CREATE: How to move your ideal client through the marketing strategy customer ladder
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Once I developed a more stable construct of my ideal client, niche, and target audience, I was able to create more content aligned with their needs.
But as I worked my way through CREATE An Intensive Biz Playbook & Planner: Scale Your Online Business, Create Explosive Growth and Build a Brand You Crave, I still found more business terms and processes I needed to know to make my small creative business a success.
I found out more about the Marketing Strategy Customer ladder while reading and completing CREATE An Intensive Biz Playbook & Planner: Scale Your Online Business, Create Explosive Growth and Build a Brand You Crave’s section on marketing strategy. I found this to correlate well with the digital presence since most of these customers now interact with small businesses throughout social media.
While many might see a business through social media, many acquire advocates and subscribers through email marketing and promotions. Generation Z still checks and enlist in email services with companies to join incentive programs and receive deals or coupons for many products or services a store can provide them.
As a business owner, you will have to determine how you will reach out and market your company to each level of these customers. Not all will remain a loyal customer, nor do you want them to, but you will have to determine how you will reach potential ideal clients on each of these levels.
So what are these levels and how do you navigate your business through each of them when searching for ideal clients for your business?
Marketing Strategy Customer: Stranger
The stranger has no idea your small business exists. They might have just noticed something that you marketed towards them or to people in general. These customers might have caught their eye on something you were marketing or promoting but have very little idea of what you are doing as a business.
Engaging this Customer
It can be fairly easy to engage a stranger. You might not always want to retain a stranger to your site or your business, but engaging with them will help you engage with your ideal client and target audience.
Having a stranger engage with your content might reflect in liking or viewing a social media post that you wrote or making an impression on them with your Pinterest marketing strategy. Remember, not all strangers with fit with your ideal client but appealing to more strangers will promote and broaden your other audience brackets.
Retaining this Customer
Retaining a stranger can be fairly easy but it can also be difficult when you do not remain focused on your ideal client. When you retain a stranger with your marketing strategy, you want them to be focused on your business’ brand and culture by having a connection with your target audience.
Strangers can have many passive ways of being retained through marketing strategies. If they are within your target audience even a little, this will help to make them want to stay in contact with your brand. Retention could mean following or like a page to stay invested in your business.
Moving this Customer Through your Marketing Strategy
A stranger will more likely be a first-time visitor to your business. If you want to move the stranger to a reader on your customer ladder, you’ll want to give them a reason to come back to your site or business.
If a stranger is invested in your business by following or liking a social media page, this is a great way to show them more content that your business has created. They now know and will remember your branding message to spread to others or retain a connection to your products or services.
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Marketing Strategy Customer: Readers
As a reader, these clients might have heard about you and your business. They know your small business but they might not be connected to it in any way. They maintain a vague connection to you but might not fully endorse or support your business’ values or goals on their own.
Engaging this Customer
Readers are most likely a return customer. They might have browsed your website, products, or content before but you are not a main source for them yet. They know of you but don’t have a high-regard or connection with you.
These customers probably see your business on their social media feeds or have heard or passed by your business in some sort of way. They are still vague or standoff-ish when your business is confronted or suggested.
Retaining this Customer
Retaining a reader to your business will help you determine what your ideal client wants. With a reader’s insight into your business, they will know and understand your business but not on a thorough level.
You will probably see the reader as a return visitor to your site or an avid reader or watcher of your content. That could mean they repeatedly pin your content or watch a video from your business. They have a partial investment but they are not avid clients to your products or services.
Moving this Customer Through your Marketing Strategy
With a reader, you need to determine how or if they fit into your ideal client. If they do, you’ll want to find ways to understand them better to appeal to them more.
A good way to move a reader to a subscriber is to offer them a way to become more actively connected to your business. Offer them an incentive that might appeal to them and their ideals. Usually, for a website, this is where you would offer an opt-in or a subscription, maybe even an automated email newsletter that would keep your reader interested.
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Marketing Strategy Customer: Subscribers
This customer knows you and can identify you. They might not jump at the chance to use your services or have any inclination of using them at present, but they know your business is valid and accountable. Subscribers are usually connected to your blog or business and are interested in learning more about you, despite them not jumping at the chance to integrate themselves in your business’ culture.
Engaging this Customer
The subscriber will probably receive emails from you but not take any action with them. You have engaged them enough to want to know how your business is doing and what you are offering with your products and services but they haven’t bought or used any of them yet.
