Are you really clear on who your ideal client is?

To build professional credibility, engage your target audience and connect with your ideal clients requires absolute clarity about who your ideal clients are and how you help them. 

In this episode I’ll share with you our process and a really neat tool to allow you to gain absolute clarity on your ideal client and how you can communicate with them to build and strengthen an engaging, enduring relationship.

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

Listen to the Podcast

Show Notes – Connecting with Your Ideal Client

• Once you get really clear about who your ideal client and target market is, you’ll have a clearer direction for your marketing and can focus your marketing efforts on generating high-quality leads.
• The 80:20 rule or the Pareto Principle says that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes, which means that statistically, 80% of your business will come from 20% of your marketing efforts.
• The 64:4 rule says that if 20% of your actions generate 80% of your results, then 20% of that 20% produces 80% of 80% of your results. Take that one step further and it would mean that 1% (20% by 20% by 20%) of your effort produces 50% of your results! That would mean that 1% of your efforts yield 50% of your results, or expressed another way 1% of the people you market to, can account for 50% of your business.
• Getting really clear about your ideal client changes everything! 
• Getting really clear about your ideal client is more than developing the traditional client avatar which usually looks primarily at a bunch of demographics. It’s about empathy with your client – seeing things from your client’s point of view.

Ideal Client Exercise Using an Empathy Map

1. Begin with identifying your favourite client and really getting clear about what drives that client, what motivates them, and how you can connect deeply with them. Some series of questions that you can ask to identify your favourite client are:
   • Who’s your favorite client?
   • Who do you have onboard now that is working with you, who you love working with?
   • Who do you really make a difference to?
   • Who pays you on time?
   • Who do you really look forward to seeing?
     …
2. The next step is to “clone” that favourite client.
   …
3. Imagine a whiteboard in portrait layout. You draw a line across the bottom so that the top part is a big square, and in the middle of that square you put a face showing the side-on profile with the eyes to the right and the ears to the left.  (see diagram below)
   …
4. Now divide the top square, around the face, into 4 triangles. The right hand triangle where the eye is facing is the SEE part, the left hand triangle where the ear is, is the HEAR part. The top triangle is the THINK and FEEL part. And the bottom triangle is the SAY and DO part.
   …
5. Ask a series of questions around those headings. 
   • SEE – what does your ideal client see in her environment? What does that look like? What does she see in her day to day work?
   • HEAR – who is your ideal client listening to? Who influences her? What does she hear in her environment?
   • THINK and FEEL – what’s really important to your ideal client. What kind of life does she want to live? What kind of business does she want? What really moves her? What are her dreams and aspirations? What decisions does she make? How does she know she’s successful?
   • SAY and DO – how does your favourite client behave? What’s her attitude? What does she tell others? What can we imagine her doing? What have we heard her say?
     …
6. As you add more and more information to the Empathy Map, pay close attention to where there is incongruency. You might see disconnects between beliefs and behaviour.
   …
7. The bottom part that we divided off at the beginning, we divide that into 2: the left section is the Pain and Need section, or the BEFORE STATE. And the right section is the transformation or the DESIRED AFTER STATE section. It really pays to dig deep into these. The five why’s method is a really good way to do this – ask why and then with the answer, ask why that and repeat until you’ve asked why five times.
   …
8. Explore the transformation. What is the desired after state? Needs, wants, hopes, and dreams? Again, asking why repeatedly can uncover underlying needs and wants. How does she measure that success?
   …

Go ahead and download a copy of our Empathy Mapping template and work your way through the questions for each section.

If you are game, record yourself explaining your Empathy Map and send it to me, I’d love to learn about your ideal client and am happy to jump on a call to hear more. Even if you don’t send it to me, explain your Empathy Map drawing to a trusted person and record your explanation. I’m convinced you’ll find that really helps you articulate a clear description of your ideal client, and deepen your understanding. 

Have fun!

My mission is to do Good Marketing, to make marketing Human, to make marketing a FORCE for GOOD – characterized by service, empathy, transparency and to make a meaningful difference to the people we care about AND to their customers too

Thank you for coming on this journey of Marketing Transformation with me. Let’s make marketing human again.

Resources

• Tales of Marketing Transformation Facebook Group – Join the Community here (Free but Priceless!)
• The InnovaBuzz Podcast – our other podcast on Innovation and Marketing, with awesome guests each week.

Listen to the Podcast