Maintaining healthy client relationships is essential to the lifeblood of your business operations.
At times, it can be a love-hate relationship on both sides of the spectrum. You can grasp the concept that without your customers, there would be no market interest in your product or service. You diligently work to create value experiences for clients when they utilize your product or service. Customers respond by remaining engaged in your company.
Business is constantly evolving and growing to incorporate new ideas, trends and customers. Expanding your business to include high-end clientele is your next step. Taking this action almost guarantees that you will see sales and profitability growth when you focus on this target market audience. High-end clients have more disposable income to spend on your products and services. From a business perspective, it makes sense to create a marketing strategy to attract the attention of this market. Here are 10 ways you can turn this potential customer market towards your business.
At Business Marketing Engine, we specialize in helping businesses plan and execute impactful marketing campaigns that connect with their target audience and achieve measurable results.
1. Create a Positive Mindset
Your best products or services available on the market began as ideas in your head. Each one was born from a thought you had when looking at possible ways to expand your business. Your analysis of the target market reveals a problem that needs solving or a desire to fill. Your confidence that you are the solution to these situations grows. In doing so, you refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer from anyone. Your positive mindset fuels your persistence.
Pay no attention to the tiny voice inside your head that may be telling you going after the high-end target market is too risky and you can’t afford to take that risk. Focus on building yourself up. Go after high-end clients with the confidence that you will do so with great success. Listen to that voice that led you to go into business for yourself. That mindset will break down any mental barriers that pop-up and pave the way towards expanding your clientele.
2. Build a Customer Profile
To go after high-end clients, you must first have an idea of who they are, what they like about a company and what products or services they need. Start with creating a demographic profile that includes things like age, sex, location, income and family size. Next take psychographic information into consideration. Items in this category include personality, values, opinions and emotional responses that trigger purchases.
Finally, look at customer circumstances to create an idea of how potential customers develop an interest in your product or service. Include as much detail as possible for each of these areas as it will help you create an ideal customer image that closely resembles reality.
It may seem unnecessary at first to create a profile with an extensive amount of detail. Doing so will give you a roadmap of exactly what your marketing strategy must include when targeting this particular market audience. The details will let you go inside the mind of this potential customer group and view your products or services from their perspective.
3. Define a Marketing Strategy
Your product or service will only trigger an emotional purchase response in high-end clients if they determine that it can solve a problem they have or fulfill a need they desire. Therefore, your marketing strategy needs to focus on the benefits of a product or service rather than on the features. The features are what attracts potential customers to your product or service. For those features to result in a purchase, there must be an association to the personal benefit that the product or service can offer.
When a potential customer comes in contact with your product or service, she will ask herself “What’s in it for me?” Failure to design a marketing strategy around this question is a common misstep many companies make. Taking the time to define a marketing strategy that answers this question in a clear, concise manner places you ahead of the competition.
Do you need help defining a marketing strategy that works for you? Check out this resource to find ideas now!
4. Establish Credibility
It is a proven fact that customers are more likely to purchase products or services from people they trust. To attract high-end clients, you are going to have to show them that trusting you will not be a mistake. To do this, you will need to step outside of the sales box for a moment.
Create articles detailing how a product or service serves as a solution to a problem or desire. Share these articles across your social media channels and on your company blog. Engage in online conversations with potential customers to share what you know. Serve as a guest blogger on another website this target audience frequents and provide the benefits a product or service of yours offers.
“The more you start posting and building your profile online, the more credible you’ll become. With time, you’ll establish authority in a specific niche. And then, when you write, people will pay attention. Instead of having to approach others for guest blogging opportunities, people will start inviting you. Find your niche, and work hard on establishing your credibility. The results will follow suit,” says Najam Ahmed, a Senior Executive at Cloudways.
As you start to appear in the places that potential high-end clients frequent and share your knowledge, they will sit up and take notice of your presence. You will begin to earn their trust and therefore, will be the only viable option in their mind to that problem or desire they need to resolve.
5. Become Results Oriented
You already know that your product or service can meet the needs of your target high-end client audience. However, they have no clue that can happen just by electing to do business with you. Taking a result oriented approach to your product or service will make you look at things from the customer’s perspective.
You would not spend money on something without knowing for sure that it will benefit you. These potential customers are no different. Refine your sales approach to provide a target audience with precise and measurable results that your product or service delivers. It goes back to how well you can answer the “what’s in it for me?” question.
6. Select Your Channels
You may think your social media channels adequately attract the attention of high-end clients. Their social media approach is entirely different than the one you are taking. Take another look at the ideal customer profile created earlier. It will give valuable insight into how your target market audience receives new information.
Identify where they spend leisure time and what prompts them to make purchases. It will help you pinpoint the social media channels that are of value to this target market. Knowing this information can help you devise a more efficient social media marketing strategy utilizing these channels. Test each of these channels to ensure your marketing efforts are producing favorable results.
7. Develop a Strong Response System
High-end clients want to feel value and importance when engaging in business. You will want to go above and beyond to make this happen because you are the new kid on the block. If they feel for any reason that you are not paying attention to them, they will walk away, and you will lose all potential sales as a result.
Cover all of your bases by training your staff on managing and responding to social media channel conversations. Dedicate a department to identify potential customer leads and then reach out to those individuals. Set up an automated response tool when these customers send an email or reach out to your company on social media. Respond to inquiries and potential issues with your products or services sooner rather than later. You and your team need to cater to the potential high-end clientele as much as possible without appearing pushy or defensive.
8. Rate Increase
High-end clients gravitate to high prices. Sticker shock is not an issue with this group, however, lower prices on things they place an enormous amount of value in will raise eyebrows. When your product or service price lists showcase low prices, it makes the high-end client audience question whether or not you can provide the benefits they seek.
You also run the risk of not being taken seriously and this market audience is not going to waste their time doing business with someone in that category. A simple way to prevent this from happening is to create a high-end price list specifically for this target audience. Consider initiating a rate increase across the board if you feel that it won’t turn other clients away as a result.
9. Provide Value
You can offer value to the high-end client target market by giving something for free. It is an incentive to take the first step in building a relationship with you. Keep your incentive item in line with the value that high-end clients expect. Make your incentive gift one that expresses the level of quality that you will provide to this target audience when they make the move from being a prospective customer to a paying customer.
10. Express Thanks
The personal approach you take to attracting high-end clients will speak volumes with this audience. When a potential client gets in touch with you, follow up the conversation with a handwritten thank you note. Send a small welcoming gift when a high-end client makes the decision to do business with you. Showing your appreciation to this client market demonstrates to them that you are the right fit for their business needs.
There is no reason to wait. Contact Business Marketing Engine today for your free consultation.