A Genuine Way To Deepen and Grow Client Relationships

Hey y'all! This week we have a really helpful guest post from Cinthia of digmorphosis.com. Cinthia is showing you a great way to use Google Analytics to better connect and provide for your audience and I am sure this post will help you out! Be sure to connect with her on social media using the links at the bottom of the post.

Our clients are one of the most important parts of having a business. The main reasons seem too obvious to state (we want our business to be more than a hobby!) but I think it also comes down to really getting satisfaction with the work we do. I’m pretty sure that feeling isn’t going to come by standing alone in our business, but instead spending time with people who we feel a connection with and who appreciate the hard work we do. That is why constantly improving our client relationships is key to any business.

Understanding who are clients are and how they behave can give us clear nuggets of information about what we can do to continuously deepen and nurture that relationship.

Before I go any further, it is important to acknowledge that the first step to this process is to be clear on WHO you want to work with. There is no tool out there that will make that decision for you; you need to buckle down and take the time to define this clearly for you and your business.

Whether you use a moodboard, avatar, or the latest idea generation trend that peaks your fancy, you need to have a clean picture of who your ideal client is and how you want the relationship to be.

Once this is clear, you will be able to make better decisions and take action in the right area. We will be using Google Analytics to understand who our clients are and what their interests are when they visit our site (if you don’t have Google Analytics, check out this post). This data tool has huge potential since it holds demographic, geographical, and interest data that is pretty much free.

I will be reviewing an easy to access report (with a couple variations) that will get us closer to understanding more about our clients.

In order to view the report, you need to make sure you have your Demographics and Interest Data turned on. To check this, go to the Reporting section in your Google Analytics and then on the left side menu, click on Audience > Demographics > Overview. If you don’t already have this turned on, you can enable it once you get to that report, but you will need to wait a couple months in order to collect sufficient data.

This report tells us who is visiting our site and helps us get more context regarding users visiting our site. It can also give us a sense if there are other visitors to the site who are outside of our client profile. If there is a large percentage of users who fall outside our ideal client age and/or gender, it is time to reconsider your content and branding.

Now seeing the site user’s age is okay (meh) but wouldn’t it be even better to see specific interests each of these age groups has?

To do this, click on “Secondary Dimension” inside the Age report; it is located right under the graph in the report.

Once you see the “Secondary Dimension” drop down, select the “Users” grouping and the first option in the list is “Affinity Category (reach)”. The new report will loads and now you see the Age Group with Affinity Category (I will explain this in a moment) for the potential clients coming to your site.

This report gives us a picture of who these users are and can help make your user profile more colourful. Affinity Category (reach) is defined by Google Analytics as potential users (that’s why the word “reach” is in brackets) who might purchase a product in the future.

Another combination that might be interesting is In-Market Segment. To apply this to your report, first remove the existing column by clicking the X next to the name.

Once removed, click on the “Secondary Dimension” option again and this time, type in the search box “In-Market Segment”.

It should come up pretty fast. Click on the green box to apply it to your report.

You’ll notice that these categories are a little bit different. In-Market Segment describes users that are more likely to purchase these products or services in the future.

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Based on the information you have, answer the following questions:

1. Consider your current ideal client profile age group. Are there any deviations from the age group in the reports?
2. What are their general interests? Are there any ideas you would add based on the Affinity Category (reach) report?
3. In your ideal client profile, what immediate needs and worries do you identify?
4. How do your current or upcoming services resolve those needs?
5. What products from the In-Market Segment report align with what you have to offer?

Make sure to document the answers and update your ideal client profile accordingly.

The objective of these reports is to bring real data context to your ideal client profile. It might shine some light on previously unknown information about users visiting your site. You can then use this information to approach existing clients and potential clients differently, since you now have a bit more information on their interests and needs.

So, in what situations can you specifically apply the information you now have:

• In your next, 1-on-1 client calls or potential consult calls.
• While writing or making tweaks to your website copy.
• When brainstorming a new product or service or upgrading a previous service.
• On social media, answering questions or just general interactions.

These are just some areas that can be impacting by aligning your client profile with the data from Google Analytics.

I hope you can now take this information to not only make more connections but also build meaningful and lasting relationships that resonate with your higher goals.

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Cinthia Pacheco is a Systems + Tools Expert and Web Analytics Nerd, helping creative entrepreneurs craft a cohesive digital strategy for their business. She is a creative (paper lover) herself and understands the digital struggles and overwhelm that goes on when running an online business. Her goal is to bring balance, helping merge digital and analog aspects of a business.

