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A Message from KellyWelcome to The Copywriting Connection! This week we're looking at the number one way to increase your business: finding your target market. Check out this week's article to learn more about how to identify your perfect client. In BtoB's "2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans" recent survey, they found that 60% of B2B marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets next year. If marketing budgets are increasing the need for copywriting services will be increasing too. Are your marketing systems in place? Are you ready capture the businesses that are doing this extra spending? The Copywriting Institute's Build Your Copywriting Business Course can help. Happy Copywriting! Kelly
Finding Your Target MarketI've consulted and written copy for hundreds of clients and one of the biggest mistakes I see over and over again is that they haven't clearly identified their ideal client. If you don't know who your ideal client is...how can you possibly find them? And how can they possibly find you? You need to put your energy into marketing to the people that YOU want to do business with, not just everybody that you COULD do business with. It doesn't matter the size of your business or what industry it is in, I recommend creating a list of the clients you would looooooove to work with -- your dream clients. This is a list of large to medium size companies that are your ideal prospects. You are going to spend the majority of time, marketing efforts and energy targeting this group of people. We all have a limited budget for marketing. That's just life and you need to make due with you've got. Your job is to get the most exposure and the most response for every dollar you spend. The best way to do that is to be very targeted to the people you send your message to, and spend your energy on. You should also know that most people are, on average, exposed to over 3,000 advertisements a day. Because of this over exposure to advertising most people won't remember or recognize your message until their seventh or ninth exposure to you. Spending your limited time and budget on a smaller very targeted group of prospects, is the best way to get your prospects attention in the shortest amount of time. So, how do you get started making a list of your dream clients? If you have narrowed your niche and identified what your ideal client looks like and who they are (say chiropractors and others doctors involved in natural healing techniques), you may look for and identify some of the largest practices in the area or the country, and add them to your list. Where do I find these people? Always be looking for prospects to add to your dream client list. Look in the business section of the paper, online, with products you use, names you hear about from others. Also know that this wonderful list of yours is a working list. Take prospects off as they become clients; you'll also take prospects off if you either decide they will never use your services or that you don't want to work with them. Once you add a prospects name to your list you will start doing some work. Call and find out who you need to talk to. The practice manager or marketing director? The CEO? Find out who they are and get as much contact information as you can. Phone number, mailing address, fax number - whatever you may use for your marketing efforts. And then get busy. These dream clients will get our most expensive and special marketing attention. We won't just stop at sales letters - what other marketing techniques can you think of to stand out from the crowd in their eyes? A colleague of mine made a CD about her company and sent the CEO a CD player to go with the CD. THAT got somebody's attention! You will still do talks and marketing and other things to become known in your niche, but this targeted group of dream clients is who you will save your special stuff for. Sometimes this dream list is also called a "top 100" or "dream 100" list. Your list may be 20, or it may be as large as 500. There is no set number. 100 is a number that is thrown around a lot and is a good goal. Also know that the size of the list can and should fluctuate as you work it. Let me summarize all of this for you:
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Copywriters ChallengeI challenge you to make the task of creating your dream list your number one priority. What does your ideal client look like? How will you target your niche? Word of the WeekThis week's word of the week is denizen [den-uh-zuhn]. Denizen is a dweller; an inhabitant; a resident; one that frequents a particular place or it can mean an animal, plant, etc. that has become naturalized. An example of it in a sentence is: They took over as the denizens of the forest. Tools for your Successwww.gethuman.com/us/ - One frustration for me is when I need to call a company for customer service and instead, some computer answers the phone that has no idea what I'm saying, no matter how clear I am. This web site is a database of corporate phone numbers leading to an actual human response. If you have any other great resources you'd like us to share with everyone, let us know and we'll check it out. rachel@thecopywritinginstitute.com All content is copyrighted© |
