How To: Study Your Ideal Client

I've written a lot in the past about the importance of identifying your ideal clients as a copywriter. I've also written a guide on how to find your ideal clients. This helps you to hone in on a niche and work on perfecting your pitch and offerings to the clients within that niche. This will simplify your writing process and increase your chances of successfully closing more clients. You want to be a master of one and not a jack of all trades, so to speak. This article will discuss how you can go about studying a particular client. At this point, all your clients should fall within a particular niche, but they will still be unique. Studying them ensures that you will pitch them correctly when the time comes.

Create an Ideal Client Profile

Remember that niche we spoke about before, that's the outline of your ideal client profile. It's ground zero for all the clients you will approach or the through-line connecting them all.be The purpose of this client profile is to answer the question 'Whom am I writing for?'. You want it to be as specific as possible. Ideally, you should be able to describe this 'person' so well that they feel real to you, you can picture where you'd meet them in real life and what they would watch on tv, etc. The article 'Finding Your Ideal Copywriting Clients' is designed to help you do just that. Remember, knowing them in depth will help you when it comes time to pitch them.

You should, for example, be able to write out your ideal client as follows:

Teaches or coaches within the wellness industry. If this is your ideal client profile, you can then use it to check if a potential client is worth approaching. You can ask:

- Is this person a teacher?

- Are they in the wellness industry?

The more specific your ideal client profile, the more questions you'll have. This, in turn, will help you to better pinpoint your ideal clients which will lead to higher pitch success.

Understand Their Brand

Each potential client will have a brand that they are trying to build or grow. Hiring you as a copywriter to create content for their website, social media, or other marketing materials is just another tactic that they are utilizing to help them achieve this aim. As such, you will stand a higher chance of landing the client if you can show them that you understand their brand. That you get what it is they are trying to sell to their audience and why. To help you better understand their brand, you can ask yourself a few questions:

- Who is their audience?

- What is their role within that audience?

- What are they selling to their audience?

- What is their voice?

Let's do an example to see this in effect.

Suppose your client is a weight loss coach who sells subscription programs to moms struggling with pregnancy weight gain. We would answer the above questions for her as follows:

- Who is their audience? Moms struggling with pregnancy weight gain.

- What is their role within that audience? A coach or teacher

- What are they selling to their audience? Subscription programs

- What is their voice? We will tackle this in the next section

This doesn't tell us everything we need to know about this client, but it does answer some of the important questions of 'who', 'what', and 'how'. This sets us up to create a thorough profile. I've answered the questions rather vaguely as this is just an illustration. Ideally, you want to answer each question in as much detail as you can. Next, you will need to understand your ideal client's voice.

Note: This client falls within our ideal client profile because they answer yes to the questions listed above. They are a teacher/ coach and they are in the wellness industry. This step always comes first.

Pinpoint the Client's Voice

A useful way to think of someone's 'voice' is as a means to convey their personality. Is the client laid-back or reserved? Are they extremely upbeat and bubbly? Or perhaps they are reserved and matter-of-fact? Understanding this will help you figure out how they would say something.

You are going to be writing in this voice so it's imperative that you get it right. Being able to demonstrate your ability to write in the client's voice will give them the confidence they need to entrust you with their audience.

Let's consider an example:

Suppose your client wants you to write short-form copy for the social media platforms, as well as respond to the comments those posts generate. These captions and responses will have to sound like them.

Now, suppose they get a negative comment that says, 'That product sucks. My sister tried it and she hated it. Stop lying to people!'

How your client responds depends on her voice.

If they are formal and reserved, they might say: I'm sorry to hear that your sister had a bad experience with our product. We have over 200 reviews from people who have loved using it. However, while we do try to make every customer happy, mishaps do occur. We're happy to give your sister a refund/ replacement if you'll provide us with her information. Thank you.

If they are bubbly and laid-back, they might say: Oh no- that's the worst! I always want people to love my products, and so many people do- but, misses do happen from time to time. But, I want to fix it. Send me your sister's info and I'll give her a refund/ replacement. Thanks!

As you can see, depending on the voice you're inhibiting, how you respond can be drastically different. In reality, the two responses are essentially the same, but they feel drastically different because of how they are articulated- that's the power of voice.

How to Study a Clients Voice

Get on a Call

Nothing beats talking to someone in real-time to get a sense of who they are. If you can, get on a call with your client to discuss something relevant, perhaps the possibility of working together. You can tell them about yourself and your professional experience as well as ask about theirs. Remember, you're listening to get a feel for their mannerisms. Are they shy? Slightly awkward? Are they pushy and hardly give you any room to talk? These nuggets of information will help you better understand them so you can later mimic their voice.

Find them on social media

Perhaps a phone call is not on the table. No problem. In today's day and age just about every person has at least one social media account. Many people have multiple accounts. If your client happens to be active online, find and follow them if you dare- or just secretly browse their page (if it's public) to get a better feel of who they are. Perhaps they have a professional account or a personal one- use what you have.

Note: This is a recon mission, so please use discretion. You're trying to learn a little bit more about your client, not turn into a stalker. Connected to this, unless you have that kind of relationship, don't bring up personal things you saw on their social media- remain professional. Even if they did post about their son's birthday last Tuesday, it's weird to hear a complete stranger tell them about it.

Consider the Voice they Want

Most of the advice discussed in this article works for clients who want you to mimic their actual voice so that the copy sounds authentic to their audience. This is especially important for people whose personality and even personal life are directly tied to their brand (think of mommy bloggers, life coaches, etc.). However, some clients may desire you to create a different voice for them to use with their audience. Perhaps they want to establish a sense of authority where there was none before, and they want to come across as a knowledgeable and perhaps even reserved teacher. You could also encounter the opposite, a client who wants to create a sense of warmth and closeness with their audience so they come across as a friend. It goes without saying that what the client asks for is what you focus on.

Conclusion

A client's voice is the single most important aspect that you need to accurately capture if you wish to successfully create content for them. Think of it as their personality translated into print. By working on the aspects outlined above, you should be able to figure out this voice so you can create aligned, authentic content for them.

Happy client studying,

Nonjabulo