Getting Your Company Front And Center!

I see a lot of people in this industry struggling from time to time to earn business and gain clients.  Many vendors have actually reached out and asked, “Josh, how do you get so many brides signing with you when I can barely get a handful?”  The wedding business is pretty lucrative and there is a lot of business out there for everyone.  But why do so many people have a hard time getting clients?  What’s stopping you from getting your company front and center?  You have to understand the effective targeting techniques that will zero in on your audience and showcase yourself as a leader in your field.  The following tips might help you and how you attain new business.

Before you begin promoting yourself, whether it’s on social media, your website, or any other type of medium – consider three important things:

1. Your Clients
2. Your Purpose
3. Your Message

If you’re not promoting to the right people, even the most compelling marketing on Earth won’t make them buy or reach out to you.

Identify Your Target Client

• Be as specific as possible when promoting yourself
• Identify common characteristics that make them great clients for your service
  • They have the same or similar concerns about booking vendors
  • They can benefit from your service
  • They can afford your service
• Find out as much as you can about your clients. What are their interests? How much time do they have to think about your service? How urgently do they need your service? What turns them off? What wins them over?
  • Talk to current or past clients

Dig Deeper to Zero In

Build a customer profile and take the time to understand these 3 important details of your perfect client.  KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!

1. Demographics: Objective customer information such as gender, income, level of education, number of children, employment status, home ownership status, etc.
2. Cohort Analysis: This is based on historian and sociologist theories that people of the same generation share values and thoughts shaped by the times in which they grew up in.
3. Psychographics: This breaks demographic information down to identify attitudes, lifestyle choices and values.

One key to having an effective and successful business is to promote to an audience that fits your ideal customer profile.  If you’re just throwing a bunch of stuff out there in hopes that something sticks, it won’t be as effective as direct targeting to land the client of your dreams.

Consider your perfect client.  When you promote to them, what emotion do you want to trigger?  What will get your perfect client to act right away?  The better you can identify or focus on the correct emotion, the more you’ll be able to highlight the benefits of what you do and can offer them.

While promoting yourself to potential clients is important, you must also identify your purpose for what you do.  Look at all of the writing you do online, whether it’s social media or your website. Look at the possible purposes for it.  Do you do it because you want to:

1. Educate & inform clients
2. Announce your services to clients
3. Persuade clients
4. Establish an image
5. Remind clients of something
6. Promote a specific type of service
7. Publicize a new service
8. Increase the frequency of use for your services

Once you dial in and know why you’re promoting to a certain audience, you must next figure out how to convey your purpose with the right tone.  What type of tone will be the most effective for winning them over?

• Formal or informal
• Friendly
• Precise of general
• Assertive or aggressive
• Serious or light/humorous

How hard of a sell do you want in your tone?

• No sell – completely objective
• Soft sell – Slanted by use of selected facts; any opinions or judgements are attributed to someone else
• Medium sell – Grabs attention, develops a point, asks for action
• Hard sell – repeats points over and over and asks for action again and again

Using A Unique Selling Point (USP)

When marketing yourself to a client, what is the most persuasive aspect in getting your client to buy/act/believe?

• Look at your benefits – Which is the most compelling to your audience?
• Identify what makes your service unique in the marketplace
• Consider what makes your service stand out among the competition
  • Side note: Pricing should not be the major point

Keep in mind that the average human being has an attention span of 7 seconds.  Whatever your unique selling point is, whether it’s online or in person, make it good and do it quick!

Increase your Credibility

Build customer trust!  To get your clients to believe what you’re saying, combine rational and emotional attractors.

• Rational Attractors: What will your service deliver?
• Emotional Attractors: How will your service make them feel?

Remember, when marketing yourself to people, buying decisions are based on feelings and rationalized by facts.

Rational Attractors

• Safety: Plays on fears
• Economy: What something is worth, in time and money
• Looks: It’s pleasing to the eye
• Performance: It works just like you said it would

Emotional Attractors

• Rivalry: Conflict between two points of view
• Laughter: Just remember what’s funny to you might not be funny to your client
• Human Interest: What other people are doing and how they are doing it
• Sensation: Appeals to the sense of taste, touch, sight, smell and sound

I hope some of this blog entry (Getting Your Company Front And Center) has helped if you’re a vendor trying to change the way your market yourself to gain additional business.  If you’re a potential client looking for a service that Kalifornia Entertainment can provide to you, please fill out this form and send us a message.  We’ll be glad to discuss how we can make your event the best in Rochester and surrounding areas.

Joshua V.