In a perfect world, your prospects – the average Jane’s and Joe’s of this world – would contact you, as opposed to the other way around.
We’re not living in a perfect world, but here’s the thing: Getting your prospects so excited about your brand that they initiate contact is totally possible!
How so? Let’s take a look at what you need to do so that you become irresistible to your customers:
Position Yourself as the Expert
One of the fundamental reasons people choose Business A over Business B is because Business A has positioned themselves as the experts. Why would we take a chance on someone with 10 followers on Facebook when there’s someone else from the same industry who has 100K+ followers?
When people want advice on sales, they turn to Grant Cardone.
When people want advice on SEO, they turn to Neil Patel.
These are the experts who become our go-to brands when we need help.
Even if a total newbie who wants to learn sales hasn’t heard of Grant Cardone, it won’t be long before his name pops up. He’s established himself as the market leader on social media and Google.
People want to deal with the experts. When you’re the expert in your niche, you no longer have to chase people. They come to you.
To position yourself as the expert in your niche, here are some tips:
- Create content that no one else is creating. Do your research, use raw data, facts and figures. Give people the answers that no one else is. Infographics are useful here (and they are helpful for earning links as well).
- Hold live video broadcasts. Facebook Live is a great opportunity for you to host a live Q&A where you can demonstrate your expertise by answering questions on the fly.
- Launch a podcast. With a podcast, you can invite industry experts to engage in an interview with you that boosts your own credibility.
Outline Their Problem and Your Solution
If you want people to contact you, you need to make them aware of their problem – again and again, so that they start to feel it.
People need to be reminded of their problem. Let’s say I’m a writing coach who wants to help others become freelance writers. To this end, I’ll highlight their key problems:
- They don’t know how to make a start
- They’re tired of the 9-5 grind but they’re worried about quitting
- They don’t know where to find their clients
These are the challenges they face, and I’m going to keep reminding them of these problems before I transition to my origin story of why I and my business have got the solution for them.
This origin story is key because it’s where you demonstrate why they should trust you. Where have you come from? What experience do you have? What makes you so great?
For example, if I’m a writing coach, I’ll explain how I was once in the position they’re in – struggling to get started, struggling to get clients – but that I’m now enjoying a mega-successful career.
I know how to make this work. I want to help them make it work, too.
And when you make your promise, always make sure you stick to it. Delivering on your promise will ensure you get more customer reviews (more on these below).
Create Value and Goodwill
Why do we contact friends?
Why do we get in touch with people who give us their numbers?
Because they’re likable people who make us feel positive.
We for sure wouldn’t establish contact with someone we didn’t like (unless we had to).
For this reason, you need to extend the hand of goodwill to people by adding lots and lots of value to their lives so that they start to see you as someone they like.
Likeability is so important. If a prospect likes you, they’ll begin to trust you. And once they trust you, they’ll want to do business with you.
The way to extend goodwill is via your content. Content marketing means blogs, videos, and podcasts.
It means creating high quality, in-depth content that people engage with, absorb, share and use.
The more value you create, the better people will feel about your brand.
Moreover, when you create value, you’re improving a person’s life. When your prospects can see this, they’ll be more likely to reach out to you.
Exploit Testimonials
Let’s say two businesses are offering me the same thing. They’re both well branded and look professional enough. So how do I choose between them?
Well, Business A has customer testimonials, whereas Business B doesn’t. As such, I’m always going to go with Business A.
Testimonials give your business so much credibility that they do a lot of the hard work for you. If a prospect sees that hundreds of other people have used your services and enjoyed them, they’re not going to think twice about contacting you to see what you can do for them too.
Social proof is a big deal – harness it.
Be Visible
To thrive in 2018 so that people want to contact you, you need to be visible across all the various social platforms, as well as Google.
Facebook is home to over 1 billion active users, while Instagram is growing at an incredible rate.
Moreover, while people primarily use social media to be social, they don’t mind interacting with brands, too. Over 2,000,000,000 messages are exchanged between businesses and individuals each month on Facebook, for example.
Make your brand noticeable on social media by creating lots of native content that engages, entertains and informs your followers. It’s okay to sell on social media, but a lot of the time you must focus on offering value across all your channels.
Give stuff away for free too, and host competitions. Be personal and be positive with what you post.
All in all, to get more people to contact you, as opposed to you contacting them, you need to be focused on building strong relationships. Offer value and make people feel good about your brand.
Highlight their problems but then show how you’ve got the solution. Be the expert they can trust, and who they want to talk to.
Feature Image Credit: CC 0; Public Domain. All images sourced from wikimedia.org.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions stated in this post are that of the author, and Return On Now may or may not agree with any or all of the commentary.
Andrew Lowen
Latest posts by Andrew Lowen (see all)
- Targeting Average Jane Or Joe? How To Get Them To Contact You - August 28, 2018
