If you read last week’s blog (which you can read again here) then you should now have a better idea of who your ‘ideal’ clients – the ones you really want to work with, who are happy to pay what you want to charge. If you don’t know exactly who they are, any marketing that you do will be very hit and miss. The activities you use may not be the best ones to find the people you’re looking for.

There is no need to rely on ‘trial and error’ with your marketing. There are certain marketing tactics that work for specific businesses and this is something you need to look at closely, in order to stop wasting money on your marketing. Instead of using a scatter gun approach or trying something because you think it ‘might’ work, you can pick the marketing activities that you know will work for your business.

Where can you find your ideal clients?

When you know who your ideal clients are – the people you really want to work with, who will love working with you – you need to think about where they hang out. When you know this, you can put your marketing messages in places where they will see them and respond to them. If you just splash your messages everywhere, your prospective clients will see them, but so will hundreds of other people that you don’t want to work with, so most of your effort and money will be wasted. Putting your messages in places where your prospects won’t see them will waste your effort and money too.

For example, if you provide weight loss advice to people who want to get fitter and live a healthier lifestyle, leaving a brochure in a pub won’t bring you many enquiries – if any. You’ll have more success if you leave that same brochure in a doctor’s surgery and even more success if you get to know the surgery staff so that they can recommend you.

If you specialise in helping women become more successful and assertive at work, promoting your business in magazines aimed at men will be a waste of time. What magazines do your prospects read and where do they spend their time when they’re not at work?

For ideal clients over a certain age, will they see your message on the internet? More and more people are going online, regardless of their age, but you still need to know where on the internet they spend time. What other products and services are they looking for? Which websites do they visit?

Where do your clients hang out when they’re having fun? At Appletree we meet a lot of new clients through networking, but there is only one regular event that I go to. We work with a lot of professional speakers, so most months I go to the local meeting of the PSA (Professional Speaking Association.) I don’t go looking for clients – I go to work on improving my speaking skills – which means that I can have relaxed conversations with the other speakers there. We often get talking about how best to promote our businesses and I share any advice I can, getting to know people and building up relationships with them. Over time, this has brought me a number of new clients.

Where do your clients hang out? Where do they go and what do they do when they’re having fun and not thinking about work? Think about how you can get involved and hang out with them and you’ll find a more effective way of promoting your business.

We look at this topic in much more detail in the Magnetic Marketing Course – a simple to follow 9 week email course, full of advice and videos that will help you attract your ideal clients and spend much less on your marketing. Sign up by the end of February (for just £195 with a FULL money back guarantee) and we’ll also send you a FREE copy of Magnetic Marketing, the book, that’s worth £15.99. Click here to book your place now!