7 Strong Steps to Market Yourself (So You Can Bring in Clients You Love)

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When you market yourself, as a woman solopreneur, you want to fill your calendar with clients you love, right?

But, given that marketing is 1,000 must-dos with shiny new objects popping up daily, how do you stay consistent? It sounds like some fantasy, right?

On top of that, when you market yourself it can make you feel salesy.

The good news? It’s not crazy if you consider following the essential steps to bring in ideal clients.

Set an intention to deeply understand your dream clients and their urgent problems. I know from experience, it helps you not dwell on how it feels to ‘promote’ yourself. Setting “dream client intentions” will go a long way toward quieting your inner mean girl voice.

Instead, engage dream clients with content that gives them hope for overcoming their pesky problems and reflects your unique expertise.

When you set your intention to engage with dream clients by sharing your content, you’ll become consistent about creating content.

The best news? You can apply your deep client understanding with these 7 specific steps, and as a happy result accomplish two worthy goals:

1) Become a consistent content creator (so you can market yourself each day).

2) Engage the clients you love, by showing up online and sharing your best content.

My aha! women’s earnings gap moment

After 15 years as a dedicated small business marketing consultant, in 2017 I stumbled on some shocking statistics. 

While 46% of all private US businesses are owned by women entrepreneurs, they bring in only 4% of the revenues – meaning men own just over half and yet earn the majority share. 

Source: American Express, State of Women-Owned Business Report 2017

Just so you know, I ranted loudly to anyone who would listen.

This unsurprising, troubling reality caused me to pause and rethink my path forward. After calming down enough to take 100 deep breaths or so (!)I decided that I could do my part to narrow this gap. 

As a result, I shifted from being a done-for-you consultant to coaching and teaching women entrepreneurs, like you, how to market yourself.

Again, not ever intending to author a book, I spent 23 months writing and self-publishing, She Markets, A Guide for Women Entrepreneurs. All so I can reach those women entrepreneurs who I might never meet.

My biggest mission when I pivoted from consulting to coaching, was to equip purpose-driven women to better market themselves so they can impact more clients and earn more income. I wanted women to close the entrepreneurial earnings gap.

Among the slew of insights I’ve learned since my pivot are…

1. Tons of talented, mission-driven women feel like marketing their business is bragging. Which is—to use a technical term—bananas.
2. Women solopreneurs avoid creating and sharing their original content because of self-doubt. They worry it won’t be the *right* content.
3. Worse, often women feel like it’s ‘tooting their own horn’ to talk about how they help clients get unstuck.

You can guess where this story goes. As a sucky result, too often client-generating activities fall dead last on women coaches’ to-do lists. Can you relate?

To sum it up, I’m on a mission to stamp out marketing-resistance (lack of consistency) and feeling salesy amongst women business owners.

The truth is, consistency is key when it comes to *showing up and sharing*. What do you share? Glad you asked, you share snippets of your expertise, insights, and experience.

Here are some ideas to get your creativity flowing when it’s time to market yourself:

• You share snippets of your expertise, insights, and experience
• You teach the hard-won lessons you’ve learned
• You educate your audience about what you’ve discovered along your journey
• You explain that you know how to help your clients get unstuck–because you once were stuck too

Are you with me? Great, let’s dive in.

Creative ways to market yourself online

Let’s also break it up into manageable-marketing bites.

Good news: you don’t have to become a marketing expert to successfully market yourself.

Yes, my friend, you can quote me on this. No matter what the gurus say, as a business owner / coach, you don’t have to become an expert marketer.

Happily, you simply have to become an expert on your ideal clients. Which you already are.

Imagine this: everything you know about your dream clients’ situation is organized into resources you can tap into when creating your weekly content.

Sounds amazing right? So stick with me if you’d like ideas for doing this better.

If you’d like help with marketing yourself, let’s talk. Click here

7 Strong Steps to Better Market Yourself

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Step #1: Set a specific 90-day goal for client growth

Because you want to create abundance for your clients and for yourself, you must become intentional about your business goals! 

Trust me. It will all be worth it.

Let’s get started with a few bold questions: 

• How many clients do you intend to attract, engage with, and sign up for your services? 
• How will you convert leads (people who sign up to your list) into paying clients?
• How effective is your current freebie (valuable resource you provide to subscribers)?
• Will you use: discovery calls, webinars, direct messaging on social media?
• In what timeframe?
• Could you take the next 90 days as an opportunity for zeroing in on what success looks like? 

Take a small step by writing down your dream goals. Note down exactly how many new email subscribers or prospective clients you’re aiming for as you market yourself. (Bonus points if you entered your goals into something trackable like a spreadsheet.)

Whether you’re looking to grow your established business, or want enough clients so you can quit your day job: decide on that dollar amount or specific number of prospects/email subscribers that will help you achieve your business dreams.

You’ll feel proud when looking back at this journey.

