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How to Reach Your Ideal Clients
Today, we’re diving into a topic that every course creator has struggled with at some point—reaching their ideal clients. You’ve poured your heart and soul into your business, but somehow, the right people aren’t finding you. You aren’t seeing the course sales you want, the engagement you’re hoping for, or the email list growth you’re craving. It’s frustrating, right?
Well, I’m here to help you figure out why. In today’s episode, I’m sharing six reasons why you’re not reaching your ideal clients and, more importantly, how to fix it. We’ll break down each roadblock, talk about how it might be holding you back, and walk through the steps you can take to get in front of the right audience. So, if you’re ready to finally start connecting with your dream clients and making the impact you’re meant to, let’s jump right in!
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Join me on Monday evenings at 4:00 pm Pacific time/7:00 pm Eastern time for my weekly YouTube Lives!
- Snag the 2025 Chasing Simple Marketing Planner!
- Take a look at my Complete Marketing Game Plan for Course Creators—Playbook
- Check out my book for a crash course in content marketing
- This week’s action step: Whichever place you feel you are lacking in marketing from this episode go listen to the episode I mentioned that dives deeper into that area.
- This week’s book recommendation: One Second After by William Forstchen
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
Today we’re diving into a topic that every course creator has struggled with at some point, reaching their ideal clients. You’ve poured your heart and soul into your business, but somehow the right people aren’t finding you. You aren’t seeing the course sales you want, the engagement you’re hoping for, or the email list growth that you’re craving.
It’s frustrating, right? I’m here to help you figure out why. In today’s episode, I’m sharing six reasons why you’re not reaching your ideal clients and, more importantly, how to fix it. We’ll break down each roadblock, talk about how it might be holding you back, and walk through the steps you can take to get in front of the right audience.
So, if you’re ready to finally start connecting with your dream clients and making the impact you’re meant to. Let’s jump in. You’re listening to episode 252 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Symbol Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.
com book.
How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?
Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome friend, this is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.
I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.
When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And, when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, reading in our hammock, watching GameCog sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me.
If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love.
Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations. actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business.
Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?
Here’s the deal, friend. It’s time for your marketing to stop feeling like a constant grind and start feeling like the ball is in your hands. 2025 is the year that you’re going to make more sales with less effort through a simple but impactful marketing strategy. And you’re going to do it with the help of the Chasing Symbol playbook, which includes all of my courses, templates, and workshops in one spot.
It’s everything you need to simplify your marketing and fill more seats in your course. If this sounds like exactly what you need, head on over to amandawarfield. com slash shop to join the waitlist. Everyone on the waitlist when the playbook launches will be getting a special bonus and discount. So head on over to amandawarfield.
com slash shop and add yourself to this list today.
The first reason you may not be getting in front of your ideal clients is because you are inconsistent with your content. The reason that this is going to hold you back is A, when you’re not consistent, you’re not showing up often enough and what ends up happening is for places like social media with that type of content, you’re not getting out in front of enough people because only a small portion of your audience actually sees your content.
And so you’re not even getting fully in front of your own audience, let alone getting out in front of new audiences. And when you’re consistent with things like social media, you’re more likely to get engagement from your people, which is going to help you show up in front of new audience members and those ideal clients and consistency can make such a big difference for that.
On the other hand, when you are consistent with content like your blog, or your podcast, or your YouTube channel, you’re also going to be pushed in front of more audiences through SEO, through the platform itself. When you’re showing up consistently, you’re just going to get in front of more people. And that’s just the reality of it.
So showing up inconsistently is going to hold you back from getting in front of your ideal clients just because you’re not going to get seen. Now, when it comes to showing up consistently, there is a byproduct of showing up consistently, which is messaging, which we will talk about in a little bit, but showing up consistently, a byproduct of that is getting really clear on your messaging, which again, we’ll talk about in a moment, but consistency will help with that problem too.
