Do you have a friend in the industry who seems to fill her calendar with incredible clients and budgets for weddings that wow? Like, every. single. year? Every time you see her post on IG she’s sharing yet another amazing photo captured at your favorite venue. “She’s so lucky,” you think.
But that’s not the case. It’s not luck, so much as how good she is at attracting her perfect buyers.
Yes, that’s a real thing: ideal client. Sounds amazing, right? But it’s not just some avatar you create during a branding exercise, like a painting of a shamrock riding a unicorn with double rainbows in the distance. Your ideal clients exist in real life! And you can get more of them with a better website…Here’s how:
6 Keys to landing more dream clients via your website
- Know your perfect buyer’s ethographics and psychographics
- Hone your messages to resonate with their buying triggers
- Hook them “above the fold”
- Provide content for 20% of your readers
- Remove product-specific pricing
- Adjust contact form for better inquiries
Know your perfect buyer’s ethographics and psychographics
We all know it’s important to do market research on your best buyers’ demographics. Where they shop, how old they are, where they live, how much money they make. But did you know you can dig deeper – and pinpoint more-important insights along the way?
If you want dream clients you’ve got to know who you’re targeting. We don’t mean a surface level understanding, either. No, we mean what they really care about and value in the world (ethographics), as well as what emotions and aspirations trigger them (psychographics).
For example, when we write copy for wedding pros’ websites, it takes 20-30 hours of research and refining before we type a single word that goes on the site. We interview past clients, read reviews, and pan for hidden clues in hours of conversation with our clients.
Knowledge is power, especially in marketing. When you know who you’re writing for it’s much easier to connect with them.
Hone your messages to resonate with their buying triggers
Now that you know what motivates your ideal client, it’s time to create messages that resonate with them.
The best way is start with a list of your best clients’ biggest concerns and desires. Then organize them from highest to lowest priority according to your research. Finally, come up with the perfect solutions you offer for each of these concerns and desires.
Boom.
These are your talking points to hit on over and over and over again – on your website, as well as social media and sales process.
Hook them “above the fold”
We all know we have only a few seconds to grab the attention of people who land on our websites. But how do you do that? It’s as easy as 1-2-3.
- Use an image with a couple who looks like your ideal buyer and is doing what they desire most from your services (eg. having fun, sharing a close moment, dining in extraordinary décor, etc). It’s called a “hero image” because the people depicted (and what they’re doing) are aspirational to the audience.
- Write an effective tagline that showcases what you do and who you do it for. Bonus points for how it’s different than others in your comp set.
- Create intro copy that hooks them with something interesting. Reframe what the reader thinks they know about [insert what you do], or we highlight a perfect solution that positions the wedding pro to stand out from the crowd.
Provide content for 20% of your readers
If 80% of your readers skim the site, what about the other 20% who are reading everything? They are your perfect buyers. They are the ones you’re writing to. They are the ones you want to inquire. They are the ones you’ll love working with. They are the ones who will refer their friends (who are similarly perfect buyers like them).
Don’t try to make everyone who lands on our site happy. If you do, you won’t communicate to the one reader that matters most: your dream client. If you don’t say “no” to your flawed buyers you won’t have room in your calendar to say “YES!” to your perfect buyers.
Remove product-specific pricing
Even clients who can afford your services are spooked by detailed pricing information too early in the buying experience. The key to sales success is providing the right info at the right time in the right way.
Absolutely, share packages and pricing with your ideal buyers, but wait till they’re ready for it. Never share specifics with someone who doesn’t know what they want or how you help get them what they need.
Instead, create a Services page with the big benefits you offer clients. Show how these differ from what others in your comp set are doing. Pull on the perfect solutions to your best buyers’ deepest concerns and desires. Then, at the bottom of the page and after you’ve built huge value, mention your “starting at” price (with reassuring testimonial). This is just enough to give them what they want without scaring them away.
Adjust contact form for better inquiries
If you want more inquiries, make it easier to contact you. Studies show 60-80% of people who start a form won’t finish it. Yikes. So, keep the fields to a minimum (ie. *name, *email, date, venue, anything else you want to share?).
But if you’re getting enough inquiries and you want to focus only on your absolute best buyers, you’d do well to increase the barrier to entry. Here are five fields that work well to prequalify leads (better than asking about budget):
- Require a date – Unless you’re a venue or full-service planner, if they haven’t secured a date then they’re (very likely) not ready to put down a deposit for your services. This will sus out price shoppers.
- Require a venue – This one offers good insight into the caliber and style of event you’re likely to see. Plus, like picking a date, if they haven’t yet locked in a venue then they’re probably not yet ready to move forward with your services.
- Number of guests – When you know the venue and number of people it’s pretty simple to know what kind of budget you’re working with -and you’re not scaring the potential client away by asking for it. It also surfaces low-budget elopements and microweddings, which is helpful for production-based vendors like caterers, florists, stationers, rental companies, and others.
- Style – Use a drop-down to make it easy for people to articulate. Pay attention to the answer to see if their event will be a good fit. Many couples are so focused on price early in the decision-making process they forget your aesthetic is equally important.
- What are you most excited about when it comes to [insert what you do]? – Free-form fields are great because (generally) the more words they put in the box the more interested they are in your services. Also, it gives you insight into what’s most important to them, which may or may not align with what your favorite clients love about your work.
You may not fill all your dates with dream clients, but the suggestions above go a long way to help avoid nightmare scenarios with flawed buyers. These six tips will get you progress, not perfection.
If you like these ideas but prefer a “done for you” approach, reach out to see how we can help you with a brand communication strategy and copywriting for your website.
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