You want to keep these ideal clients interested in your company. Offer more transparency as to why your company will make a difference for them. Maybe offer them a solution to a problem that you know your client is struggling with. Make an impact on their concerns and frustrations.
Retaining this Customer
Subscribers know you are helping them but they will not be committed to using your products or services just yet. They might not be your ideal client but they understand you offer value to finding solutions they might have.
By retaining a subscriber, you are engaging them by keeping the focus on your business rather than another’s. You might offer them some exclusive content, like joining a Facebook Group or joining an email list, to keep their attention and offer additional insights that they don’t find in your competition’s engagement.
Moving this Customer Through your Marketing Strategy
To create an engaged subscriber from a subscriber, you’ll want to know how you can engage with them and provide them a service they will need and want from you. You’ll want to prove to your subscriber that your offer from your business is the best compared to another’s.
With engagement in mind, you’ll want to make sure they are an ideal client and show them how your business or process is vital for their success.
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Marketing Strategy Customer: Engaged Subscribers
An engaged subscriber usually is in a commitment to your business. They know of your business and respect its principles and what it represents and provides to its customers. They probably rave about your products or services and are committed to using them for their needs.
Engaging this Customer
Think of this as a one-time-use type of client. You might have a service or product someone needs, and better yet they might buy it from you, but they hardly need or use the product enough or buy an assortment of products through you.
You might see this when a customer uses coupons or savings through your business, but not buy anything full price, or they might buy a one time service or offer through your business, rather than a consistent or subscription purchase. Your ideal client might be engaged and conscious of your business but they still need an incentive, most of the time, to interact with your business.
Retaining this Customer
An engaged subscriber is just that: engaged. They know your business offers a great product or service, and even if they repeatedly need that service from you, they are lowly engaged with your business.
You have their attention, so you’ll need to figure out a way to expand on what is keeping their attention or relate it to another aspect of your business to show them value over many products or services. They might need to be shown how things relate to other areas of your business and how they construct a whole rather than a part of what they need.
Moving this Customer Through your Marketing Strategy
The biggest aspect of moving an engaged customer up the ladder is showing them added value. I see this a lot when products or services have an affiliate program. You’ve currently bought the program, service, or product from a business, but now you can make money off of the same thing.
By engaging your ideal client further and giving them an incentive to promote and market your brand for you, you offer them both engagement and incentive to become a brand advocate for your business.
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Marketing Strategy Customer: Customers and Brand Advocates
This is a valued customer. Not only do customers and brand advocates rave and support your brand’s culture and products or services, but they also allow your brand’s culture to shape and influence their life and promote it to others to spread your brand’s principles and products or services.
Engaging this Customer
As I mentioned, you want to show a brand advocate what it will do for them if they choose to promote you. They want to be on board with your core beliefs, brand message and believe in your product.
On this level, the client needs to be part of your target audience. If they aren’t you need to determine if you’re reaching another more beneficial target audience. Brand advocates are loyal to your business. They know you add value to your clients’ purpose and help them be successful.
Retaining this Customer
You’ll want to keep this customer happy. This is your ideal client, so offering incentives and purpose to remain active in your business will keep brand advocates close to you.
As I said earlier, affiliate programs do this quite often. When someone buys a product and offers the buyer to join an affiliate program for that product, you can retain that customer and see them as a brand advocate. You also probably see this in web development, like when someone asks if you prefer WordPress or Squarespace. Both have brand advocates that are loyal to a respective brand, while others simply choose one.
Moving this Customer Through your Marketing Strategy
It is possible to increase a brand advocate’s loyalty to a business. Like with Macs or PCs, you can see some consumers only buying their technology through one business. You might notice someone only having Apple or Sony products, depending on preference.
Having a brand advocate be so fiercely loyal to your business that they only buy products from you and no one else is the highest ideal client you can achieve. This is how you move a brand advocate further up the ladder even when they are already at the highest level.
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CREATE An Intensive Biz Playbook & Planner: Scale Your Online Business, Create Explosive Growth and Build a Brand You Crave has offered me a lot of insight into creating my business plan, marketing strategies, and defining my target audience. While it is a bit more effort to fill out this workbook, it’s helpful to have a steady and purposeful plan to appeal and attract my target audience to my small business.
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