First you have to attract potential clients, then you need to convince them to spend their money on you.
There are a million factors involved in the marketing and sales of your products and services, and it can be overwhelming to decide where to best spend your time and money. Today we talked about our challenges and successes with client acquisition.
Get Rich in the Deep End by Brent Weaver (founder of UGURUs) is the book I referenced today, which is about how to have a successful digital agency. UGURUs is a mentoring program for digital agency owners that I have been a part of. I participated in the Bootcamp program, and I attended their USummit conference in Denver in 2019. I highly recommend checking them out.
In Brent’s book (and at the USummit conference) he describes his “5 A framework” which I’ve summarized below.
The 5 A Framework:
AUDIENCE
- “When you’re clear on who your ideal client is, finding them is easy.”
- Deciding on an audience to target:
- Where is the money?
- What captures your interest?
- What kind of results can you demonstrate?
- “When you speak to everyone you speak to no one.”
AWARENESS
- Choose your channels
- Instead of building your own audience, leverage someone else’s – publish on an existing channel (blog, magazine podcast, associations, stages)
- Continually repeat your core message – it takes 7 times before they hear it for the first time
ATTRACT
- Solve their problems
- Storytelling – the art of the narrative is baked into our brains
- “Talk about your customer’s pain better than they understand it and they will instantly see you as an expert.”
- Four main problem types: money, time, people, passion
- Framework:
- Hook – establish credibility, identify problems
- Build – Unpack the problem with a story/anecdote, step through the solution
- Payoff – explain the net benefit, end with a clear call to action
AUTHORITY
- Trust, credibility, proof, examples
- Instead of random leads work with raving fans
- Get other people in your market to talk about you
- Show prospective clients that you get results
ACQUIRE
- Sales Funnel: turn interested visitors into leads into clients into raving fans
FYI, here’s a link to the Meetup Event.