Do you create and publish content but feel like it’s falling on deaf ears?
You might have great content, the most entertaining podcast, or super fun-to-read blog posts – but if you’re not thinking about who your ideal customer is and how you can help them, then no one is going to be paying attention.
When you try to appeal to everyone or just have a vague idea of who you’re talking to, you’re not going to appeal to anyone.
If you’re ready to attract your ideal customer, it’s time to learn how to speak their language.
Understand Your Ideal Customer
Attracting your ideal customer requires you to understand your ideal customer. Marketing is really all about psychology and empathy. You need to ask yourself – what are your customers struggling with? What do they want to do better? What results do they wanna get for themselves and their business?
I’m not talking just about what they’re struggling with in their business, but what they’re struggling with in their personal lives, too. For many entrepreneurs, especially if you are a B2B done-for-you service provider, you’re helping an entrepreneur make their business better by taking something off of their plate. You’re making their lives easier by doing something for them.
They’re hiring you because they’re overwhelmed. They want greater profit. They want to be able to work on things in their business. There’s a lot of different avenues and a different reasons an entrepreneur hires a service provider and it’s often not really based on the surface level need. You have to go deeper and understand why your customers are hiring you to begin with.
Know The Value You Provide
Your ideal customer probably doesn’t fully understand what you do and honestly, they really don’t care. All they care about is that you’re solving a problem for them.
You have to get one hundred percent clear on the outcomes that you’re providing your customers. You need to know exactly what value you’re adding to them and their business so that you can communicate that to your ideal audience.
I want you to think about your best sales call that you ever had, where they were getting really excited about how you’re gonna help them and maybe they signed before you even got off the phone. How were you telling them that you were going to help them? What benefits were you telling them that you were providing? What value are you providing now?
Identify Your Technical Jargon
Now, take a step back and think about all of the technical jargon you’re currently using. How are you describing your services on your website, social media, blog posts, podcast episodes, and more? Are you talking a lot about the features of what you’re providing? That’s your technical jargon.
For instance, no one cares that I build WordPress websites. What they do care about is that I can build websites that will attract their own ideal customers and bring them the right kinds of leads.
If I were only to be talking about websites, WordPress, WordPress plugins, etc., I’d be turning away my audience. They don’t care! Honestly, they don’t even want to think about it. They just want it to work.
So think about the ways you describe things that fall into the same categories. Those terms you’re explaining over and over or the words you’re using and then someone’s eyes glaze over.
Doing Keyword Research to Attract Your Ideal Customer
How do you actually talk to your ideal customer and learn to speak their language? You have to do some keyword research.
Before you freak out, I know that SEO keyword research sounds overwhelming. However, it is the best way to discover how your customer is talking about their problems, their needs that leads them to find you and your services.
The great news is that there are a lot of different keyword tools that make this a lot easier to dive into, even as a newbie. Personally, I like using Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool. While it’s free, you do have to set up a Google ads account. You can also check out Moz Keyword Explorer, AHrefs, or SEMRush. All of these offer free trials so you can do a lot of work without spending a penny.
You can also just start Googling things and see what comes up.
I don’t want you to start Googling your technical jargon because here’s the thing. The only people Googling your technical jargon are other service providers doing exactly what you’re doing.
You have to think about how you talk in a totally different way. We need to translate and use your customer’s language instead.
Use Your Ideal Customers’ Language, Not Technical Jargon
Attracting your ideal customer all comes down to speaking like them. How do you learn what language they’re actually using?
Join their conversations!
Dig into Facebook groups where your ideal customer is hanging out (that’s honestly a gold mine), look through the comments on big influencers in your space, do some LinkedIn research, and even go back through and see how your customers are talking about you and your services.
One of the best ways to really understand how your ideal customer thinks is by joining in the live conversations in these online communities or even getting them on the phone. You have to really talk to them to understand them. Same goes for discovering how they talk about their issues.
Think About Intent
You need to make sure that you’re thinking about the intent of the search through a keyword or key phrase. Why is your ideal customer looking for the content through that keyword?
That intent could be to learn something – maybe they want a DIY solution – or to buy something. Do a quick Google search with that keyword or key phrase and see what comes up.
Are you seeing ads selling a bunch of programs and products? That’s probably a phrase someone is looking to buy right now. But if you see a lot of “10 ways” how-to articles, you can guess they’re more interested in learning after they search that.
Remember Where They’re At
Attracting your ideal customer is all about meeting them where they’re at. This is very similar to their intent when they’re searching, but look at the content that’s coming up on Google. Is it a lot of DIY related content or a program that solves this problem? Is it more sales funnels and high level stuff?
Study what’s coming up with that keyword or key phrase and think about why somebody might be searching this. They have a pain point, a problem, some kind of worry. Speak to that.
If you speak like your customer speaks, if you write like your customer writes, then you’re going to come up for those search results because that’s what they’re actually searching for.
Don’t Forget to Show Them the Transformation
Your customer needs to know what done looks like when they work with you, the outcomes that they’re going to get and the goal they’re going to hit.
Your customers don’t want to just spend money. They are actually looking for outcomes like growing their business, increasing their recurring revenue, getting time back in their day, getting freedom or flexibility. That’s what’s going to appeal to them.
Address and demonstrate that you help them make the transformation they’re looking for.
Attracting Your Customers with a Jargon Thesaurus
If you want to make this all much easier, I have a freebie for you today. Grab my jargon thesaurus below and train your brain to think how your customer does. Dump out those technical words you’re using and start keeping track of how they translate into what your customers actually want (and how they actually talk).
Plus, you can use this jargon thesaurus to guide not only your website copy and weekly content, but your social media posts and the rest of your marketing as well.
Get out of your own head and start attracting your ideal customer by thinking like they do.