Step #2: Focus to better market yourself

Your next step to go to the next level to market yourself is: focus your content, message, and connection actions on “The One”. Your one perfect, dream ideal client. 

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the thought of selecting a target market or niche–not to mention an ideal client? You’re not alone! Many women solopreneurs (both new and experienced) feel exactly the same, so don’t despair.

Instead, allow yourself to stand out from everyone else by making an audacious choice–focus on one specific dream client. She’s the one that would light up your world if you had 100 or 1,000 more just like her.

Envision speaking directly to this ideal client through all the content you’ll create to market yourself and your services. Visualize what it could look like for years down the line.

I promise you, crafting tailored messages will become easier as soon as you’ve identified THE perfect client – be bold in choosing whom that is today. You’ll find it way easier to market yourself.

Here’s the skinny on why:

Let’s say, you’re a health coach in Los Angeles who is looking to serve career women between the ages of 40 and 50. You might be tempted to define your target audience as simply “busy, career women” living in LA.

While this high-level description can provide a bit of insight about what content they would relate to, it doesn’t allow you to truly develop meaningful connections.

Frankly, it’s such a large group. And because your message can be lost in a sea of sameness.

Get granular when trying to envision exactly who these people are. Like everything else, once you dig deep to understand even more details about your ideal clients’ specific issues, your content can become more focused. 

To market yourself, focus like a laser on what your dream clients’ life is like (for the problems you solve).

Click to this post for 7 questions to answer when getting clear on who exactly your ideal, dream clients are.

When they scroll to your uber-specific headlines, your dream clients will think, “She gets me. She’s talking to me!”

To market yourself like a boss, make sure each message you create resonates deeply. When you do that, dream clients recognize that you “see” them.

Allow yourself to imagine what creating engaging content from your heart for this dream client would look like–can you see yourself doing this weekly?

Step #3: Drill down to the top 5 pressing problems for each client

To stand out amongst others as you market yourself, let’s make sure you focus on your dream clients in a way few other business owners do. So you can make it easier for potential clients looking for an amazing expert like you, to find you.

It’s crucial that you focus your marketing and content on your dream clients’ biggest challenges for the problems your services solve. Let’s face it, you may not attract their attention if you talk about less urgent issues. 

⇒ What are the problems your ideal client would pay anything to solve?

⇒ What are the ginormous issues they can’t move past on their own, no matter how hard they try?

Narrowing down their pressing issues not only allows you to create content with confidence but also ensures that every blog post, webpage, or video addresses a pain point meaningfully.

And the best part? All the work you did to become familiar with every inch of your dream clients’ situation (for the problems that you help solve), means you can talk about their pain points in an engaging way. 

Related: Wish Your Content Reached More Clients? Avoid 6 Old School Mistakes

Step #4: Create your *content plan*

What’s a Content Plan and, for gosh sakes, why do I need one?

Well, since you asked: Your #1 priority when it comes to developing a roadmap to bring in dream clients, is your content plan. Really? Yep, because:

The secret to successful marketing is
talking to the RIGHT potential dream clients,
about the RIGHT problems with your content.

Think about it this way, you want to attract your dream clients with ease, don’t you?

Let me guess, you may be tired of feeling “all over the place” when it’s time to create content?

A content roadmap tailored to their specific needs is your secret sauce.

Here’s why: Your potential clients are looking for solutions to the problems you help solve. You have the opportunity as a business owner, to provide them with remarkable content and irresistable messaging around what they’re scrolling online to find.

In short: to market yourself you want to begin client relationships through fabulous content that speaks directly to helping your ideal clients make progress in whatever goals bring them joy, right?

That means your next step is to invest in crafting your badass Content Roadmap. Making this bold step means you could be one click closer to being discovered by your next paying client.

Your content roadmap is key to how you market yourself

When it comes to developing a content roadmap, there are many ways you can go. 

If writing is your passion then blogging is the best bet for getting your message out.  Or maybe having an interactive experience with clients is more up your alley? 

• Do you love to write? If so, blogging maybe your content of choice.
• Maybe you’d rather have as close to a ‘real’ conversation with future clients as you can. If that’s you, you can record audio podcasts or videos.
• Or you can record videos and turn them into audio podcasts as a second piece of content. That way you have multiple ways for clients to find you online–and you only recorded your info once.

Audio podcasts or videos let you record engaging conversations and get creative at the same time. You don’t even need two separate pieces of content–simply record one video that can easily become both audio and visual material–allowing multiple ways for your people to find you online.

To make it easier for you, when planning marketing materials, ask yourself which method feels most comfortable. Because what matters most when you market yourself, is choosing a way to create content that’s both easy and effective enough to help you create consistently.

In other words, select a content creation method you’ll stick with so you can market yourself consistently.

Some women say it’s easier to simply turn on an audio or video recorder (or a phone app) and start talking.

