How To Identify Your Ideal Client
As a business owner, you’ve definitely heard about the ever-elusive “ideal client”. They’re the person that you do it all for – the one who will grow your business and wants what you’ve got to offer. Knowing you need to be familiar with your ideal client is one thing but knowing how to identify who they are is a whole different story. When you dream up your future career and plan the foundation of your business, you focus on your passion and your abilities. You focus on what you have to offer the world that will actually take you somewhere. You become very clear on what you want to do and why, but do you focus enough on WHO you’re doing it for? Knowing your audience and who you’re targeting in your business is key to your success. And truly, the more you know about them the better. You can never know your ideal client too well. So how do you get to know them, you ask? Keep reading and we’ll tell you our top tips and tricks to know how to identify your ideal client.
What does “ideal client” even mean?
When you are building an audience and a clientele, it seems like the obvious answer that you want to get your product or service out to the masses and not narrow your search at all. The more potential clients the better, so market yourself to everyone and you’re bound to have greater odds, right? Not exactly. While casting a big net in other areas of life is the most effective, in marketing your business, being intentional about who you cater your marketing strategy to goes a long way and ends up successfully landing you more clients. It is a waste of your time, energy and resources to market to an audience who would never need your product – so honing in on a smaller, more specific audience is the best strategy.
So, what do you do? You find your ideal client. Your ideal client is the hypothetical “perfect” person that you are best suited to serve, and who wants and needs what your business has to offer. They are the demographic that you know have a demand for your product or service, and either have the accessibility or resources to invest in it. You have the solution to your ideal client’s problem. They will likely be satisfied with your services, be a returning client and hopefully bring up your name to other people who will have the same needs as they do.
How to identify your ideal client
Alright folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The tips and tricks of how to identify your ideal client. How do you get to know someone you’ve never met and can’t just have a direct conversation with? How do you put yourself in their shoes, if you aren’t them? It’s time to jump into the mind of your ideal client and figure out who they are, what they need and what makes them, them.
1. Look at your current clientele.
If you are already working with clients currently, this one is for you! It’s as easy as looking at who you are already serving.
Ask these questions:
Who are they? (age, location, niche, hobbies, + general demographic)
What do they do and why?
What are problems that they keep coming up against?
What do they need?
What are you currently offering them and can it fix their problems?
How are they responding to your business?
You want to know your current clients inside and out, so you can maximize how you can best serve them. If you really know who you are working with, not only will you be a better business, you will also know what traits/aspects to include in identifying your ideal client.
2. Think about who you want to work with.
Another important piece to learning about your current client, is to focus primarily on the clients that you enjoy working with; the ones who feel like the right fit. If you’ve already found your niche and ALL of your clients are the right fit, then you’re ahead of the game. If you focus on the clients you feel most “at home” with and who they are, you are going to target and attract more clients just like them. Which is a total win. When you are searching for your potential clients and zeroing in on your target audience, you want to cater to the type of client you already know you want. Whether that’s a certain age group, industry, or personality – it’s good to know who you will work best with, so you are more likely to have a mutually beneficial working relationship.
3. Find your client’s pain point.
What’s a pain point? A pain point for your client, is the part of their business that causes them stress or overwhelm – the area that they need some serious help with. Finding out what that area is for your ideal client, will help you figure out how best to be their solution. They could be an amazing photographer, with their passion being art and creativity, but absolutely zero experience or knowledge in social media marketing. Their pain point would be knowing how to market their business, and the marketing companies wanting to serve them would want to zero in on that and deliver the solution.
4. Identify how you can solve it.
Once you’ve identified your client’s pain point, you have to decide how you are going to solve it. You want your potential client to know that by investing in your business, you are going to make their job and life easier. You want them to know that by hiring you or purchasing your product, you will be freeing up their time and resources, so that they can pour into the things that matter more to them. Your goal is to lift a weight off of your client’s shoulders with your service, and you need to let them know that. This is why becoming familiar with their pain point is so crucial. If you don’t know yourself why they should work with you, how will they?
5. Build a customer profile.
This one kind of speaks for itself. It’s like when you play a video game or create an avatar on your phone. You pick a person and decide all their features; age, physical appearance, clothing, etc. It’s kind of like that. Using all of the information you’ve gathered doing the research we mentioned earlier, you can make a customer profile to refer to and target in your marketing strategy. You are evaluating your target demographic and what defines them.
Focus on these key things:
How old are they?
What industry are they in?
What is their location or are they a remote business?
What are their interests and hobbies?
What is their social media platform of choice?
What are their core values and beliefs?
What is their business’ mission?
Where do they go for news? Inspiration?
Where do they spend their time, online and in-person?
There is so much more that can go into this profile and the right questions to answer will depend on your research, your business and what you offer. Once you have clearly built your customer profile, write it down. Define it clearly in words and in great detail. Study it, learn it, and then go out into the world to find them. If you ever lose sight of who you are doing it all for, come back to this profile and become reacquainted.
Wrapping it up
At the beginning of your journey as a business owner, you are wrapped up in what you do and why. But as you can see clearly, what’s just as important as those things, is who you do it for. Once you’ve checked all three of those boxes, you will be on the road to success! After all, you could be the most talented and unique at what you do and have the most kickass business plan that would take you to the moon, but if you can’t land clients that want to work with you – it’s all for not. Put time into marketing your business, but make it smart. Be selective, intentional and thoughtful about your audience and potential clients. If you are working with people that you hand-chose, it is a win for all!
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