It’s simple. If you want to really make your marketing work for you then there’s one key action you need to do: define who your target clients are.
It’s the key element of our Digital Marketing Framework and the area we spend the most time on when developing a marketing strategy with our clients. Because if you don’t know who you’re targeting, how do you know what content to produce and where you’re going to promote it?
The importance of knowing your target clients
As a consultancy, it’s safe to say that a large number of your new clients will come from your own or consultants’ networks. After all, you’ve put a lot of work into building your connections and professional relationships. You may also gain some through referrals, where existing clients refer new clients to you, or simply from being in the right place at the right time. To us, however, relying solely on these methods is risky and lacks control.
So how do you overcome this? When it comes to Digital Marketing we ask three questions:
- Who do you want to work with?
- Why do you want to work with them?
- What can you do to find them?
Historically marketers have defined target clients by looking at demographics; job title, industry, age… but things have moved on and we now need to go deeper than this.
Gaining a deeper understanding of your target clients
A job title doesn’t define a person – every CEO, every COO is different. While demographics are a good starting point, we also have to consider psychographics: values, opinions, attitudes, interests and lifestyles.
It’s not just about lists and categories though, you have to identify your target client’s challenges. What pain points do they have that are preventing them from running their firm or their division as well as they could do? By getting under their skin and really understanding what motivates them, you’ll be able to start targeting them more effectively.
What we have to make clear here is that you may have multiple target clients (which we call client ‘avatars’) and that’s fine. Every
business is different. All it means is that you’ll need to do the same for each avatar, making sure you understand their challenges and pain points enabling you to create a marketing plan for each.
Throughout the process of defining who you want to work with, you’ll also have answered question 2, ‘Why do you want to work with them?’.
And the answer is simple – because they have a problem you know you can help them solve. You will be able to answer their questions and provide actionable solutions to their challenges and pain points. So it’s important to truly understand those pain points.
Getting in front of your target clients
Once you’ve defined who your target clients are and why you want to work with them, how do you now find them? This is where you build your marketing plan.
It should concentrate on your key messages – what can you do for them to ease their pain? By using these key messages you can shape and create your content. It’s vital that you always produce your content with your target client in mind – you are writing directly for them.
The final stage is getting that content in front of your target clients. You will have multiple communication platforms to do this through such as your website, social media, email and webinars. Utilising these channels will allow you to reach multiple clients in multiple ways. If you’re not sure what channels to use, think back to your target client and understand what channels they will most likely be using.
The more you can amplify your content the more it will be seen. And the more conversations it’s likely to trigger.
If you want to develop a Digital Marketing strategy that drives results for your Consulting firm, feel free to get in touch – we’d love to talk to you!
