How to Turn Your Followers into Clients

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Easy steps you can take to not only attract the right client but to also introduce your brand and gain trust and lastly convert them into paying customers.

It’s a problem I see many businesses have when first starting out. They put a heavy emphasis on attracting followers but then have trouble converting them into prospects, leads and then clients or customers.

Clients need to be able to gain trust from you and many won’t purchase the first time they’re introduced to your business. It takes time to build that trust and once introduced to your brand you can implement effective strategies that will increase their trust and familiarity around your brand.

I’m sharing the easy steps you can take to not only attract the right client but to also introduce your brand and gain trust and lastly convert them into paying customers.

1. Get Clear on Your Audience

If the answer to your target audience is something along the lines of “women, creatives, aged 25-55, living in Australia” then you’re not being specific enough.

You should be able to know so much about who your ideal customer is, that you could literally describe them as a person;

“this is Sarah, she’s 28, loves health and fitness, wakes up making green smoothies, uses eco makeup products, lives in Sydney (she’s a metro city dweller), you can find her doing yoga, checking out the latest events Sydney has to offer or grabbing a healthy frozen yoghurt on the weekends.”

That’s specific!

Creating a customer persona which allows you to narrowly identify who your ideal customer is, means you know exactly where your customer is hanging out and where they’re getting their information from.

For example, if you were trying to reach out to Sarah you could target eco makeup websites and blogs, websites and magazines that share awesome urban Sydney events, or Instagram accounts for healthy influencers.

Really try and get into the frame of mind of your ideal customer.

2. Identify Which Client or Customer Attraction Strategies are for You

Now that you have identified who your ideal customer is, you should then assess which mediums are the best touchpoints for your customer.

This is important and an aspect I focus on with my clients because you not only want a combination of strategies that are highly targeted to your ideal customer but that also play to your key strengths.

Often I see clients trying to do the latest fad strategy because it’s either popular right now or a competitor is doing it so they feel they should too.

Instead, look to your strengths, if you’re great on camera then YouTube and Facebook Live will be great for you. But if writing is your thing then stick to blogging. Or if you love human interaction and thrive on working face-to-face, then workshops are perfect for you.

Marketing strategies are a commitment, so choose something that comes easily to you to avoid hitting the ground running only to lose steam in a few months time.

Along with this, choose which social media channels are best for you. Ideally select 1-2 key platforms where you will focus your main efforts with engagement and posting and allow the other channels to tick along.

It’s far better to have one strong platform with a large audience than an audience dispersed over many social platforms.

…your audience needs to develop trust — trust that you know what you’re doing and trust that you’re going to stick around.

3. Be Consistent

The key to getting noticed is consistency. Why? Because your audience needs to develop trust — trust that you know what you’re doing and trust that you’re going to stick around.

It’s well known in the marketing industry that customers need seven touch points before they’re willing to make a purchase, meaning that you need to successfully engage them seven times before a customer is even willing to consider making a purchase with you.

With this information in mind, you need to consistently spread your marketing efforts across your strongest channels that way you’re touching customers at different points.

By being consistent you are telling clients, “I’m here, I’m reliable, you can trust me and my business isn’t going anywhere.”

4. Remember Your Call-to-Actions (CTA’s)

I see this mistake too often with new businesses. Lots of great content being pushed out there, but not a call-to-action (CTA) in sight.

It’s important to encourage and get people to take action and a great way to do this is to tell them exactly what you’d like them to do. Make it easy for them to know exactly what action you want them to be taking next.

5. Create a Simple Sales Funnel to Convert Customers

It’s important to have an objective to where you’re sending your audience and the perfect objective is through your sales funnel i.e. to your website and then subscribing to your mailing list.

Social media is an amazing tool, as are webinars, events and workshops but you are limited in converting because you don’t have full control or you’re restricted by time.

Posting on social media means it is only seen by a small portion of your audience so you can’t target everyone and webinars and events are time sensitive.

Your email list however is 100% yours and you can speak to your audience when you choose and how often you choose so it’s a great place to send clients and customers.

Before straight out selling and potentially deterring customers, you need to create a sales funnel that introduces them to your brand and nurtures them.

How do you nurture them? By giving them loads of value and building trust between you and them.

Below is a breakdown of the steps of a simple sales funnel (email sequence) that you can use as a template. Where it says objective 1, objective 2, replace these and add your own objectives that you feel will best benefit you and your audience.

i. Landing page for your opt-in i.e. amazing freebie

ii. Deliver the opt-in along with a welcome email and introduction to your business

iii. Objective 1 email (position you as an expert)

iv Objective 2 email (educate on benefits)

v. Objective 3 email (develop a community)

vi. Email inviting new subscriber to make a decision-making purchase

A few points to remember with your sales funnel, be sure to have your client persona in mind when crafting the copy and creating imagery for your emails and freebie.

Give lots of value, it not only positions you as an authority but it tells potential clients that if they purchase from you they are guaranteed to receive even more value once a purchase is made.

…give your customers incredible customer service.

6. Over Deliver on What You Provide 

When you do begin converting, remember to over deliver and give your customers incredible customer service.

It’s far easier to engage a previous customer than to engage a new one, so remember that building up repeat customers is an excellent sales strategy. Be sure to create a raving fanbase of loyal customers.

 

Image via courtesy of Aylen De Aranza

 

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