Before you can have clients, you need to have prospects -- that's what marketing is all about. If your marketing isn't attracting the kind of people you'd like to be working with, it's like pushing a rope -- you are trying to sell them something they don't need, and they are looking for something you don't offer. A little fine-tuning of your marketing plan can make the difference between a home based business that lurches and stalls, and a business that runs smoothly and is fun to operate.
Your Four-Point Marketing Tune-Up Checklist:
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Understand the difference between your
Target Market and your
Niche. A
target market has distinguishing demographic characteristics; for example, recently widowed working women under 50. A
niche
gets more specific in characteristics that might not be as easily
identifiable as demographics; using the previous example, you could
further narrow your target market by including only women who want to
remarry and don’t know how to meet suitable men.
-
Make sure your Niche is focused enough. Think of
all the people who might fit in your niche. Imagine them all in a room
at a business or social event. Would you find them all interesting and
enjoy talking to them? If you cringe at the thought of meeting some of
the people in that imaginary room, note what it is about them that
you’d like to avoid – and
re-define your niche to exclude them.
Perhaps you want to coach women who will be patient in their search for a spouse -- not desperate! If your marketing message implies easy, immediate results, you'll be attracting the wrong prospects. Fine-tune your language so it is clear that your solutions may take time to be successful. You won’t be eliminating potential customers – you’ll be saving
yourself time wasted on less-than-ideal prospects. And you’ll find
yourself more effortlessly attracting clients in the heart of your
niche market.
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Choose marketing techniques that fit your strengths. Just because every other relationship coach has written a book,
doesn’t mean you have to!
If the whole publishing and book promotion exercise sounds like torture, don’t waste your
time. Maybe writing a Dear Abby type of newspaper column is more your style. If you find dealing
with your website to be confusing, but are good at speaking to small groups, ignore the
advice to do a lot of online marketing and instead look for opportunities to speak at senior centers, for example.
-
Be authentic – be yourself. Building an image that
isn’t who you are is a setup for disaster, especially for the self employed and home based business owner. You’ll be exhausted keeping
up the façade…and potential clients will sense the lack of integrity. If you yourself are recently widowed and learning how to meet the right kind of men, don't try to imply that you are an expert. Your personal dating stories can be a great way to establish a relationship with a potential client, who can see themselves in you. Clients want someone they can trust
-- it is more important than all the credentials in the world.
Learn more about
Niche Marketing
