6 Tips For Finding New Clients Online

Marketing TipsVisibilityBranding

Jul 26

Written By brandmerry

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Creating a service-based business and looking for clients? Understandably so, since it's how you generate revenue for your business. On the Brandmerry Blog I'm sharing 6 tips for finding your next clients. | brandmerry.com

Here at Brandmerry, we focus on personal branding and marketing strategies to help you create more income and impact.

And one of the ways to create more income and impact is serving more clients.

So I thought what better way to support you in doing that than to share six of my favorite ways that you can start implementing to sign new consistent clients in your business.

Before I dive into the six tips, I have two little disclaimers that I need to share with you.

These tips are not going to work if you don't know who your ideal customer is. In fact, you're going to have a really hard time signing clients if you don't know who you really want to work with.

So it's incredibly important that you do the ideal customer work so that you know how you're showing up and what you're saying to those clients.

In addition to that, your messaging needs to be very clear.

Ideal customer and messaging are both core parts of the personal branding process. In fact, they are just two of the elements that I teach inside of my course You! Branded.

And if you want to get a sneak peek, you can watch the Build a Better Brand Method on-demand training all about personal branding. Sign up at betterbrandmethod.com to watch it on demand.

So make sure you take the time to learn more about your ideal customer and messaging.

6 WAYS TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS

METHOD #1 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Create High-Value Content

My number one way to attract new service-based clients is to create high-value educational content.

Now, educational content can be a slew of different things depending on what you sell in your business. But if you're a service-based business owner, chances are you’ve got a lot of cool information up your sleeve that you can teach your audience.

Now, why do I say high value?

Because if you can really position yourself as an expert from the start, from that initial piece of content that they consume from you, whether that is on a blog or a video on YouTube or a live stream or a freaking Instagram Reel, then you're going to build that trust right from the beginning, and that is really important.

Create high-value content, put it out there, show up, invite individuals to join your community, join your email list, sign up for your service, and watch as you build momentum and brand awareness and those clients keep coming in.

So again, I'm going to stress here, it's not just about consistent content, it's not just about posting to post on social media. It's high-value, quality content.

What is your audience searching for?
What questions are keeping them up at night?
Why are they coming to you to solve their problem?

Help them through that process and watch as your gap between the new ideal customer and signing that customer gets a lot shorter.

METHOD #2 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Host a Live Event

This is one of my favorite ways to sign new clients. With a product launch, a course, and a group program, but specifically for one-on-one service-based clients.

Sometimes we think, “All right, I've got this one-on-one service and it's always available, someone can sign up at any time.” Well, that might actually be hurting you.

And I'm not suggesting that you're constantly opening and closing and opening and closing the doors or changing things around, but adding in frequent live events, maybe quarterly, maybe monthly, where you get to share your expertise, give incredible value, and then ultimately pitch your service can be incredibly helpful.

So these live events could look like a video series on social media, you could host a challenge inside of a pop-up Facebook group, you could host a webinar or a workshop, some sort of training for your audience.

Essentially you have something that everyone signs up for about a topic that is super important to your audience and then you get to pitch your products and service as a solution to that problem.

If you have a service that's always open, you're always accepting new clients, it can sometimes cause your audience to say, “I'll sign up later, I'll do this later.”

Having these live events can be incredibly helpful and moving your ideal customer through the buying process, getting them really excited, helping them solve a problem, and then offering up your service as the solution.

METHOD #3 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Share Your Free Gift with your Community

Now, tip number three might not work for all of you, but I think it's important to know. Because I'm hoping that we'll also get the juices flowing in your brain around growing your community.

Tip number three is all about sharing your free gift with your network. In the beginning, you might not have a huge network to tap into. I didn't have anybody in my network that I could sell my services.

But I have a lot of clients who do. And by realizing that they have this network, we have to get really creative with how we tell them about our new venture.

How do we tell them about our services without feeling like we're bombarding them or overwhelming them?

One of the best ways to do that is to create some sort of freebie or lead magnet for your audience. You need this anyways, you need this regardless because it's a great way to build your email list, which is going to help you sign consistent clients.

When you create that, a great thing to do if you have the network available to you is to share it with them.

Reach out to them and say, "Hey, I have this new freebie. If you're interested, this is what it does." Or, "I know that you have a network of people who might be interested in this, would you mind sharing this?"

If you have a connection with other people in your industry that maybe have a similar audience or maybe they've changed gears and now they work with a different audience, reach out to them and say, "Hey, I know that you used to do this, I know you used to be in career coaching and you're not anymore. Would you mind sharing my new freebie that I have on resume building with your existing audience?"

Tying into those connections that you already have and those networks can be incredibly helpful. But this is my favorite way to do it from a really authentic place so it doesn't feel like you're like, "Oh, I got this new offer, here's where you click to buy."

It will get people on your email list where they will hear about your services.

METHOD #4 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Build Brand Authority

Tip number four, and one of my other favorite ways, is to build brand authority.

Now, we talked in tip number one about high-value content, about how it's important to build your expertise and showcase your expertise from the beginning.

Because, the reality is there are going to be people who are looking for your products and services online that may be further along in the buying process and they're looking for that moment of trust, of “this is my person.”

So having that high-value content is incredibly helpful.

But another thing that's going to help you sign consistent clients is going to be your brand authority. People want to know that you know what you're talking about.

A few great ways to do this, and two of my favorites, are through pitching your personal brand and through the power of search engine optimization.

When it comes to pitching your personal brand, this is a fantastic way to get in front of a new audience. I have my degree in public relations and it is one of the trainings that we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy, my marketing membership because we understand that it's a fantastic way to get all eyes on your brand.