And so that’s another thing to think about because when you’re consistent, you’re creating consistent content. You are more intentional with that content. Really thinking through what you’re saying. You’re frankly putting up more content, even if you scale back how often you’re showing up and It just helps it helps with your messaging, but also just with getting in front of new people So if you’re wanting to get consistent I would recommend going back and listening to episode 14 creating consistent content and that episode is going to Help you with this Particular problem.
So if you know you’re inconsistent, episode 14 is a great one to go listen to, go check out and help to overcome that. Now, let’s go ahead and move into unclear messaging. That actually was farther down my list, but let’s just do it now. Since it’s, it really aligns well with the consistency aspect. So, your messaging being unclear means that people probably won’t engage with what you’re putting out there because they don’t get it.
They’re not Getting that pull of, Oh my gosh, you get me, you really understand. And so you really want to make sure that you have messaging that is clear and that is refined. And that you’re able to connect well with your people because your messaging is clear. Because you really know their pain points, you really know what they need.
And you really know where they are now and where they want to be. Again, showing up consistently. A byproduct of showing up consistently is that your messaging will feel a lot clearer to you. You’ll see more of what connects and what doesn’t. You’ll get that feedback and it really does help with that.
However, episode 165, if you also feel like your messaging, If you feel like your messaging is just not as clear as you would like it to be, Episode 165 is also a great resource for you. It is titled Refine Your Marketing Messaging Framework and showcase your expertise with these four questions.
And so that episode goes through four questions that will help you really get a good feel for what your messaging is with your marketing and make it feel more clear for you. And then. When you show up consistently and you continue working on your messaging and you get that feedback with your people, you’re going to get in front of your ideal audience a whole lot more because when your messaging is clear, people are more likely to engage.
They’re more likely to share. When they feel connected, that’s when they’re going to go, oh my gosh, yes, this is for me, or oh my gosh, my friend needs this, right? So, clear messaging and showing up consistently are two ways that you can really help get in front of your ideal clients. The third reason you’re not getting in front of your ideal clients is that your audience is too broad.
There is always pushback, especially from early phase entrepreneurs, about not wanting to niche down. And, um, You know, it’s always, oh, I’m a multi passionate entrepreneur. I love so many things. I want to help so many people. This thing that I do isn’t necessarily specific to one type of person. And I get it.
I really do get it. However When you’re, when you’re talking to everybody, you’re talking to nobody, right? Uh, I don’t know where that quote originally came from, but it one, it’s one that floats around all over the online business space. When you are talking to a broader audience, it’s a lot harder to Make it really connect with someone.
So, for example, let’s say you’re talking to all moms, right? And you help moms create systems in their life. And one of the systems that moms need is they need some way to deal with the school paperwork, right? So, moms need systems for school paperwork for backpacks, things like that. All moms with school age kids need that kind, need that kind of system.
However, you notice I’ve already, right within that, saying, I’ve niched it down even farther. It’s not just moms, it’s moms with school age kids. So it’s, it’s really hard even then to, to be really broad with that. Um, but when you say, okay, I help all moms with school age kids. Well, let’s think about this. If you’re talking to all moms with school age kids, and you’re talking about your backpack system, You have to simply say things like the backpacks are never where you want them to be you Never feel like you know where the paperwork is You don’t even know what paperwork you’re supposed to be looking for.
Things don’t get turned in on time. Things get lost and they They might connect with that, right? They’ll go, oh, that’s relatable. However, if you can niche down even further, and maybe you really want to focus on moms that have elementary school kids, that might look like you’ve picked the kids up from school, you finished car line, you get home, they drop their backpacks in the front entryway, and you go through their backpacks to see what the teacher put inside, and then you do XYZ with it, right?
Or, Let’s say that you want to talk to moms of teenagers and instead it’s Your kid comes home, they step off the bus, or they’ve driven themself, and they take their backpack up to their room, you never even see their backpack, maybe it gets left in their car. You see how these are two very different situations and two very different systems that would be needed?
