Hey, it’s Paul.
As most of you probably know, there was an awful gun attack in Las Vegas last night.
In light of this tragedy I thought about not sending this email.
But I’ve decided to go ahead and send it because 1) I promised you I would, and 2) I have no idea how to process yet another gun attack.
I’m not about to bring politics into Just Add Hustle. That’s definitely NOT my thing.
But I will say this:
Be a relentless force for good. That’s how I try to live my life.
And since there’s not any real way to transition from that, let’s get right into today’s work.
Today we’re starting to build our marketing plan.
And the first step of our marketing plan is answering the question:
Who will you write for?By now you’ve decided on a writing market / niche. For me, that means solar energy companies.
Now it’s time to narrow our focus even more and hone in on actual companies.
How do we do this?
Well, you should start by first defining what your ideal client looks like.
Here’s how I define my ideal client:
“My ideal client is a B2B or B2C solar energy company doing at least $2 million in yearly revenue who is currently using email as part of their marketing efforts.”
A couple of things to note here:
First, I’ve set a revenue expectation for my ideal client.
That’s because I want to work with clients who are already established and making money.
Second, I expect my ideal clients to already be familiar with the value of email marketing.
That’s because I don’t want to waste time trying to “train up” clients on why email marketing is a good idea for their company.
How you define your ideal client is totally up to you. And defining your ideal client is your assignment for today.
You’ll want to write a detailed sentence describing who exactly your ideal client is. For example:
“My ideal client is a corporate fitness/nutrition coach who uses online sales funnels to generate leads.”
Or:
“My ideal client is a B2B manufacturing company doing at least $5 million in yearly revenue who uses catalogs and brochures as their primary marketing methods.”
Once you’ve written a description of your ideal client, you’ll want to find three to five companies who fit this description.
How will you find these companies?
Well, you may already have found them when you were researching potential writing markets / niches.
In that case, take your top three to five companies and create a simple spreadsheet where you’ll list the company name and website.
We’ll return to this spreadsheet in just a bit.
If you haven’t already found three to five companies, no worries!
You can search companies in the following directories:
All you’re trying to do here is find companies who fit the description for your ideal client.
We’ll look at finding contacts within those companies in the next email.
For now, write a description of your ideal client, find three to five companies that fit this description, and put the company name and website in a spreadsheet.
In tomorrow’s email we’ll look at how to use this information to start building a list you can use to contact your ideal clients.
See you then!
Paul
