Focus. Yep, a 5 letter word that can make a huge difference as to whether your business is reaching the best clients and being most efficient or perhaps not quite there yet.
It’s quite natural for us to think that we need to be selling to everyone and to be honest that is true – you can sell to everyone. Anyone can buy what you’re offering.
However the difference is where you apply your efforts, your time and your money to target those prospective clients who will most benefit from the service, product or solution that you are offering.
I have been guilty of it myself and to be honest I’m not sure I know any businesses owner who hasn’t just decided to target every single person they come in contact with, or develop marketing plans to try to appeal to all and sundry in the hope that one or two will see it, like it enough to want to buy, and then actually buy it!
This approach is all well and good, however it’s going to cost you a lot of wasted time and money just throwing something out there, shutting your eyes, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best!
Pennies are so precious these days especially in small businesses given the economic landscape we’re in that I can’t believe people want to throw money literally down the drain.
So the solution to this is to really focus; focus down on your ideal clients. Maybe use the same budget you’ve set aside (although you might just find you save a bit in the long run) and really hone down your offer or unique selling point in their language, where they will see it and in a style that attracts them.
The key to this initially is to really work out who your ideal client is – and this can be quite tricky to start with!
Is your ideal client you but perhaps 5 or 10 years earlier (many people start their businesses because they see a gap that no one else fills and finds the solution themselves)? Does your ideal client have any particular needs or issues that you can address? What age band are they? Lifestyle? Affluence?
The list is endless plus you might actually find that you have more than 1 ideal client!
A good idea in this case is to collate a short list of ideal clients, think of their attributes, where they are likely to look for solutions, what language they like to hear and what an effective ‘call to action’ might be.
Once you’ve really tightened this brief up, then you can find mini targeting campaigns to hit these ideal clients specifically, making your budget work a lot harder, become more efficient and get better results for your investment.
The ultimate result is more clients that fit perfectly with your business and who want to and do actually buy from you, ideally on an ongoing basis.
So my 3 tips today to make your marketing plans more effective from a cost and a results point of view are:
1. Focus
2. Focus
3. FOCUS
That’s really the bare bones of it; focus your mind, focus on your target audience or ideal client, focus your marketing plans/spend and reap the rewards in more effective sales (and profit!) in the longer term.
If this article interests you and you’d like to know how we could focus and create more success together (2 minds are always better than 1!), please do get in touch with me a www.jolongconsulting.com.
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