When it comes to packaging and presenting your company to prospects, you will do a heck of a lot better and converting prospects into leads, if you are meeting the right prospects.
This challenge has a lot of crossover with SEO (search engine optimization) efforts in an area we internally describe as AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION.
This is the process of looking at your total audience of potential customers and clients and breaking this audience up into multiple smaller, like-minded audiences. There is a strict logic to this mindset.
Your business can’t be everything to everyone.
But your business can be everything to someone.
The more you can find people who think you are “their everything”, the more business you should be able to bring in- again and again.
Let’s put this into concrete terms with an example in a totally different industry so that we don’t get overwhelmed with law firm examples.
A Vegan restaurant (let’s use“Real Food Daily” (RFD) since it’s near where I live in Los Angeles) has a greater chance to increase its revenue base if it can consistently appeal individually to each of the four different types of patrons one generally finds in a vegan restaurant.
A Vegan restaurant often has various types of customers:
- People who are lactose intolerant.
- People who avoid animal products.
- People who eat it periodically (healthier lifestyle).
- People who love eating fake meat with fake cheese on fake bread – nothing wrong with that of course.
And it’s a viciously successful cycle because the more that patrons feel that the restaurant is catering to their needs, the more successful this restaurant will be in attracting these desirable customers time and time again.
Wouldn’t this type of audience targeting approach produce a more positive outcome for your business if you could reach multiple groups of like-minded clients?
A vegan restaurant (really any restaurant)has to get into the mindset of multiple segments of like-minded patrons. It then has to come up with a strategy to get its brand in front of these groups of customers to drive them into the restaurant.
Since this book is really focused on marketing a business online, let’s keep going with this restaurant example and talk about what this restaurant can do with its www.RealFood.com website.
Clearly it needs to reach out to more customers online and get its menu in front of them – and if not the menu, at least the name of the restaurant and its location and the fact that it is a Vegan (non-dairy, non-meat), food eatery.
The website needs different sections that can connect intimately to each customer base with a messaging strategy that is appealing to that group’s needs and tastes.
One of the key approaches to reaching each group is to do some research to find out where each of these groups of potential patrons aggregate and gather online – not necessarily because they are looking for a vegan restaurant – but simply to see if there are places online that Real Food Daily can promote itself and be noticed by them.
If we were working with Real Food Daily, our SEO team would, as part of its SEO Audit – do a study to figure out where these 4 segments of potential customers hang out online and then find a way to get in front of them – and for a cost that makes profitable sense.
Consider that identifying and reaching out to your different audience segments may involve two sides of the same coin.
- Get into the minds of your different clients to figure out how to categorize these disparate groups of people into multiple audience segments that share something in common.
- Then you have to analyze each of the audience segments and figure out their browsing habits to see where they go online to find companies like yours and then get in front of them.
Once you have figured out these 2 things, you simply have to initiate moments of introduction which will enable you to …
- Drive these segments of targeted people to your website,
- Introduce them to your brand identity, and
- Pitch them(showcaseyour offers and your intrinsic value).
- Maybe incentivize them with a coupon or special offer to get their email so you can reach out again.
By now maybe it’s clearer that getting your offer in front of people incorporates many integrated core goals.
- Know your offer and make it clear to your leads/customers.
- Wrap the value up in something we call “packaging your offer”.
- Figure out the groups (e.g. segments) of customers to reach.
- Find out where these customers can be reached online.
- Find an economic way to get in front of them again and again.
Action Item for You:
Write down things you do for clients; and the types of services you offer.
- Try to categorize your services so it’s not just a big laundry list.
- Write down some positioning statements that are like soundbites that describe what you do.
- Write short versions and long versions.
Continue to the next blog post as we discuss the 4th ingredient of our P6 success recipe – namely, how customers “Perceive Your Offer” in terms of their own needs.