DO YOU KNOW WHO YOUR CLINIC’S IDEAL CLIENT IS?
If you don’t know exactly who your clinics ideal client is, then you are quite literally marketing your business with one hand tied behind your back. You may have heard the saying “if you’re marketing to everybody you’re marketing to nobody” and it’s never been more true than in today’s marketplace.
For example, one of my clients has three areas they’ve decided to concentrate on, and they’ve chosen to focus on one
of those particular ‘ideal’ client types first for all their marketing efforts. These are 40+ mums, with a disposable income, whose children have just gone off to university, who now have more time on their hands, and who are looking to build their confidence.
They’ve gone on to build a much more detailed avatar (or living and breathing descriptive of this person) and with this information they’ve been able to develop specific marketing strategies to engage in a way that this potential client wants to be engaged with. Just depending on who you’re targeting, your own avatar should also be as detailed as possible, so consider where they live, what gender they are, their age, whether or how many children they have, where they holiday, what magazines they read, what social media platforms they’re on… Really drill down to find out what they care about.
So, once you have this information (and this really is the ABC Ladybird book version of marketing), then you can decide what marketing pillars you’re going to use to engage them. Don’t make assumptions when it comes to who you think your clients are though.
I heard a story recently about a yoga teacher who was putting all of her efforts into marketing to the local schools because she believed her ideal clients were mothers, however, when she actually did a survey of her current clients she found that most of her best clients were single professional women aged 30+ within 5 miles of her studio. Wow. Armed with this information she re-focused her marketing on local businesses with female office staff and the jump in her profits proved she was well and truly on the right track.
Talking of surveys, it’s a well-known fact that around 68% of the clients you lose, you lose because of perceived indifference (so, they leave you because they think that you don’t care). Surveys are a great way of showing you care, finding out what your clients actually think, and identifying other areas that you can help them with.
By Alan Adams The Clinic Coach
