The Secret to Attracting the Right Customers (Without Paid Ads)

Some clients light you up, while others leave you feeling drained. If you’re attracting people who don’t value your work or push back on pricing, it’s not a pricing issue - it’s a positioning one. In this episode, I share how to align your message and marketing strategy so you naturally attract clients who are the right fit from the start.

You don’t need to do more or spend more. What you need is clarity around who you’re speaking to, consistency in how you show up, and a few intentional shifts in your organic marketing. I’ll walk you through what that looks like and the most common reasons business owners end up working with the wrong people (and how to fix it).

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Attracting Right Customers Matters
• 3:54 Busting the Big Ad Budget Myth
• 4:54 Clarity: Knowing Your Ideal Customer
• 6:38 Consistency: Building Trust Over Time
• 7:47 Practical Organic Marketing Strategies
• 10:48 Avoiding Common Marketing Sinkholes
• 12:27 Key Takeaways and Resources

Transcript

Janice Hostager: 0:04

I'm Janice Hostager. After three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur, I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business, and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing. Hey and welcome to My Weekly Marketing. So let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt like you're putting all this work in your marketing, posting on social media, writing emails, maybe even going to networking events, but the people who show up are not your people? They either don't have the budget or don't see the value in what you do, or worse, they suck up all your energy and you're left wondering if you even like being in business. Okay, you're not alone. I have been there too. What I've learned over the years is attracting the right customers, which is your dream clients, doesn't happen by accident. And you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on ads to make it happen. In fact, the real secret is much simpler, and today I'm going to break it down for you. By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to attract the right people to your business without paid ads so that your marketing starts feeling lighter, more natural, and way more effective. And if you stick around to the end, I'll share a free resource that can help you take action on this right away. Okay, so let's start with the why. Why does attracting the right customers matter so much? Well, let me give you an example. I grew up in Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, so I spent my share of time in canoes, especially in high school when I went on a couple canoe trips down rivers. It's great when you're heading downstream in a canoe. The sun is in your face, the current just takes you right along. It's super easy and super enjoyable. But if you have to go against the current, it's practically impossible to get where you want to be. That's how it is when you're working with the wrong clients. It's like trying to steer a canoe against the current. You're working really hard, but you're not really going anywhere, and in fact, you may start moving backwards. You can spend time answering endless client questions, discounting your services, chasing invoices, and it will quickly drain your energy. But here's the tricky thing. It feels like you're working hard. So you are getting leads, but in reality, you're not going anywhere because you might actually be moving backwards with the wrong customers. But when you're working with the right clients, the opposite happens. Your work feels easier. Conversations flow naturally. They see your value and they pay on time and they tell their friends about you. It's like moving with the current in a canoe. I remember a time early in my design agency business that I used to have when I said yes to everyone. I thought more customers meant more success. Who wouldn't, right? And in the early days, it's sort of like that. Sometimes we just have to take a client. But you know what it really meant? It meant burnout. One client in particular took so much of my energy, constant scope creep, never satisfied, nickel and dime me, asked for discounts, etc., that I realized one wrong client can block the right ones from even getting through the door. Because obviously, if I am working so hard on the wrong client, I'm not going to have time for the right one. When I shifted my focus to the right fit clients, everything changed for me. Marketing became so much simpler because I wasn't trying to talk or work with everyone. I was talking directly to the people I wanted to work with the most, my ideal customer avatar. That's why this episode matters, because you deserve to spend your time with people who light you up and not the people that drain you dry. So first, let's bust a myth. So many entrepreneurs think, "If I just had a bigger ad budget, I'd get the right clients." But here's the problem: ads amplify what we're already saying. If your message is off, if your strategy is unclear, ads will just send the wrong people to you faster, and it will end up costing you money. I like to think of ads as a megaphone. If you're whispering the wrong message to the megaphone, it doesn't matter how loud it gets, you're still saying the wrong thing. That's why organic attraction is the foundation. You need clarity and consistency before you ever think about running ads. Ads pour gasoline on a fire that's already burning. You don't want to try and start the fire from scratch with an ad, if that made sense. This ties right into my Trail to the Sale framework, which is all about having a clear strategy to lead your customers from awareness all the way to becoming a happy, loyal client. Ads can be part of that trail, but they're not the trail itself. Okay, so what's the secret? It boils down to two things: clarity and consistency. First, let's talk about clarity. You can't attract the right people if you don't know who they are. That means getting really, really clear on your ideal customer. What do they worry about at 2 a.m.? What goals keep them moving forward? What exact words do they use when they talk about their struggle? The more clarity you have, the better it's going to be. The more you understand your ideal customer, the easier it's going to be to talk to them. Clarity also means knowing how you want to be positioned. Not just "I'm a coach," or "I'm a bookkeeper," but it could be "I help overwhelmed coaches simplify their marketing," or "I help growing businesses get their finances in order so they can finally breathe easier." When you have clarity, you naturally repel the wrong people and naturally attract the right ones. It's like a magnet. If you have a magnet facing one way, it will attract something. If you have it facing the other way, it will repel things. I like to create an avatar for my ideal customer. This customer is your best customer, the one that spends the most, is great to work with, and as ideal