Identify your client’s target audience and get in front of them

In the last few steps, you set up the important components of your system: your personal Medium profile and your target clients. 

Now you’re going to drill down into the three target clients you identified earlier and craft the perfect post to get them to hire you. (We’ll get to the writing process in Step 6.) 

Understand your client’s target audience to craft a compelling article and get hired

To get hired, you need to know your client’s target audience. Let’s walk through a brief example.

1. Say you’re a freelance writer who likes to write about data science (that’s me!).

2. Your target client is a data science platform that helps data science candidates nail their interviews (that’s Lane from my earlier example).

3. Your target client’s ideal audience is those data science candidates (those are his readers/customers).

Think about each of your three clients from Step 3 and answer:

• Why are your client’s customers not buying from your client?

• What questions might they have about the product?

• What problems do they have that your target client could solve?

The more time you spend on this, the better. It may feel weird, but ultimately, you’re not writing for your clients. You’re writing for their customers. 

In the case of Lane and his data science platform, his ideal client is someone who wants to learn how to code. Content like my article on the fastest way to learn how to code is a great way to speak to those customers. 

Come up with three problems your client can solve for their customers

Your turn: identify three potential issues that your client’s customers might have and how your client could resolve them.

Say your ideal client is a cheese shop. What problems might a cheese shop’s customers have?

• Well, maybe they want to impress friends and family by showing off a sophisticated cheese board and wine pairings.

• Maybe they want to try some fancy cheese-based recipes, but don’t know where to start.

• Maybe they’re pregnant and want to know which cheeses are safe to continue enjoying.

Now your turn. Feel free to write them down in your workbook.

Client 1:

• Customer problem one: _______________________

• Customer problem two: _______________________

• Customer problem three: ______________________

Client 2: 

• Customer problem one: _______________________

• Customer problem two: _______________________

• Customer problem three: ______________________

Client 3: 

• Customer problem one: _______________________

• Customer problem two: _______________________

• Customer problem three: ______________________

Recap

In this step, you put your psychologist hat on to understand your dream client’s customer’s problems. 

In the next step, we’re writing a targeted post designed to convert your dream lead into a living, breathing, invoice-paying client.