them against yours. This could be something as simple as a website. For example, is your competitor’s website functional, user friendly, or aesthetically pleasing? Check their Google and Facebook reviews to see what customers are saying about them. Also, read their blog. This is a fantastic way to find out what their marketing strategy and system is like, so you can be inspired to create yours.

Based on that analysis, you can begin to define what specifically sets you apart from your competitors. For example: how will your business and services solve the client’s problems better than anyone else? Honing in on this specific piece will help you sharpen your elevator pitch and create clear, concise messaging in your face to face conversations and also your marketing material and website. Being able to quickly deliver what exactly it is that you do and how you do it best is professional gold and it shows confidence.

A good exercise for creating your value proposition is to think of this:

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• How do you do it?
• And what are the results?

That is what people want to know.

Recap:

• Create a profile of your ideal client. Get to know them on a human level first, then think about their pain points as a consumer and how you can solve their problem and instill trust in your brand.
• Be open to evolving your business to what your customers, members, or followers like.
• Tune into the segments of your business that drive the most revenue and build upon that.
• Do your industry analysts. Check out your competition and see what their strengths and weaknesses are, then weigh those against yours. This will help you find your unique value proposition, so you can begin to craft your messaging for your website and marketing material.

Looking for a comprehensive guide to help you build a proven online marketing strategy? Click below to learn how our 4-part on-demand training can help you craft your online marketing strategy + system from the ground up with techniques that work for ALL businesses, regardless of niche or industry.