The Best Marketing You Can Do
By Pat Rigsby
There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t have at least one person ask me how to get more clients…or specifically, more of the right clients.
There are people that will tell you the answer is this tactic or that.
They’ll say Facebook ads or direct mail or something else that likely has some merit…but falls short of actually being the best.
The best marketing you can do is to cause your clients to be so happy with your service that they become brand ambassadors for what you do.
Now I’m not talking about your clients being satisfied.
No, that’s basically them just getting a fair value for the investment they’ve made.
It’s ok…but it’s not enough to have then going out and spreading the word.
They need to be thrilled with their experience.
They need to know you care.
When they reach the stage of truly being ambassadors for your business they’ll occasionally send new business your way without you ever asking for a referral.
I had calls with 5 entrepreneurs that originated in this exact way over the past 2 weeks…two of which became Mastermind members while the three others became IBA members.
All telling me that someone who was part of what we do referred them.
Now that’s an incredible experience…to know that people are out helping you grow…unprompted.
But you can’t just wait on that to happen as a business owner.
You need to find ways to work with them to share their stories or to create an environment where they are excited to spread the word about their experience.
Referral programs, bring a friend events and charity workouts are all proven ways to help your clients (who want to do it) connect a business they’re proud to be a part of with people they care about.
But one approach that I think most entrepreneurs don’t use enough is the Case Study.
In my opinion a Case Study is far more powerful than a simple testimonial saying ‘my coach is awesome.’
It’s someone sharing their story and how you or your business has helped them.
It’s something that the ‘right’ people you’re trying to reach will connect with…and it’s something that has an evergreen element, meaning that it doesn’t only work for you today like a bring-a-friend day might.
But, like anything worth having…a good Case Study requires work.
Not only the work you must do to earn it…but the work you have to do to capture it.
You can get someone to write it out…or you can interview them and write it yourself.
You can interview them with you off camera…editing out your questions and piece together their answers.
Or you can enlist someone who is really good at this stuff to capture them for you.
Recently, I hired the best guy I know for this sort of thing, Erik Rokeach, to do some interviews with coaching clients…to develop some case studies.
We’re still loading the full interviews of these fitness entrepreneurs’ journeys to my site…but he also put together a montage that will give you a feel for what they’re about.
You can check it out here:
For the ‘right’ person – it’s really powerful.
Heck, I’ve already gotten inquiries from this and it’s been on FB for a day (getting views at about .28 per).
So when you’re building out your marketing plan…think inside-out.
Think about how you can get your best people to be ambassadors for what you do…and how you can make it easy for them to share their experience.
Then work to get that information in front of the right people and watch your business grow.
