When starting your online business, you probably have a vague idea of who your dream customers are. You may be familiar with their average age, sex, income level, and location. However, those characteristics will only get you so far.
Such categories are too broad, and marketing your products or services to a large group isn’t very effective. Instead, you’ll need to narrow down your scope of traits, which is key to attracting the clients you’ll love working with. You’ll also need to research many other areas that will help you pinpoint the ideal buyer.
In this entry, we’ll give you an in-depth guide on finding your dream customers so that your online business can thrive.
How Do I Find My Dream Customer?
Finding the perfect customer base is a multi-step process. Here’s what you need to do:
Build a Brand
You can’t have dream customers unless you’ve established a reputable brand. Consider what your clients will discover about you and your online business when they look you up. Ensure your reputation backs up your promises.
Additionally, your company needs a catchy name, domain name and recognizable logo. A strong visual brand combines your content across various platforms and allows individuals to recognize your company. A good idea is to have a designer create your brand and logo. Explain the essence of your endeavor and work with them to come up with a perfect solution.
Other things that can help you attract customers are brand colors. These include various assets, such as business cards, invoices, and marketing materials.
Determine Your Clients’ Basic Information
After creating a business plan, you need to picture the persons you wish to be working with. Decide on the ideal client base and figure out how your products or services solve their problems.
However, you can’t go too broad and try to sell your offerings to each individual you come across in your online business. Narrow down your customers by asking yourself these questions:
- How old are my dream clients?
- Are they also entrepreneurs, CEOs, or middle managers?
- Do they have a sizeable budget, or are they cutting back on luxuries?
- What are their hobbies and interests?
- How does their personal life influence their purchasing behavior?
Do Your Research
Once you have all the basics in place, it’s time to conduct thorough research of your ideal customers. Use Google to make an extensive list of all potential matches. If you can find any other directories or industry websites to speed things up, feel free to do so. Additionally, try various search terms and refine your quest with the ideal client definition in mind.
After exhausting all your search options, go back to your list of client requirements. Figure out whether the customer matches your dream client definition and whether you can identify the areas where they require your help.
Develop a Converting Portfolio Website
Link your products to your website so that your dream customers can check them out. The webpage needs to contain at least some of the work you plan to perform for your client. This can be something they associate with, so make sure to convey a sense of confidence that you’ll deliver outstanding results.
Using Social Media Influencers to Your Advantage
One of the most crucial things that you can do in today’s day and age is to use social media to your advantage, particularly when it comes to the most popular and most widely followed influencers. First and foremost, this requires you to find influencers, the ones whose brands, messages, and values reflect or coincide with your own.
For instance, if you are starting an online business selling sporting goods, then fitness and sport influencers would be your target. After you have found a few good influencers, start commenting on their posts regularly, making sure to identify yourself, your brand, and what you can offer, all without being too pushy, if possible.
The more you comment on the posts of the biggest influencers in your niche, the more people will see those posts. It’s all about getting the word out there so people know who you are, and a good way to do so is by riding the coattails of those who already have a well-established audience.
Getting in Touch With Your Dream Customers
Once you’ve obtained all the phone numbers and email addresses of your potential clients, it’s time to contact them. However, be extra careful during this process since it can make or break your chances of success.
When getting in touch with potential clients, it’s usually wiser to send them an email. It’s generally not as intrusive as giving them a call. Phone calls put a lot of pressure on the other person to think fast and make on-the-spot decisions. This is precisely the opposite of the effect you want to achieve.
Emails are a passive form of communication. Your target base can read it at their convenience and respond whenever they want. It’s also crucial to deliver the message in an appropriate context since your prospects will be a bit suspicious of your email.
To that end, make sure to send your messages as plain emails. Don’t go for Mailchimp, HTML, or anything else that may convey an impression you’re dispatching emails in bulk.
Five Crucial Aspects of Initial Communication
As you’re crafting your message, it’s critical to be genuine and personal. You need to adhere to five crucial aspects of initial communication to increase your chances of success:
1. Address
Your emails need to be addressed to someone since you’re communicating with real people. Therefore, don’t forget to refer to them using their name and try to emulate in-person conversations. Be polite, authentic, and come up with a descriptive subject line without sounding desperate.
Personalizing your message will help ensure that it doesn't come across as a generic spam email. Use email campaign analytics to track your open rates and clicks, which will help you fine-tune the language and approach of your emails. Further, be sure to address any concerns or doubts your potential client may have in your email.
2. Personal Hook
Establish a genuine connection with the dream client you’re targeting. Mention how you came across them and explain why they matter to your online business. This way, the prospect will perceive you as a genuine inquiry, not a spam email.
3. Introduce Yourself
Cover the most important details about you and your online business. Mention your location and tell the customer how they can discover more about you and your work. However, make sure to be succinct – a couple of sentences will suffice.
4. How You Can Help Them
Politely outline why your target customer may require your product or services. Come up with up to two points on how you can solve their problem but don’t go into too much detail. Your goal here is to tease the client and spark further conversation. For this reason, provide enough information so that they know you’ve carefully considered the offer but leave enough unsaid to intrigue them.
