Small business marketing continues to evolve to match the needs of your customer, but one thing never changes: the need for leads. To draw prospects in, savvy business owner must take a customer-focused approach through personalized and customized communications and content.
One of the most important elements of a lead generation strategy is the development of an ideal target customer profile. Understanding who makes an ideal customer allows you to build your entire business, message, product, services, sales and support around attracting and serving this narrowly defined customer group.
The secret to attracting the leads you need to grow your business isn’t more marketing—it’s targeting. Don’t squander half your marketing budget and hundreds of hours generating leads that go nowhere. Find your ideal customer from the outset, and everyone wins.
Think about whom your 10 best customers are and what you need to do to attract 10 more just like them!
From your client base of 10 above start looking at the characteristics of these successful accounts or best clients. You’re searching for any common characteristics that are shared by this client base.
You also want to Go Oprah on them … interview them! Some of the things you’re after is the PLACES your customers give their attention (eyes and ears) too, the LANGUAGE your customers use when describing why they buy from you, the WORDS and PHRASES your customers use when explaining what they value about what you do, and the DESCRIPTION of the perfect buying experience. You can’t get that by asking them to rate things from 1 to 10.
Here’s what you are deep diving for:
Until you can clearly define and communicate some unique or desirable element, you wont attract leads. At least not the ones who value what you do and are profitable.
When service businesses solution sell and respond to RFPs they basically make every business look the same and make price the primary issue.
Working with your marketing/sales team or a strategic marketing consultant can help identify what service or product element really nails the buyers pain-point or desire. Working together marketing and sales efforts can communicate a unique way of doing business that will attract more quality leads.
Examples:
Some other things to take into consideration:
For the greatest success, your lead generation strategy must be holistic. Your ideal customer profile, messaging, differentiation, content and communication efforts can’t be just one aspect of your work; they need to be infused into every facet of your business.
Indispensable Marketing takes a process approach to developing and installing your small business marketing.