That right there is the difference of talking to an audience that is niched and an audience is broad. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t help outside of moms that have teenage kids, and you can’t help moms outside of school age kids, right? When you’re able to niche down and to get really specific.
about who your audience is, it’s a lot easier to go, Oh my gosh, yes, my teen always leaves their backpack in their car. Right? That, that feels even more relatable than just, I lose papers and I never know where they are. Right? Both are relatable. But one is that, like, oh my gosh, yes. And one is, oh yeah, definitely.
And so when you’re, oh my gosh, yes, you’re more likely, again, to get that engagement, to get that share and to get in front of your ideal clients that way. So if you want to really tap into your audience and learn more about who your audience is, I would recommend episode 199, Increase Sales by Getting to Know Your Audience with Nadine Nethery.
The next way, or the next reason, that you’re not reaching your ideal clients is that you’re not pre launching your launches. Okay, this is such a big one. I still, to this day, see women in this online business space who say, I’m working on something secret, and I can’t, can’t wait to let you know. Or they pop out with an offer in the, just totally random, out of the blue, they haven’t done Any talking about it, they didn’t do a waitlist, they did nothing, and they just put a launch out there.
And the first time anyone hears about it is when the doors are already open. Please, please, please don’t do this. If you’re not pre launching your launch, you are not getting that launch in front of your ideal clients. You’re not. They’re not going to know about the launch ahead of time. They’re not to think about it.
You’re not gonna see the sales you want. It’s just not gonna get the momentum that you’re looking for, okay? Now, it’s one thing if you have like a brand deal or you truly can’t share, like there’s a reason. There’s an embargo on the information and you cannot share information about your launches. Most of the time that’s not the case, though.
People are trying to build hype by saying they have something secretive coming and it just doesn’t work. No one cares, is the reality, right? Uh, you have to give them a reason to care. And you working on something secret that you’re excited about isn’t enough of a reason for someone else to care. But, when you take the time to pre launch your launch, when you create some kind of momentum builder activity, when you, whether it’s a challenge or a workshop or A podcast tour where you’re just talking about your upcoming launch or whatever it may be.
Just doing something like that makes such a difference in getting in front of your people because you’re able to really, again, niche down with your audience, niche down with your messaging, give them one specific thing you can help with that leads directly into your launch. When you pre launch, when you create a pre launch plan, That naturally helps your people flow from one part of the customer journey to another.
You’re going to get in front of your ideal clients simply because of the way that you’ve niched down with your marketing and your messaging and your audience. And by the way that you’re showing up consistently as you’re leading into that launch. So if you’re not sure what a pre launch should look like, go listen to episode 125, a look at launch timelines.
Now, also along the lines of launching. A big reason why your offer is not getting in front of your ideal client is because you only launch it once. , it makes me so sad when this happens with clients or just friends in the industry where they get so excited about something, they launch it, it doesn’t sell as well as they hope it does, and they decide to scrap it because they think it’s a bad offer because they didn’t, they didn’t sell as many as they wanted.
That is almost never the case. It honestly simply means that. The pre launch just didn’t hit for some reason. And honestly, sometimes it literally is just timing. You could have a great idea, incredible messaging, all the things are right and the timing is just wrong. And sometimes that’s the reality.
Usually there are things we can tweak, right? Usually it’s, okay, well, I got a lot of signups for my hype event, but they didn’t translate. So I need a different hype event, or I need to look at the way that I led people from the hype event into the actual offer. Um, I didn’t get signups for the hype event.
Okay, well, there’s a clear issue. Maybe it’s the messaging about the hype event and the way I shared about it that didn’t connect. There are so many different reasons that a launch may not go the way you want it to. And to only launch something once means that you’re not giving it the chance to really get out there.
The other thing is, is that every launch is simply marketing for your next launch. And so what I mean by that is that when you launch something one time, A lot of the time, people will not be ready to purchase the first time they hear about something. 99 percent of the time. I’m making that number up, but it’s super high.
Most of the time, the first time we hear about something, we’re not gonna immediately go, I need that right this second, right? But, we learn about it, we think about it, and then eventually, we’ll be ready. But if you only launch something once, there is no eventually. If you never talk about it again, we never remember, oh yeah, I was interested in that, let me think on it some more.
