Want to attract high-end clients online? Read this.
In 6 years of writing sales copy with online business owners, I’ve noticed a phenomenon.
There are whole bunch of established business owners who get loads of business offline from word of mouth and referrals… but you have a hard time attracting high end clients online.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I see the root of the problem.
It’s us. And our fast food ideas about what online marketing should be.
The way I see it, a lot of businesses take a ‘fast food’ approach to online marketing. Like fast food, their message is “hey, you can get results cheap, quick, and without a whole lot of effort.”
The problem is, when you communicate on a fast-food level, you attract a fast-food sort of client … someone who just wants a bargain.
Someone who doesn’t care about who you are or what you stand for – they just want cheap… and they want it NOW.
As a copywriting teacher and consultant, I’ll tell you – the root of the issue is in how a lot of people learn to write copy. We are taught to “touch people’s pain” and use words like struggle, stuck, and overwhelm. With that approach, you are all but guaranteed to attract lower caliber clients!
Imagine walking into a great restaurant that serves pasture-raised meat and fresh local veggies.
You sit down.
Your waiter takes your order.
He comes back and sets a plate before you.
On it, there is a thin reheated patty with a square of processed cheese food product, some shredded iceberg lettuce, wrapped in paper.
Would you eat it?
Look, I like salty fried potatoes fed to me in a paper bag through the driver side window of my car as much as the next gal.
But my point is, many high-end service professionals serve their audience a similar sort of cheap, high reward, fast food marketing copy – on their websites, their newsletters, their promotions — and then wonder why they don’t attract quality clients!
Here’s the truth. If you want to attract higher end clients online, ‘fast food’ marketing doesn’t work. You can’t do what everyone else is doing online. You can’t use the same corny “power phrases” that other people use (Yep, that’s right. If I see you write “stop leaving money on the table” or “take your business to the next level” one more time, I’m going to get your clients together and we are going to have an intervention).
In my work with hundreds of business owners, I’ve been developing a different approach to marketing, called Gourmet Marketing.
The goal of gourmet marketing is to attract and resonate with a higher caliber client online. And to do that, you first need to understand that there are plenty of more discerning and sophisticated people online who would absolutely get great results working with you – but if your online presence screams ‘fast food’… they will never click on a link or pick up the phone to talk with you.
I’ll give you more ideas about how to make your marketing more gourmet in future articles, but here’s what you need to know now. You can’t create gourmet marketing in isolation. You can’t create it if you are holding on to copywriting templates and persuasive formulas with a white-knuckle death grip. And you are probably going to need to slow down, and cultivate your creative process in a way that will totally piss off your inner perfectionist.
But friends, the payoff is beyond anything you can imagine.
Here are just a few of the testimonies I receive on a daily basis from clients:
I just finished working with my first business client in her intensive… It was FREAKIN’ AWESOME. I’m doin’ a little happy dance in your honor right now because I wouldn’t have had the guts to do this if it weren’t for you.
Finally got myself to commit to some timeboxing today – and it was awesome! I projected 2 hours to complete all the handouts and I ended up doing it in only 1.5 hours. This is BIG for me as a recovering perfectionist who has some major resistance to time boxing until today.
I just booked my first client from my signature talk! I am so excited! Thank you for all your help with writing, attitude, and approach. I felt easy and prepared during the sales conversation at last. And… it worked!
I’ve completely revamped and relaunched my website, have written and videotaped my free gift training series, written an autoresponder series, and have a slew of newsletter ideas. This has been one of the best investments I’ve made in my business over the past 11 years.
Actually seeing 50 people from around the world all tapping away on their keyboards creating their content – it’s so inspiring! You’ve given me the confidence to start a blog and enlarge the scope of my newsletter, and now I’m getting consistent open rates of 60% with clickthrough rates of 31% (when the average in my industry is 18%).
I gotta tell you, I’m seriously on fire with this new positioning and message for my business. I’ve written more in the past week than I did all last year in my business. All thanks to you!
My client used the web copy I completed in your class and in just a week there is more traffic on the site AND new clients! Also, her literary agent said that the ABOUT page feels so relatable. So grateful.
Gave my signature talk that we created for the first time tonight! Went awesome.
Also someone told me “I knew I had to come to the talk when I read the description – it was so compelling.” Thank you so much!
My clients always sound so happy, and the results show that writing has changed their attitude and approach not only to online marketing and sales, but how they treat themselves… and other people.
Why? This question will be addressed in more detail in later articles, but basically, when you write gourmet marketing, it requires you to be more thoughtful, declarative and bold about who you want to work with and how you want to work with them. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you stand for and what you are fighting against, and you align your message and actions accordingly.
I currently offer a course for a small group of business owners that meets three times a month by video conference. They each get private one-on-one phone calls with me and the opportunity to send me anything they write for my notes and feedback. I don’t work with more than a handful of business owners at any given time, otherwise I can’t keep their voices, personalities and marketing messages straight.
I also travel to Montana several times a year to lead in-person writing and marketing workshops for small groups of business owners. These events sell out 6 months in advance. I decided to host events in Montana because I love it there, and because I only want to work with people who are motivated enough to travel to a remote part of the U.S. to collaborate with me and other sharp business owners. Yet I do not try to sell everyone into a high level mastermind that costs tens of thousands of dollars. From a business perspective, I am “leaving money on the table.” But the truth is, I love working with clients to help them uncover their voices and get the hang of the gourmet marketing approach, and then cut them loose.
For me, I’ve discovered that I love running a project-based business. I like consulting with my clients on projects, and when the project is done, so are we. The thing is, I always have plenty of clients. And I know there are people out there who are waiting to work with me.
I know this is because of my gourmet approach to marketing – that I give a lot of myself and honor the intelligence of my audience, even (and especially) as I ask for business online.
The way I see it, this is what’s missing from most people’s online marketing. This sense of being present, this sense of customization, of personality. And slowing down in your creative process long enough to hear your own ideas, your own voice, and to listen to your clients and audience about what THEY want from you. This is not a fast food approach. It takes time, and it takes commitment. But when you make the decision that gourmet is the only way to go, a door opens to you online that very few business owners get to walk through.
