Know your Green, Yellow and Red Clients.
What are Green, Yellow and Red clients, you may ask? And what does this have to do with marketing? Good question! This is one of the pivotal things I learned as I was starting out in business.
A Green client is someone who not only brings their business to you, but also is loyal, trusts your advice and expertise, tells their friends/colleagues about you, and is committed to a long-term relationship with you and your business.
A Yellow client is someone who hasn’t quite reached Green status yet. They may be just starting out or are still trying to figure the business relationship out, but they are still loyal, trust you, and give you referrals. With time and the right kind of advice and encouragement, they may be able to become Green clients.
A Red client is one who doesn’t really have loyalty to any specific business, they usually only care about the bottom line (hiring whoever is cheaper on each project they need) and doesn’t trust your expertise. They are the often clients who are higher maintenance but don’t want to pay for consulting and love to haggle about price.
So, what does this have to do with marketing? Think about this quick example. Let’s say I have figured out who my Green client is (or my ideal client) and what general traits they have. It may be people who are so busy that they need someone who can efficiently manage their marketing. It may be someone who is a runs a great business but needs help with marketing direction and priorities. I decide I want to target that demographic with a digital or traditional marketing campaign, which says that we will “match anyone’s price”. Is that going be the best strategy for my business? Will it bring me the Green/Yellow clients that I am after? A better alternative would be for me to explain how we solve their pain points of saving a business time and money, and assuring quality, by getting all of their marketing products/services through a single company.
Remember my Elevator Speech about Concept not getting into the game of price matching because we know what it costs us to do a great job with each project? We aren’t willing to sacrifice quality to get the sale. Is this marketing campaign going to be effective for me? Probably not. I may get lucky and get a few loyal, long-term clients but for the most part, I will be getting all of the clients who are short-term/one-time sales.
Any marketing campaign that you decide to embark on will be much more effective in the long run when you know your ideal client. The basis for an effective marketing campaign should be knowing your target market so that the people who respond are the ones that will build your business in the long run.
Good luck finding and cultivating your Green and Yellow clients!