for your service. If you're not sure who this is, download my free ideal customer profile and I'll put the link in the show notes for that. It will really help you define who it is you're talking to, what you want to say to them, and how you can attract them to you. When you have an ideal customer avatar or ICA, it makes everything so much easier. Whatever you do in business, from writing headlines, to emails, to even designing your website, you can ask yourself, "Would my avatar like this?" It simplifies everything. The second piece is consistency. Showing up regularly builds trust. People need to see you more than just once before they take action. They used to say it takes seven touches to get a customer, but in our busy, noisy world, that number has increased a lot lately. Think about it. If you only post once a month or email once a quarter, you're not going to be remembered. In fact, when you do send out an email once a quarter, they're not even going to remember subscribing and they're going to unsubscribe. Your goal is to build a relationship on trust. That means they can trust you to be there for them with content that's relevant, and helpful, and consistent. That's how relationships work, right? Consistency doesn't mean you need to be everywhere all the time. It means picking the channels that matter most to your ideal customer and showing up there steadily with a value, insight, and connection. When you combine clarity with consistency, you increase that magnetic force. The right people start showing up, reaching out, and saying, "I feel like you're talking directly to me." That's a win. All right, let's make this practical. So how do you actually do this? Here's some of my favorite organic methods. First up, content marketing. Share tips, insights, and behind-the-scenes stories that solve your customers' problems. For example, a photographer sharing three tips for feeling comfortable on camera speaks directly to nervous clients. Content can come in any number of forms. Video, podcast, social media, and even still blogging. Blogging isn't dead. AI is pulling from content on the web, so make sure it's optimized for search engines, and that will help you get found even by AI. Just a little side note. Next, social media. Don't just broadcast - engage. Comment on posts. Respond to DMs. Ask questions. Relationships are the way to outsmart the algorithms. Do you notice when somebody comments on your posts? Of course you do. I do. Especially when they do it consistently. It's easy enough to do that. Don't just post and ghost. Get into the comments and the DMs. Next, email marketing. Email marketing is still golden. A consistent, helpful newsletter keeps you top of mind for them. Think of it as building a long-term relationship with people who already raise their hand to hear from you. I recommend reaching out weekly to your audience. Give them value. When you're ready to sell to them, they'll be more accepting. Share excellent content and they'll think of you when they're ready to buy. Next, referrals and word of mouth. Don't underestimate this. The easiest way to attract more of your dream clients is to delight the ones you already have - so much that they can't help but tell others. And then incentivize referrals. So send them a thank you gift if somebody sends a customer your way. Next, collaborations and partnerships. Borrow somebody else's audience. Be a podcast guest, partner with another business owner, or do a joint workshop. Get to know others who share the same audience and maybe a slightly different business. If you're a photographer, maybe partner with a makeup artist. A bookkeeper might want to team up with a marketing consultant. Reach out on social media. What's the worst that could happen? They say no and you move on. But if they say yes, you've just expanded your audience exponentially and had fun in the process. Finally, SEO and website basics. If your dream clients are searching for answers online, and most of them are, you want them to be able to find you easily. That's where search engine optimization or SEO comes in. Even simple tweaks like clear messaging on your homepage and blog posts that answer FAQs can make a huge difference. SEO seems techy and scary, but I promise you it isn't. There are simple things you can do on every page of your site to make a difference. I offer a free comprehensive checklist for you to make sure that your site is optimized for SEO, and I'll put the link in the show notes today. So what do all these things have in common? You're building trust before you ever ask for the sale. But now let's take a minute and talk about the traps. There's a few traps that we fall into, some common sinkholes that can get in the way of attracting the right customer. The first one is trying to talk to everyone. When you water down your message so that nobody feels left out, no one feels like you're speaking to them. That's why making sure you identify and talk to your ideal customer avatar, your ICA, with every communication is so important. You're not leaving people out. Others that even that aren't your ICA will come along for the ride. But you're aiming for your best ideal customer. The second sinkhole is inconsistency. Ghosting your audience kills trust. When you're there weekly for a few weeks and then you fall off the map, it makes you look like you're not dependable or solid. Nobody wants to look like an amateur, so make sure you have everything in place to be consistent with whatever content you decide to put out there. The third trap is copying competitors. We've all thought, oh, that's a great idea. I should do that. I can see it works for them. But you're not them. You have your own story, your own strengths, and your own unique voice. Not that we can't use an idea and try it for ourselves, never copying, of course, but ask if it's really right for your ICA before jumping on to the next shiny object. And finally, expecting instant results. Organic attraction takes time, but it creates momentum that lasts. Once you find your message and your pace, that's a time where you can amplify with an ad spend. Remember, slow and steady builds a strong foundation. So here's the big takeaway. Attracting the right customers isn't about luck or a giant ad budget. It's about clarity and consistency. When you know who you're speaking to and you show up for them again and again, you create magnetism. And guess what? That magnetism works whether you're just starting out or if you've been in business for years. If you want some extra help with this, I've created a free resource called the Overwhelm Entrepreneurs Marketing Strategy Playbook. It walks you through how to set up a simple marketing strategy that actually works without the overwhelm. You can grab it at janice hostagercom forward slash trail, or again, I'll put the link in the show notes. So for more information about anything we talked about today, visit myweeklymarketingcom forward slash one twenty seven. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.