73. Mastering The Art of Marketing To Your Ideal Client

Welcome To the High-Performance Marketing podcast, a show focused on helping small business owners connect with their ideal customers using simple marketing and quality content. I'm your Marketing Guide, Ali Garbero.

If you’ve been watching the news lately you’ve noticed that some big name, well known brands have either forgotten who their target audience is, struggled to connect with new ones or tried to reinvent themselves to appeal to completely different market segments. Bud Light, Target, and Disney are just a few that may come to mind.

I think what we learn or take away from these brands, is that, hey, even companies with massively talented marketing minds can get it wrong when it comes to communicating their marketing message to the right people. And the right people are usually referred to as your ideal client, target audience or customer.

I think much of this is because these companies have forgotten who keeps them in business - or they’re trying to hard to appeal to as many people as possible with mass marketing, instead of tailored and customized communication.

On today’s episode of the Podcast let’s tackle the topic of mastering the art of marketing to our ideal client. —So that you attract more customers, avoid alienating the right ones, and do your best to steer clear of getting too ambitious and trying to cast too wide a net.

First, let’s start with the obvious and what you’ve probably heard a thousand times. Business marketing begins with knowing who your ideal client is.

But before you think I’m going to lead you down the path of asking you to think of your ideal customer by way of their age, income, where they live, what social platforms they hang out on, and other statistical types of demographics. Instead, you know I’m going to recommend we use the Story Brand 7-part framework, which teaches us to see our customers by way of transformation. And what I mean by that is taking some time to understand how your product or service helps your customers change, improve or become the hero of their story.

For example, let's think of a financial planner - a financial planner helps their customers undergo a transformation by taking people from financially unstable futures to confident wealth builders, men and women who invest their money wisely.

Another example is a real estate agent - who takes renters from renters to owning a part of the American dream, or helping current homeowners who no longer love their home, live in their dream one and living like the Joneses.

Taking some time and write down who or what your product or service is helping them become is important. Because it digs deep into their aspirational identity. I talk about Tony Horton and P90x a lot. He was helping me become a fitter version of myself. Because what I wanted was ripped muscles, not necessarily a bunch of exercise videos.

Some of you might have really niche clients. You might say my ideal client is age 65, has 3 adult children, lives in Connecticut, earns $350,000 a year. Those are good stats to know, but more important is knowing why your client hires you. Is it because you are the person they trust to confidently help them grow their net worth so they become millionaires or billionaires. Those wants are aspirational and when you talk about them, customers pay attention. You can market to your ideal client by always talking about what they want, agitate their desires so your marketing message hits right to the core of what they want most.

Once you have an idea about what your clients really want from your product or service, it’s important to revisit these ideas at least once a year.

I recommend that you go back and look at your sales and marketing numbers. As you wrap up each year, take some time to look back and reflect where did most of your business come from and what did those customers have in common? What marketing helped you attract their attention most? If you’re even more on top of your game, do this once a quarter