Have you ever wondered why some people struggle to get clients (they spend hours and lots of money on marketing, but just don’t reap the benefits), while others have huge successes when marketing their business?
What possibly can be the difference? Especially if two people use the same marketing techniques?
Well, to answers this, let’s first evaluate which of these two statement sums up how you think about your clients?
- I have a very specific client in mind. I only want to work with these specific clients; I’m not interested in attracting and working with anyone else.
OR
2. I work with anybody interested in what I do. If they have a pulse, they’re a potential customer.
Can you see the difference?
These two statements form the underlying reason why some VAs struggle to get clients and why others don’t (and in case you were wondering, statement 1 is good and statement 2 isn’t).
It is sad to see that a lot of virtual assistants avoid defining a target audience (statement 1). They often worry that if they narrow their audience, they will reduce the amount of money they make. But this is absolutely not true. In fact, the opposite is actually what works.
When you have a specific target audience, versus working with everyone, it’s so much easier to get new clients and increase your income and here is why…
- Having a specific target audience helps you to focus your marketing efforts.
- You can get to know your audience; what they like and dislike; what they need and don’t need; what they struggle and need help with.
- You can tailor your marketing message to be highly relevant to their needs and speaks in a way that they can relate to.
- This helps them to self-select, in other words, when they see your marketing, they immediately relate to it and they understand how they can benefit from it.
- Specific marketing pulls clients closer. They choose to find out more, to contact you or even work with you.
- This makes converting prospects into clients much easier.
- You appear as being a specialist and you can increasingly build up a reputation as being just that.
- You stand out from your competitors. By differentiating yourself from your competitors, prospective clients are less likely to focus on price as the key issue.
- You can raise your rates, thus increasing your income and profit margins
The key to targeting an audience is to be very specific: To identify a market that you’ll enjoy working with and who’ll receive massive benefits from working with you.
Your ability to target and then connect with this specific audience can mean the difference between struggling and thriving as a business owner.
