When we meet new clients the first question is ‘what are your goals?’ This is not just for their social media, blogs, website or whatever they need help with, but the overall business goals.
Why is this important? Simply, because if we understand what their business aims to achieve, we can give better advice about what activities will help them to get there.
Having goals isn’t the first step – it’s what comes before the first step – let’s call it Step 0.
Here are the five steps to success:
- Who are your target clients?
Not just a generic group, but a detailed profile of the people who would be an absolutely perfect client for you. Get into the detail (this might help), this will help you to get really focused.
- Why you?
Before you start trying to influence people, it’s important to know why they would choose you. This is where you need to find out why your clients like you/what you do for them? Don’t guess, ask. It’s not about what you do – it’s about what they get.
- Where do you find them?
When you understand who you’re trying to reach, you now need to work out where they hang out – both online and offline. This will allow you to focus on the right people in the right places, rather than just hoping the right people will see – and get – your message.
- Review your options
Now it’s time to look at the tools you have available. If you’re trying to put a marketing campaign together, you’ll need to review:
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- The social media that will best engage your target clients; whether LinkedIn will have a better reach than Facebook, for instance.
- Which publications your target customer reads and how you might get published in those.
- What type of information they will respond to best, to inform what you blog about, put out on social media and include in newsletters or email campaigns.
Now you can create your strategy of what you’ll do, where you’ll do it and how it will be followed up.
- Means, manpower and measurement
This is ‘who does what, when and how – and how do we know if it’s working?’ With a clear strategy, this is where tactics come into play.
None of these are set in stone, circumstances change, goals evolve and people have new ideas. All these need reviewing regularly to ensure that your strategy remains valid to achieve your goals.
