Do you speak "Idealclientish" fluently?
May 05, 2022Are you guilty of over use of jargon? I'm going to put my hands up and say that yes, I am. But I'm working on it. The marketing world is full of it. CPT, CPA, Frameworks, Avatars, Unique Value Propositions, I could go on and on.
Recently in a chat with a new contact, I asked what the service he was pitching did. And he said "We work with mainly small and medium sized agencies, advertisers and marketing teams to empower them to streamline their Sales funnel, grow , scale and automate their business and discover new prospects. Sorry if that sounds very Sales-y. Personally I hope that we offer a robust proven technology, great customer service and a very competitive price-point."
I'm still none the wiser. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the issue wasn't being salesy. The issue was just saying how he could help me in plain language.
And also I thought maybe I'm not his ideal client.
You have to ask yourself, is everything that you say communicating in a way that you can be heard by the client you want to work with.
A certain level of "jargon" can be ok. Sometimes you need a couple of industry specific buzz words to make you sit in the box that people want you to sit in. I can explain what a CPT is and what CPA is to my clients. But on social media, where you are trying to make a connection with an audience and let them know that you're for them, you want to speak their language.
Here's another one that I loved. An example from Marisa Corcoran. She is an amazing copywriter and she teaches people how to write better emails among so many other things. She helps entrepreneurs to write better copy. And her email caught my eye because I also work with coaches.
So if you're a coach, tell me if you are guilty of this. Are you guilty of saying something like this?
"Are you ready to abandon the status quo and step into your power?"
What does that even mean? She suggested to use language that is more straight talking.
"Want to leave yourself sucking job in the dust and career and create a career that fulfils you?"
Boom, smashed it. And that's the difference between , talking "Idealclientish" and overusing terminology that means nothing to anyone except your peers.
Think about the amount of time you would save if you spoke clearly in a way that your client could connect with you immediately.
Which brings me to the next question.
Do you understand your client? Can you speak their language?
Do you know what they love? Everyone goes on about "what keeps them up at night" honestly hormones or over use of sugar to get through the day keeps me up at night, I don't need help with that!
How does your ideal client want to feel? What are they striving for?
But if you really want to speak to them, what makes them chuckle? What makes them think ... this person really gets me.
That's why I ask my clients to tell me what TV shows their clients love. Or if they are likely to go wild with happiness if they find Harry Potter PJs in Pennys.
POP culture matters because it's a communication short cut.
The right GIF can say what two paragraphs of words would try to say and never get there.
If you are working with Mums who have toddlers, there's nothing like a Cocomelon reference to make the shortcut that says "I deeply understand your pain. I know how it feels to hear that "Peas, peas, let's all eat our peas," song.
They will think, wow, that coach is in the trenches with me. She is using Cocomelon to potty train, like me. It gives you a certain chemistry that you get from somebody who you really deeply understand.
If you really have a passion to help a group of people, who share an experience with you, but are waaaay outside your demographic. Then go and talk to lots of them. Because you need to know what their pop culture shortcuts are, and you probably have no idea. Talk to any 25 year old and they say... no one is on Facebook. If that's true then there's no point in you spending lots of effort producing content for Facebook is there?
And this is not just for social media but also for your emails.
There are two people that visit my inbox that I love to read because it's entertaining and useful. That's Gemma Bonham Carter and Melisa Corcoran. And I get a lot of emails. I enjoy many of them, but just not in the same way.
You might think, oh but what does it matter. I'll tell you. I've bought from Denise Duffield Thomas because of her emails. I've bought from Gemma Bonham Carter, twice because of her emails. Also Amber Chalus. And Melisa is on my bucket list for later this year!
I found them either through social media, or referal but email converted me. And the consistent messaging and the tone and relatability of their emails is what made me deeply connect with them and buy more than once!
Imagine your clients said that about you. Wouldn't that be amazing? It's possible. But you have to speak "IdealClientish" fluently to get that love.
Start focusing at least 50% of your content on the transformation that your clients wants.
Start asking a question or referring to your client in the majority of your copy in your captions and get swatting on pop culture!
Read your captions and articles and ask yourself, does this make sense? Is it motivating? Am I talking about an action that's easy to take on this platform? And look at your emails as being a central part of your messaging. These small changes will help you to cut through the noise and save a lot of time.
Sound good?
I hope so. The first step is to go and sign up for a few lead magnets and see what you think of other people's email messaging. And then start to think about your own strategy.
If you need help with this and you want to start building a list of subscribers from your followers here on LinkedIn then come join me on the 18th of May at my FREE webinar "Create Content that Coverts on LinkedIn".
Click on the link here to register:
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