Right? So, when you launch something, Obviously, the hope is that we prelaunch well and that the launch itself goes well and we’re able to see those sales, but even if your launch goes incredibly well, there are still people watching your launch, those ideal clients that you’re getting in front of that just aren’t ready yet.
And so then the second time you launch it. They may be ready or the third time or the fourth time, right? And so if you only launch something once, you’re not getting in front of your ideal clients enough in order to really see those sales come through. So if this is something, you know, you struggle with where you’ve only tried launching things once or twice.
Or you’re just not sure what’s normal and what’s not, I would recommend going back and listening to episode 101, Are Your Launch Numbers Normal? I do a whole episode about what you should be looking for with your launch numbers and figuring out where you can make improvements for the next launch. Now the final reason why you are not reaching your ideal clients is that you are not focusing on growth Marketing.
Here’s the deal. You have to get in front of new people if you are only sharing content on your platforms You’re only getting in front of the audience you already have and that is important Alright, if we, you know, all the way back to the first part of this episode, being consistent with your content, it’s so important.
But you have to have both nurture marketing where you’re showing up for your people now and growth marketing where you’re getting in front of new people and bringing them into your sphere so you can nurture them and launch them, launch them and all of the things, right? You have to focus on growth marketing too.
So often I get people Who come to me and they say, well, it’s just not working. I’m not seeing sales. And when I ask what they’re doing for marketing, they’re showing up on Instagram. They’re putting out YouTube videos. Now, some platforms inevitably have some of that built in, right? Some growth marketing.
YouTube is a great example of that, actually, where it is a great way to nurture and work on growth at the same time. Bye. You’re going to see even more growth if you have growth specific activities. So, if you’re not sure what that looks like, go listen to episode 171, Growth Marketing Strategies for Your Phase of Business.
So your action step for this week is to listen to the episode that I recommended for your first problem. So you may have listened to this episode and thought, a lot of these, actually. are issues that I have. Maybe I’m inconsistent, and my audience is too broad, and my messaging isn’t clear, and I’m not pre launching, and I’m only launching once, and I’m not doing growth marketing.
Okay, well, take a step back, and whichever one of those that I talked about first, that you said, yes, I have that problem, go listen to that episode first, and then work on that one thing. So, if it was inconsistent with, see, with your content, and that was the very first thing I said, and it’s the very first thing that you know you need to work on, go listen to episode 14.
But if you thought, okay, well, I’m feeling consistent. I think my message needs some help. Then go listen to episode 165. So, whichever one of those things that you first thought, mmm, yes, I know that that’s a problem. Go listen to that episode and then follow the action step for that episode so that you can make progress on where you are in your business and start getting in front of those ideal clients.
Your book recommendation for this week is One Second After by William R. I don’t know how to say this. For shtion? F O R S T C H E N. Now, I will preface this by saying,
this one might be a hard read in current times. Um. It’s very dystopian feeling, but also not dystopian. It’s, um, it’s not, I don’t know if I would say dystopian. Um, I’ll just give you the premise because I don’t know helps to explain it really, but the book, it’s actually based in one of my favorite places in the world, Montreat, North Carolina, which is very close to Asheville, if you haven’t heard of it, but which is why I picked it up because I was like, oh, it’s based in Montreat.
And it really has nothing to do with Montreat at all, but that’s okay. Um, based in this tiny town in North Carolina, and essentially there’s some terrorist activity that has to do with electromagnetic technology and, um, you know. They lose the phone lines and power and all, there’s all this fallout from it.
So, it could, it could feel like a little much in today’s climate. Just fair warning, trigger warning for that, but I enjoyed it. I think there might be a second one. I did not go read the second one because it does, it’s a heavy read. Um, but it was a good read. So, I’m just gonna throw that out there. If you like those kind of novels, and that feels like something that you can disappear into.
safely for your mental health at this time, uh, one second after by William R. Forshtian. And we will link to that in the show notes so that you can check it out. And until next time, my friend, I hope that you go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.
Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
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