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3 Ways You’re Confusing Your Audience

For those of us with online businesses harnessing the power of our audience is vital to success. Our audience is not only the people who can eventually turn into supporters, influencers, and clients – but they also fuel ideas for blog posts, courses, products, services, and so on. Creating trust, loyalty, and a value given and received relationship with your audience takes time, work, and perseverance – there’s not really a short cut to ‘winning someone over.’ (Unless you’re like Brad Pitt, then consider me won).

There are moves that you might be making, however, that confuse your audience and therefore detract from this necessary relationship. This week I want to show you three places you are confusing (and therefore giving a bad experience) to your audience and offer you a solution to fix them.

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YOU’RE PROVIDING INCONSISTENT CONTENT

I know we’ve talked about niching down before, and I stand by the idea that you can create content that is broader than your exact business – but still relates (I offer branding, but I blog about business, blogging, branding, etc.). What I mean by inconsistent content isn’t necessarily your topics that you cover in your blog, newsletter, or social media. I mean what you actually stand by and say.

If one week your blog post is talking about how you need to create 1000+ word blog posts to really cover a topic in depth and offer expertise, but then every other blog post you have is 500-600 words – that’s a problem. That’s inconsistent with what you are teaching and, as a viewer, confuses me. What’s right? What do I believe? What you say or what you do?

Other things I’ve noticed before are when someone talks about the value of having good customer relations, but then are spotted bashing a customer or client on social media. I mean that’s bad for many reasons – but for this particular example it just comes across as very inconsistent. Inconsistency leads to thoughts of unreliable, untrustworthy, and unworthy of following. Don’t leave your audience feeling that way.

But how can you be sure you’re providing consistent content? Create content that is based on what you actually do or believe versus what you think will look good on Pinterest or be appealing in that moment. Don’t write a newsletter that states a successful business needs XYZ if you have no experience creating a successful business with XYZ. Instead, be honest and say, “I believe that these things are important and I am currently implementing them into my business.” Better yet – invite your audience to stick around and see how these implementations are working when you write the follow up/review post in a month.

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YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF UNFULFILLED PROMISES

A quick way to let down someone is to not deliver on a promise. I understand that things come up, life gets in the way, and problems happen – but there are ways to handle that professionally that don’t let down your audience.

If you promise a new series, promise to return emails, promise to create the best e-book ever (and pre-sell it!) and then never deliver on those things? BIG letdown. I promise to answer emails - but to be honest - my inbox is a disaster. Do you know what I do when I finally respond? Apologize PROFUSELY for the delay and then offer some grade A advice/answers/help. Your audience understands that you’re human and things come up – but don’t make a habit of not following through on things you promise to them.

Feeling guilty of this? I understand – here’s a tip: don’t make promises you know you won’t keep. Don’t say I’ll answer your email in a day or two; say I’ll answer your email in a week or two. Don’t pre-sell a book with a release date that’s too soon for you to get it done. Don’t promise a new blog series without a few posts outlined and ready to go.

It’s easy to get caught up and say “I’ll do all the things!” but in reality, you know you can’t. Instead, step back, and be honest. Do the things, slowly, carefully, meticulously, and right – people will value that over unfulfilled promises.

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YOU HAVE INCREDIBLY MISMATCHED OFFERINGS

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but as an audience member I find completely random and varied offerings to be confusing and off-putting.  If you offer every sort of design service under the sun, plus social media management, plus content creation, plus copyediting, plus bookkeeping – no. You can’t specialize in that many things as a solopreneur. MAYBE if you have a team that has someone specializing in each area, but even then, it’s a bit much.

I’d much rather see you be so fantastic at one or two things than mediocre at 100 things, and I’m going to make the general statement that your audience would too. Be the person that’s great at designing wedding stationery for garden party inspired weddings, or the person that’s amazing at copyediting e-books for small hand-crafted business owners, or something niched and specific. It becomes so much easier to showcase your talents and skills in one specific arena than trying to show 100 different examples of random things you are good at. 

Does this sound like a problem you’re having? Focus down on what you REALLY want to do and are actually good at. Not just something that you’ve managed to figure out for your own business, but something that you have/can repeat that you are 100% confident in.

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What these points really boil down to is a lack of a brand vision and lack of foundation for your business. Answering questions like “who is my target client” and “how do I serve them?” are daunting tasks.  Not having a solid foundation for your business and for your branding is detrimental to your overall success – but I created a solution for you. 

Branding 101: Building Your Base is my new e-book that will help you to answer questions like “why am I in business?” and “who is my target client?” It will also help you establish your brand vision, elements of your brand experience, and finally understand what branding actually means and does for your business and growth.

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