Sales Exponential

Independent professionals need to fill the client funnel. That means you not only keep busy with the clients you have now, but you also keep a list of prospects who might be interested in working with you some time in the future.

To attract qualified prospective clients, many service business owners engage in live networking. They attend lunches and make coffee dates. But increasingly professionals are turning to online marketing to attract clients.

Creating a website is just your first step in the online marketing process. Once you create a website, you will need to develop content for your website pages and your blog. When you develop a website, it is tempting to start with a web design and maybe a business logo. But in fact your first step needs to be your content. As a professional, you face three challenges to creating content.

Your first step is to create compelling content.

You need to attract your clients’ attention immediately begin with a focus on our target market. What problem does your target face? What’s keeping them awake at night? What makes them so desperate they will pay for what you offer?

Appeal to your reader’s emotions. Opening with a line like, “Every business needs to earn a profit,” or, “Feeling confident is essential to any entrepreneur’s success” will put your readers to sleep. Instead focus on your client’s challenge or pain.

Second, don’t hide your content behind a wall of graphics. Recently I reviewed a website where the content was placed on what looked like a lined, spiral-bound notebook with yellow pages. As a reader, I appreciated the effects of the graphics. But I had trouble seeing the words and even more trouble remembering them.

One marketer put a graphic of a big clock on her page, taking up most of the upper right corner.

It was memorable and beautiful. But I can’t remember what the site was about. Time management? I don’t think so. Organization? Leadership? Something like that, I think. I sure can’t remember the name of the site or the marketers.

You are now ready to move into the third element of website marketing: hook your clients and keep them reading. Add suspense to your website by telling stories. For instance, when writing about clients, ask your clients to tell a story about working with you. They might say something like, “Before I called, I didn’t know what to do about this problem. We worked together and I liked your 5-point system. Now I no longer face this struggle, but I also have moved in new directions and learned valuable lessons.”