When you are marketing your business, it can become a little disheartening to keep sending marketing materials into the void hoping for a bite. The truth is that if you are marketing to the void, you are likely to get silence in return. What you need is a clear idea of who your target clients are and how to reach them.

Reaching your target clients could be as simple as speaking the lingo they enjoy. First research yourself. Identify your unique selling point, then your interests. Find clients that match you and then research them to see how you can communicate best with them. Create unique pitches for each client.

When designing your marketing strategy, it is vital that you first research yourself. Know exactly who you are and what your business offers. It may sound simple, but performing an exercise on your business self-knowledge can open a whole universe of possibilities when it comes to reaching your target clients in exactly the way they like to be reached. The ideas in this article are created for B2B, so if that is you, read on!

Create A Marketing Strategy By Getting To Know Your Own Business First

You know that saying, “Know thyself”? In this case, we mean that you should know yourself as the business.

You’ve likely heard that your business should have a solid culture and should have sound values to work with. We feel that those values have never been more important than when you are looking into a marketing strategy.

The hard truth is that if you don’t know exactly who you are, there is very little chance you can possibly know:

• What you offer
• Why you offer it
• Why you offer it the best
• Who your ideal client is
• Why they are your ideal client
• What pain point you can solve for them
• What their values are
• The best way to communicate with them

Now it’s time to take a long look inward. You know those team-building exercises that help you get to know your colleagues? It’s time to do one on the actual business. Let’s take the business out on a date and get to know it.

Whether you are a one-person show or a massive company, these few questions will help you understand who you are as a business. Trust us, you need to do this first step, if you want to have a fantastic marketing strategy to reach your ideal clients.

20 Questions To Ask About The Business

We could probably ask about the business forever, but we have selected a few of our favorite questions to ask about your own business. Since businesses change over time, we recommend taking this kind of stock once a year or so.

You may like to do the activity alone if you are a small business, or give the questions to your team leaders to work on individually to gain insight into how they view the business before consolidating the way forward.

Here are our top 20 questions to ask yourself about your business:

1. Who are we?
2. What do we do?
3. What do we offer?
4. What makes us unique?
5. What makes our clients happy?
6. Why do we love what we do?
7. Why did we get into this line of work?
8. How do we help people?
9. What difference do we make?
10. What are our values?
11. What makes our staff stay? (If you don’t have staff, what make you stay?)
12. What makes us excited?
13. What element of the business could be better?
14. Who are our favorite clients?
15. What problems do we solve for our clients?
16. What are our interests?
17. What are our favorite ways to communicate?
18. What generation do we fit into?
19. What are our main strengths?
20. What are weaknesses we can work on?

When you have worked through these, take time to look through the answers. They should give you some insight into the business as an entity, almost like a person.

Once you have a clear image of WHO the business is, it becomes easier to take the next step in designing your marketing strategy: finding your unique selling point.

Create A Marketing Strategy By Finding Your Unique Selling Point

Every business has something that is truly different. You may offer the same service or sell the same goods as a hundred other stores, but because you yourself are unique, your business is entirely unique.

Your outlook on life is different, you were raised in a different way, with different parents and in a different part of town to your competitors. You had different experiences in school, and likely have different passion and pet hates.

You have different skill sets, even if you are in the same industry. While you and your competitor may both run wheel alignment centers, your passion may be in racing, while his may be in vintage cars. Can you see how your individuality can set you apart?

When you focus on your individuality, you hone in on what makes you unique, and what makes you desirable to your ideal clients. Can you service clients who are into vintage cars? Of course! But when you are creating your marketing materials, your heart will go all-in when creating designs that show off racing cars, and you are more likely to attract those clients, and keep them with your conversation and shared passion.

We highly recommend finding your unique selling point as a business. For the Grammar Goblin, one of our unique selling points is that we don’t sell article bundles. While the big content companies do, we feel it is just too impersonal. So, our unique selling point is the relationship we prefer to build with every client we write for.

Take time to think about a few of yours and then celebrate those in all the marketing material you design.

Create A Marketing Strategy By Finding Clients That Match You

Now that you know who you are as a business, and you know what makes you unique, it is that much easier for you to find clients that match you.

You know what you have to offer, and what sort of client you would like to have, so all you need to do now is research. Google is your friend for this step of your marketing strategy.

If you offer content writing services to holistic wellness centers, Google those and save their details. Make lists of possible clients. Only choose ones that resonate with you immediately. You are looking for your ideal clients, not just anyone.

When you have a substantial list, you can downscale by researching each potential client on it. Check out their social media accounts, their websites, and their online stores if they have. Make notes on what you love about them and where you think you can add value to their existing business. All of these notes will come in handy when you write pitches to them in the future.

Pay special attention to the way in which each potential client communicates. What lingo do they use? What platforms do they market on? What tone and style do they communicate in? Make notes of all of these.

By the time you have researched all the contacts on your list, you should be exhausted, but happy, with a scaled down list of awesome-looking clients that resonate with you. You should be able to see how you can add value to every single one of their businesses.

We recommend taking a break after this step, you deserve it!

Create A Marketing Strategy By Sending A Great Pitch

When you have a streamlined contact list of ideal-looking clients, and you know you can add value to their businesses, the world is your oyster. Your next step is to get in touch with them.

Do you remember that you made notes about the tone and style of each potential client? Now is your time to shine! Without losing your own identity, adopt a little of your potential client’s culture and tone in the pitch you create for them.

You may like to do that in a quote and image at the bottom of the page, or in a one-liner you add to a paragraph. Wherever it seems appropriate, make it known that you understand them and their culture. This will show that you have done your research, get their energy and are a good fit for their business.

We do NOT recommend sending a generic pitch to all the businesses on your list. This comes across as cold and harsh and will likely undo all the hard work you did researching all your potential clients. Instead, use the contact person’s name and add in facts about the business that you learned through your research.

Always be respectful and keep your pitches short and sweet. Ask for permission before sending lengthy explanations or brochures and focus on building a relationship with the contact person, rather than selling something.

The pitch is the open door. This is your shot to get your ideal client to bite. You are no longer marketing to the void, but dangling the bait right in front of the big fish. Now is your time to shine, so make it count and have fun.

To Sum It Up

Finding the ideal client can be a challenge, but if you take the time to know your own business really well, understand your unique selling points and how you can solve your target audience’s pain points, then you are good to go. Research your target clients and learn as much as you can about them. They should be people and businesses that resonate with you and your business values. Create unique and exciting pitches for each potential client to build a relationship with them.