Why You Need to Identify Your Ideal Client for Your Direct Sales Business

Identifying your ideal client is crucial for any business. It helps you focus your marketing efforts on a specific group of people who are most likely to benefit from your product or service. You’ve probably heard, “You can sell to everyone, but you can’t market to everyone.” This is the crux of why you need to identify your ideal client early and revisit it often.

In many cases, your product could be used by just about everyone, like shoes. Everyone needs shoes, but not everyone wears sandals, for example. So you would market to people who typically wear sandals. If you marketed to people who wore sneakers only, you would never sell any sandals. Make sense?

Why It’s Important to Identify Your Ideal Client

• Narrowing your customer base increases your brand’s exposure. Many business owners believe that marketing to every demographic will bring in a greater number of customers, but this is far from true. Knowing your target customer and marketing to them specifically can lead to better results. See the shoe/sandal example above.
• Helps you plan out your marketing and reach the right customers. Once you identify your ideal client, everything else can fall into place. You can plan out your marketing strategies and reach the customers who will actually enjoy what your business offers and who have a higher propensity to BUY what you’re selling.
• Enables you to appeal to an audience that truly values what you do. Having a niche is key. It may seem like narrowing your market and the number of suitable clients, but it helps you appeal to the audience that truly values what you do. The more you come to know your target client, the easier it will be for you to create content that speaks directly to them. It’s quality over quantity; you want highly engaged customers who will continue to buy.
• Helps you create a client persona that guides your marketing efforts. A client persona, sometimes called a client avatar, is a short description of who your ideal client is. It helps guide you when you design your website, create content, share content on social media, talk with potential clients, and screen potential clients. A client persona in written form and seared into your brain is a key part of your marketing.
• Allows you to create marketing messages that speak directly to your target customer. Knowing your ideal client helps you create marketing messages that speak directly to them. You become magnetic. When a potential client feels like you “get them,” your offer becomes much more appealing.
• Helps you design and create content that appeals to your target market. Designing and creating content around your ideal client helps them feel at home when they arrive on your social media or subscribe to your email list. You want them to feel moved to take whatever action you want them to take. You want them to feel like you understand their goals, their fears, their needs, and their wants.
• Allows you to target your ideal client when sharing content on social media. You’re not sharing content for just anyone, you’re creating the content for the person who has pain points that are solved by what you sell. You’ve got to target them when you share that content. So, write the post with them in mind. Use a photo that will appeal to them, and use hashtags with keywords they are searching for.

To identify your ideal client, you must create a buyer or customer avatar, a fictional representation of them. The key is to be as specific as possible. Start with your current customer base as they will offer the most insights.

How to Identify Your Ideal Client

• Determine your ideal client’s aspirations. Knowing your ideal client’s goals can be key information for putting together suitable marketing content.
• The challenges your ideal client currently faces. If you can identify a challenge your ideal client currently faces and “bridge the gap” from their problem to a solution, you will likely find yourself in high demand.
• The purchasing habits of your ideal client. People make purchases in different ways. Some purchase impulsively, while some take the time to research, read reviews, and look at alternative options within the market. You must know the purchasing habits of your ideal client so you can ensure they have the right resources there to make a purchase.
• Choose who you most like to work with. It may seem obvious but if you enjoy working with someone, the process is often much easier and the results obtained are often much better.

In conclusion, identifying your ideal client is important because it helps you focus your marketing efforts on a specific group of people who are most likely to benefit from your product or service. It enables you to appeal to an audience that truly values what you do, create marketing messages that speak directly to your ideal client, and create content that appeals to your ideal client, and target your ideal client when sharing content on social media.

Need help starting to identify your ideal client? Check out this FREE workbook that will have you identifying your target customer in just 20 questions!