Imagine you’re at a networking event and you meet someone who fits the profile of someone in your target market. What do you say? The same goes for online. What do you say in your LinkedIn profile so that people instantly understand who you are and what you do?
Suppose you’re a life coach. Are you going to say something like, “I’m a life coach and I help people get more out of life. Let me give you some information about my services and about coaching so you can learn more”? Do you think this will work? I doubt it, and here’s why. The focus of this approach is on services and titles. Your potential clients aren’t interested in these things. What they care about is how you’re going to help them.
If you’re going to get any traction, then you need to first be HEARD! And the only way you’re going to be heard is if you have a marketing message that catches your ideal clients’ attention and peaks their interest.
To create your marketing message, there are 5 basic steps you have to follow:
Step 1 – Identify your niche
Understanding your niche is the starting point for all your marketing and product creation. By niche I mean being clear about who you help and the solution you provide.
Step 2 – Understand your target market’s biggest challenges and goals
The secret to crafting a marketing message that makes your ideal clients sit
up and listen is to identify their biggest problem and the pain they feel as
a result of that problem.
Step 3 – Present your solution to your target market’s problem
It might sound cruel, but the truth is that most people won’t get into action until they feel their pain. So once you identify the pain, make people really feel it. Then, identify all the benefits of your solution and how those benefits will take away their pain.
Step 4 – Explain what makes you unique
What is it about your approach or system or perspective that is unique? Have you created a system or program that allows your clients to get faster results? Do you have a different approach to solving your target market’s challenge?
Step 5 – Have a clear call to action
You need to know what action you want your prospect to take upon hearing your marketing message. How can they learn more about you? How can they work with you?
When you work through all these steps you have the ammunition you need to create a marketing message that grabs your target market’s attention and instantly communicates your unique value. And in today’s noisy, competitive world, that’s half the battle.
Guest Writer – Cindy Schulson
Cindy Schulson, Founder of AttractYourNiche.com, helps coaches, consultants and other solo professionals master their niche, attract their ideal clients and create real leverage in their business.
In order to market yourself with ease, you have to know WHO you want to attract, WHAT solution you provide and WHY people should work with you. Cindy helps you put together these three pieces of the “Niche Puzzle”.
Cindy has an MBA and has worked in Strategic Communications for such companies as Coca-Cola and Visa International. Her free Niche Success Kit has helped guide thousands of people on the path to discovering their niche.