When you do this, you're getting invited to come onto a platform with credibility. Now, maybe you're not going to get into Forbes the very first time you pitch but think about those smaller podcasts that your audience loves, that they listen to regularly, that they have a lot of trust and respect for the host.

That host is inviting you in to share your expertise. Your authority level is already elevated.

So rather than shooting a paper airplane in the dark of social media and hoping it lands on your ideal customer, you're getting in front of your ideal customer already elevating your brand authority through the power of pitching your expertise.

On the other side of that, we've got SEO. Now, this isn't an “or” situation, this is an “and” situation. Because pitching and getting featured in publications, on podcasts, on TV will also help you boost your SEO because it helps drive traffic to your website.

SEO is an incredible way to increase your brand authority because of your ranking on Google.

So I'll give you an example. If you go to Google and type in brand coach, I am going to show up at the very top, if not in the top three. If I'm a consumer and I'm looking for a brand coach and I go to Google and I see that the top person without paid ads is Brandmerry, immediately the authority is high.

So using the power of SEO, and site-wide SEO specifically to rank for your industry can also help increase your brand authority.

SEO, search engine optimization, is something that we teach again inside of Brandmerry Academy, which is my marketing membership. And you can learn more at brandmerryacademy.com.

METHOD #5 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Offer Assessments

Tip number five is all about offering assessments.

Now, I wanted to make sure that in covering these six ways, that you had something that would work for you no matter where you're at in your business. So the assessment works really well if you have a small audience or you're just getting started.

You could absolutely do it if you're further along in your business and you've got a huge email list, but just know that you're going to need a lot more time blocked off to handle all of these assessments.

Now, assessments do require your time and energy, but in the beginning, it's incredibly worth it if you are looking to create consistent income through your service-based business.

So what an assessment essentially is, is honing in on one area of your expertise, offering free assessments by application for someone to get your knowledge dumped into their lap. So I'll give you an example of what I did in the beginning of my business.

I offered brand messaging assessments.

I would promote them on social media, I would promote them in my email list, I would promote them on my website and my blog, and back in the day when I used Facebook groups, I would promote them there as well.

Essentially, in conjunction with awesome benefit-driven messaging, I would say…

I'm offering five of these this week, here's the link to sign up. When you sign up, you are going to fill out a short questionnaire, we're going to hop on the phone for 20 minutes, you're going to share a little bit about your business with me, and then I'm going to give you three ways to improve your brand messaging at the end of the 20 minutes.

So super actionable, they knew exactly what they were getting, it was focusing on one specific area.

I found that the assessments really served me better than offering a free call or a discovery call. Because those are incredibly vague and someone might not know exactly what they're going to get on that call so they might be hesitant to sign up for it.

Think about two to three things that you could really focus on that are key to your entire framework as a service-based entrepreneur, create really strong marketing materials to promote those assessments, and offer a limited-time opportunity to get in the door.

Don't always have these assessments open. Say you're offering two or three a week, maybe you do this every month, maybe you have it on the back end of your freebie or in your email funnel.

No matter how you want to work it in or promote it, these can be incredibly helpful with getting your customer on the phone with you showcasing your expertise, solving a problem, and then at the end of the assessment you can say something along the lines of, “If this was helpful for you, do you want to have a conversation on how we can continue to work together?”

Then you can move into the sales conversation - and just for the record I never had someone tell me no!

METHOD #6 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Storytelling

If you don't already know, my expertise over here at Brandmerry is serving my clients through personal branding and marketing strategies, but it's all based on the art of storytelling.

If you're not familiar with the art of storytelling, you can watch this video right here, where I share more about the importance of storytelling and some of my top tips. Ultimately, if you want to show up, you want to build connections, you want to build trust, get in the habit of sharing your story.

When I first started out and I wasn't signing any clients in my business, I was doing all the things. I was showing up, I was even at the beginning offering some assessments, but nothing was really registering with my audience.

I had a small list of about 10 people that grew from 20 to 30 to 40 or 50, and still, I wasn't signing consistent clients.

When I started to focus on emotional branding and the connection with my audience and showing up and sharing stories about why I do what I do, my values, my mission, those same people started buying from me.

And they weren't new to me, I'd been showing up, I had been delivering value, but suddenly there was that connection piece. So one of the best things that you can do for your business, especially as service-based entrepreneurs, especially as someone who's building a personal brand, is getting into the habit of sharing stories.

Now, I talk about the art of storytelling all the time on my podcast, The Brandmerry Podcast.

You can also check out the Brand Storytelling Guide on the Brandmerry Blog.

Storytelling truly is an art. And you want to make sure that when you're sharing these stories, that you're not just talking to a wall or talking to anyone, that you're speaking directly to your ideal customer, the same ideal customer that's going to buy your one-on-one package or the custom package that you are offering.

So get in the habit of incorporating a story into everything that you create, and that includes your emails and your social media posts and your blogs and on your website and in your videos because it's going to help you sign consistent clients in your business.

All right, there you have it, six ways to sign new clients as service-based entrepreneurs.

Don't forget to catch the free on-demand training, the Build a Better Brand Method.
You can go to betterbrandmethod.com to learn more about my signature six-part method.

You're going to learn more about elevating your messaging. I've got a trick in there on doing the ideal customer research that you're not going to want to miss where I’m talking about telling your brand story.

You can also check out youbrandedcourse.com to learn more about my paid branding course. This is truly where you get the step-by-step system for building a strong brand foundation rooted in story, understanding your ideal customer and mastering your messaging.