Your audience isn't ready to buy - how do you stay front of mind until they are?
97% of your audience isn't ready to buy. It's not the right time. They don't have their ducks in a row. They don't yet realise that they have the problem you offer the solution to.
Your marketing can't make them jump ahead to that moment when they'll be ready. What it can do is make sure that you're front of mind when they are.
How do you do that?
By creating content that brings your audience a little closer to you, establishes you as the authority and builds trust.
Think about someone you've spent money with in a business or personal capacity. That decision probably felt like a no-brainer. Why? Because by the time you made that decision, you trusted that person to help you achieve your goal, and felt like you knew them - maybe not personally, but in the capacity you would be working with them in. It might have felt like an instant decision, but it was most likely the end result of a series of touch-points.
Take my last major business investment as an example, which was joining a mastermind. Before I signed on the dotted line I:
met the coach via a group I was part of
followed her on social media and regularly read her content > started building trust
attended one of her masterclasses > where she demonstrated that she knew how to overcome the challenges I was facing
Boom! I was a convert. It was the most money I had ever spent on my business. It felt like a gut decision at the time, but looking back it was a decision made in incremental steps over a period of time.
Those incremental steps should be at the heart of your marketing strategy.
So, with that in mind...
If you do one thing this week, make it…. write a social media post to tell your story and connect it to a client benefit
Why?
Your prospective customer needs to see that you understand the challenges they face, either because you've lived them yourself or because of your experience in your industry. This reinforces that you can offer a solution.
This applies across the board; whether you're a financial services provider, an ad agency or a non profit, your ideal customers or supporters have challenges and engaging with you will help alleviate them. They need to know not just what you do (function) but that your values and personalities align (emotion). And the best way to communicate those emotional elements is by tying them into a story.
BUT there's a catch. Your goal is to connect that story to how it benefits your client. As with all your marketing - it's not about you, it's about them.
How?
Here are a few approaches to get you started:
Founders story - if you have a founder or leadership team, tell their story. What drove them to set the business up? What problem or frustration did they experience that drove them to create a better solution than was available at the time? Was there a personal reason that the business was built in a certain way? How does that impact your client work? Focus on how an experience led to a lesson, and how this made your organisation what it is today. This helps prospects get a sense of whether you're in alignment, and a flavour of the experience they'll have working with you.
For instance - I sometimes talk about how I love that my business flexes around my family. There are businesses who will be aligned with this, and businesses that want their partners to be working in-house and available 24/7. So my prospective clients will self-select in or out based on details like this.
Day in the life story - give a snapshot of what you or your team are doing that day. Client projects, team outings, events - all of these give a sense of the workings of your business, your energy and your team. Again this helps to get a sense of whether you're the kind of organisation a prospect would want to work with, and the kind of people you are.
For instance - I love this post from Louise Timmins talking about her recent trip to visit leprosy survivors in India. Such a lovely snapshot into the work her charity does and absolutely radiates kindness.
Client / Beneficiaries story - focus on one client or beneficiary and zoom in on their challenge. How did they feel before they met you? What was their life like? How did that change once they found you? What solution did you offer? And what happened next? Showing measurable results is brilliant, but if you can focus on feelings too all the better. This helps prospects to envision how they would feel getting those results.
For instance - my client felt frustrated because her KPI was to increase awareness around her organisation's activities, but there wasn't the expertise in-house to create paid social ads to reach a wider, relevant audience. Since she started outsourcing her paid ad campaign strategy and management, she reaches 365,000 people a month with her campaigns and looks (and feels) great in internal meetings when she talks about her results.
What now?
Go post that story! It's tempting to fall into the trap of talking only about your services on social, but don't be afraid to pepper your content with personal stories, origin stories and lighter hearted posts. Remember that only a fraction of your audience will see each of your posts, so do this regularly. People ultimately buy people, and showing your humanity can only benefit you. And wherever you can, connect it back to a client benefit.
Note: you don't need to talk about anything that feels too close to home. I don't post pictures of my kids for instance. Only share what you feel comfortable with.