• They feel more connected by picturing clients and speaking to them as though they were sitting across the table. 
• They say it’s easier to speak from their heart, by recording their advice, insights, and wisdom. 
• Later, they turn the recording into blog posts and social media posts

Others prefer sharing ideas and recommendations by writing blog posts the old school way.

Keep in mind, with either content creation method you choose, you’ll need to also compose emails to your list. 

So give it a go. Choose (master) the creation method that’s going to make your life a breeze.

Related: How to Get Started Blogging (So You Can Engage Clients Consistently)

To market yourself effectively, this matters

As a solo entrepreneur, you may forget to pay attention to an impactful factor of online marketing. When looking to market yourself: the accuracy of your online presence is huge. Really?

So, since we agree that everybody googles anyone who’s recommended to us, do this for yourself: search your name often. Make sure you’re happy with the search engine results that come up.

But think about it this way: when your friends recommend an expert to you, what’s the first thing you do? 

Isn’t it to look up their name online? Thought so.

That means you must google your own name often so you can make any necessary updates. That way, when potential clients come across your online profiles, they can see an accurate story about the services you’re currently providing.

Bring your “digital footprint” up to the moment with confidence by checking out these easy points:

• Is your LinkedIn profile current in terms of how you are serving clients now? 
• Even if you don’t love LinkedIn, Google does. 
• LinkedIn results show up in searches for most entrepreneurs and professionals. 
• Have any social media profiles been neglected and need some sprucing up?

Make sure everything looks professional yet inviting enough for people who might be interested in working with you. Your success depends on getting noticed first; start today by taking care of that all-important internet search engine result page (SERP). See SERP screenshot below.

The simple truth is, the quality of your online presence depends on you developing and posting content. As consistently as possible so you can market yourself successfully.

Google a few experts in your field, and you’ll find that LinkedIn ranks high for most business owners, including: life coaches, health coaches, entrepreneurs, online educators, and professionals.

You have a burning desire to build your email list and deepen relationships with your dream clients.

Yay you! 

Creating consistent content can help you reach this goal, but it needs to be captivating enough for them to pay attention–no matter how busy they are. 

When writing marketing materials, focus on providing educational info. 

You can also make sure readers get the occasional chuckle over their daily struggles (because we all need something lighthearted once in a while.) 

Doing so shows potential leads why they should reach out and explore working with you.

Step #5: Brainstorm titles + email subject lines

Crafting engaging post titles and email subject lines that scream “open me” is one of the most powerful steps you can take to draw in your audience. 

After all, experts say that 90% of readers decide whether or not they’ll click through based on the headline / title. 

So how do you create a compelling title? It may seem daunting at first, but with some practice, perfected headlines become second nature. 

First off, step into your reader’s shoes: what would capture their attention if they were looking for an answer to this problem?

Related: To find helpful tips about how you can create catchy titles, check out this post.

Next, ask yourself these questions when crafting your content titles for readers:

1. What baby steps am I sharing in this content?
2. Is my title reflecting a question that’s urgent to my audience?
3. What tiny win can I callout in this title that matters to my clients?
4. Am I using simple words? 
5. Am I being too clever? Will my readers understand my content’s topic?

Step #6: Create your 90-Day Client Connection Plan

Your 90-Day Client Connection Plan is your guide to track each piece of marketing content you intend to create and publish weekly. Your content may be blog posts on your website, social media posts, articles or short update-posts on LinkedIn, podcasts, or videos on any of your channels.

Your Client Connection Plan eliminates the dreaded dilemma of asking yourself, “What should I do for marketing today?” Instead, you can spend your valuable time creating marketing, messaging, and content to share stories about the kinds of people you help and the ways you help them.

I recommend a spreadsheet to keep your topics organized. That way, after you decide how often you’ll create content, you can plug in your topics by the week.

Yours might work like this:

Publish marketing content about the top problems for ‘Perfect Client A’ the first week of the month.

The next week, post your content about the top problems for ‘Perfect Client B’ and so forth.

If you create fresh content more or less than once a week, find a cadence that works for you.

See example below:

Want more detail about how to do this part? Find it on this post.

Step #7: Build relationships to market yourself

In a nutshell, your goals to market yourself as a solopreneur coach, expert, or course creator, are to start client relationships by… 

Getting your message out using the strategies and tools that work best for you, 

You can accomplish relationship goals by being responsive to requests for help from others. Also, by sharing your knowledge with folks who need insights.

Final thoughts 

Creating a successful business isn’t just about over delivering when serving clients, though I know you do that!

It’s also essential to effectively market yourself and your services so that more people know what you can do for them.

To help with this, be sure to take time out of each day specifically devoted to marketing – think of it as “self-care” for your business. Build relationships by creating content and sharing consistently in addition to the items listed in Step #7,above.

When done right, marketing will help create the connection necessary between you and potential clients who are not yet familiar with all that you have to offer. That’s where rubber meets the road in getting those valuable new clients to find you, connect with you, and enroll in your programs.

Sending you a ton of positive market yourself vibes,

~ Cynthia

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