Is Your Website Attracting The Wrong Clients?
By Hillary Gale
If you’re getting leads from your website, that’s fantastic. This means you’re showing up in search results, and the people who are landing on your website are intrigued enough by your services to contact you.
But what if the people reaching out aren’t exactly the clients you had in mind? There are myriad reasons why someone isn’t a good fit for your business, including:
They simply can’t afford you
They have needs outside your realm of expertise
They belong to an age range outside your niche
Their money and/or investment philosophies do not align with yours
They’re overspenders and can’t stick to a financial plan
They’re just plain difficult to work with
If you’re routinely getting meeting requests from people who fall into any of those categories, the content on your website might be to blame. Your website copy should clearly signal to your ideal clients that they’re a perfect fit for your services and they are in fact in the right place.
Just as importantly, your website copy should signal who is not a good fit for your services so as not to waste your time (or anyone else’s).
Know Your Ideal Client
So, how well do you know your ideal client? Can you describe their age, their sex, their education level, their income, the size of their family? Can you go deeper and describe their values, their dreams, their deepest fears, their lifestyle? Do you know your ideal client’s story?
If you can only clearly answer one or two of these questions (or none at all), then your website probably isn’t conveying the answers to these questions either. And although you may be thinking “Well, I’m in growth mode. I want to help anyone and everyone!”, let me stop you there.
You do not want to help anyone and everyone. You only want to help people who truly know your value and can take the most advantage of the expertise you offer. For example, if you’re an expert in helping pre-retirees catch up on their retirement savings before their big retirement date, you probably don’t want to be attracting millennials who need a debt repayment plan with nothing to invest.
When you set out to attract everyone, your message and your value get lost and muddied. You end up trying to serve clients who can’t really benefit from your expertise. And you’ll only end up getting frustrated when you realize you’re wasting time with difficult clients who end up leaving after a couple of months.
To rework your website so you’re attracting the right clients, here are 3 simple steps you can use to get started.
1. Create Client Avatars
Before you can write a website for your ideal client, you must get to know your ideal client intimately. If you already have clients you love, this exercise may be easier to complete. You can simply describe your best client. If you do not yet have clients you love, you can still complete the exercise, but you may have to be a bit more creative. Start by answering the following questions.
Demographics
What is your ideal client’s age?
What is your client’s education level?
How much money does your client make?
What is their occupation?
Is your client religious?
What is their marital status?
How big is your client’s family?
Psychographics
What are your client’s values?
What are your client’s attitudes toward money and finances?
What kind of lifestyle does your client lead?
What kind of lifestyle does your client want?
How does your client spend their leisure time?
Write Their Story
I encourage you not to skip this step. Begin by giving your client avatar a name – this helps humanize their profile. At this point, you may realize that you have more than one ideal client, which is often the case.
To begin with, answer the questions and give a name to 3 client avatars (but no more than 3 for now). By writing up a one-page description of each using the above questions, you will have many ideas to begin generating content for your website.
2. Create A Negative Client Avatar
If you’re having trouble with the first step, it might be helpful to create a negative client avatar, which is a depiction of who you definitely do not want to work with. This avatar may have neutral characteristics, such as age or preferred-lifestyle; they’re just not traits you’re interested in serving. Or you may have real clients that have been unpleasant, and you don’t want to get stuck with similar clients in the future.
A negative client avatar fulfills two purposes: it helps clarify who you would like to work with, and it provides you with content you can use on your site to clearly state who will not be a good fit for your services. Many companies choose to directly state who will not be a good fit on their site, which I think can be a helpful tactic to weed out unwanted prospects.
3. Speak To Your Client’s Fears And Values
After you’ve created a few client avatars (as well as at least one negative client avatar), you’re ready to start reworking your website. Start by addressing your ideal client’s pain points on your homepage. What are their fears and frustrations when it comes to finances? What can happen to them if they don’t plan for their future effectively or work with an expert financial advisor?
By relating to your client’s pain points, they will trust that you understand their problems. Then you’re in a position to show your ideal client how you can help them specifically. Knowing exactly who they are – their age, their lifestyle, their values – will help you write content that is so clearly meant for them, they won’t leave your site without scheduling a meeting.
Perhaps you only need to rewrite your homepage so that from the moment someone lands on your site, it’s clear they’re in the right place. Or you might need a more robust website refresh that includes ideal-client-focused copy on several pages. Either way, your client avatars will provide you with concrete profiles to write copy that addresses tangible, specific needs and solutions.
Hire A Personal Finance Copywriter To Help
If your website needs a complete makeover, consider partnering with a personal finance copywriter to help. Sometimes you may not have the time or the know-how to create an entirely new website that speaks clearly to a specific audience.
But your website is perhaps the biggest investment you can make in your business. Once you’ve made the investment, a successful website that converts browsers into subscribers into paying clients will keep your business growing for years to come.
I can help you rewrite each page of your website to clearly speak to your ideal clients, and subtly (or not so subtly) hint to your non-ideals that they’re not in the right place. If you’d like to learn more about how I can help, schedule a free consultation with me by calling 480.353.1608, emailing hillary@galecreativeagency.com, or finding a spot in my calendar here.