5. Call to Action
This is the most critical part of the email. If your prospect has read through the entire message and came this far, what should they do now? Decide what the next preferred step will be, but be sure to leave your client with a choice. For example, you could ask them to text you back, Skype you, or give you a call – whatever best suits your dream customer.
Following Up
Here’s another helpful piece of information on how to find your dream customers: Give your recipients between seven and 10 days to respond. They will undoubtedly be busy, and many people don’t respond to emails within 24 hours after receiving them.
Even if they want to continue the conversation, they may not be able to respond immediately. Your dream customers may wish to consult someone or research your online business.
The most important thing is to let them reply at their convenience. Additionally, don’t feel offended if they don’t get back to you.
The best course of action is to rekindle the conversation after seven to 10 days. Again, emails are the preferred option, but phone calls are also fine. At this point, they aren’t as intrusive as they would have been initiated as your message served as an icebreaker.
For example, suppose you call your clients and ask them whether they’ve seen the email you sent them last week. They may say yes but had no time to respond. In this case, you would be in the perfect position to continue the conversation and start feeling them out. On the other hand, if they haven’t read your email, repeat your pitch and gauge their reaction.
If you’re emailing a follow-up, be careful. Assume that your dream clients probably didn’t read the message. Therefore, you can resend the email but make sure to add additional information at the beginning. For instance, you could state that you’ve already sent them a message, reiterate the purpose, and ask them to get in touch with you if they have any questions.
Sealing the Deal
Now that you’ve received several positive responses from exciting prospects, you need to know how to proceed. This step is just as crucial as the initial outreach. Bear in mind that these customers didn’t act like all the others, which is why you’ll need to modify the remaining conversation.
This is probably the first time these clients have heard about your online business. They may have never looked you up, so you’ll need to do your best to build trust. Whether your following conversation takes place through emails or calls, here’s what you’ll need to do:
- Demonstrate your professionalism, reliability, and outstanding communication skills
- Exhibit your high level of organization and that your business proposal is well-thought-out
- Continue to build upon the idea that they need your products or services
- Showcase your experience and knowledge to complete projects similar to what you mentioned previously
- Add more insights to the conversation without trying to exceed their expectations
Overall, your prospects need to feel at ease. Be respectful and convince them that your online business is just what they have been looking for.
Your clients have already read your initial proposal, but you should now present it in a more personalized way.
Tailor your business offer to their specific requirements and tell your customer how you’ll meet them. Present your offerings clearly and be honest about pricing. Overall, they should know what to expect from you so that the relationship can continue to develop.
Write Press Releases
Writing emails and calling your potential customers isn’t the only way to familiarize them with your products or services. Another great idea is to come up with a press release. They can help you get the ball rolling and attract a large number of people to your online business.
However, blog posts and press releases aren’t the same, so you’ll need to do some research first. If you can afford it, hire a PR professional to write your press release.
Help Your Dream Customers for Free
You have just started your online business, and you may lack experience working in your industry. If so, let your clients check out your products or services for free to figure out how to engage with them in the future.
Not only will you gain a lot of experience and learn about your job, but you’ll also build strong relationships. Give your customers a taste of your offerings, and they’ll highly appreciate it.
FAQ
How to Identify and Attract Your Dream Customer?
Identifying and attracting your dream customers takes a lot of research. You’ll first need to ask yourself a series of questions to determine the ideal persona. At this stage, you’ll figure out their age, lifestyle habits, profession, purchasing behavior, and other vital aspects.
Once you’ve established your target group, you can start obtaining their email addresses or phone numbers online. Start locally and expand your search to get as many results as possible. Whenever you find a potential customer, go back to the first stage and see if they match the desired criteria.
How to Land Your Dream Clients?
After collecting information from enough prospects, the best way to land them is through direct conversation. Emailing is the preferred method, especially early on, since it doesn’t pressure your potential customers to answer right away.
As you’re writing your email, there are several vital points you need to cover:
- Addressing people by their name
- Establishing a connection
- Introducing yourself
- Explaining why they need your offerings
- Call to action
Afterward, give your clients up to 10 days to respond. As your two-way communication starts, outline your business proposal clearly and be transparent about every detail. Your chances of getting them on board will be much higher.
How Can I Get Clients Online?
Establishing an online presence is a great way to attract customers. The internet is a vast network, and you can try a multitude of methods to land your clients:
- Cold emails
- Offer your services on Twitter
- Be active on Reddit or Quora by answering questions and providing experience
- Make business connections on LinkedIn.
- Run advertisement campaigns using Google AdWords and Facebook ads
Knowing How to Find Your Dream Customers Is Key to Success
No online business can thrive without people who’ll buy their products or services. If you can’t figure out how to find your dream customers, getting off the ground will be much more challenging.
Luckily, we’ve given you several strategies to reach and land your dream clients. Make a start on your hunt, and customers will swarm your way.
