4 Effective and Proven Steps to Discover Ideal Clients

Patrick McFadden
2 min readOct 30, 2021

The first part of any effective marketing plan is to really identify who and what makes an ideal client for your business.

You can’t pass go or try to implement marketing tactics until you really nail this idea of an ideal client.

Steps to Discover Ideal Clients:

  1. Start with Profitability: which clients or services or type of engagements are most profitable?

The key is to understand the most profitable work you do. Is it a certain product or service, type of engagement, customer, geographic area, or even a problem that you enjoy solving the most?

  • Types of Engagements
  • Types of Contracts
  • Types of Services/Products
  • Types of Customers
  • Specific Geographic Areas
  • Types of Decision-makers

2. Identify Tendency to Talk: which of these clients also talk about your business or service to others?

Here’s what I’ve found to be true about clients. Only happy clients talk about your business and happy clients are most often found because they had the right problem that you solved with the right approach which gave them the right experience.

This group of profitable clients that also talk about your business, holds the key to discovering your ideal client.

  • Reviews
  • Testimonials
  • Recommendations
  • Email praise
  • Referral

3. Analyze Sharable Demographics: what demographics do these clients share?

Start looking at the physical characteristics that are shared by your ideal client group. You’re looking for any common characteristics that are repeated.

Business2Business (B2B) demographics could be:

  • the type of industry
  • the job title of that individual
  • the years that a company has been in business
  • revenue levels

Business2Consumer (B2C) demographics could be:

  • age
  • sex
  • illness
  • income
  • particular area of town

4. Look for Behavioral Identifiers: what behavior do they typically display that might act as an ideal prospect sign?

This is the secret to attracting ideal clients instead of hunting ideal clients.

  • what makes these clients tick?
  • what triggers them to look for someone like you?
  • what behaviors can you target (attending certain conferences, joining a chamber of commerce, happily paying for what you offer, valuing how you solve the problem, understanding the value of communication, wanting a partnership, and making referrals, etc.)

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Patrick McFadden

Small Business Marketing Consultant // CEO of @indispmarketing // I install a marketing process to increase visibility, grow revenue & make your phone ring