In order to find and attract clients, you need to know who you want to work with. Every decision you make in your business relies on the knowledge of who you want to support – knowing who they are, where they are, what they love doing, what they find most challenging etc, so that everything you say and do in your business marketing is targeted to them.

The health & wellness industry was my niche as a Virtual Assistant, but this is still quite a broad audience. For example, within the industry there are:

• Holistic health - Nutritionists, Naturopaths, Health Coaches

• Alternative health - acupuncturists, healers, massage therapists, meditation teachers

• Fitness - personal trainers, gyms, yoga and pilate studios

• Medical and occupational health - General Practitioners

• Physiotherapists, Chiropractors and other specialist therapies

• Not-for-profit - charities and health initiatives

• Retail - online/local health food stores, food production and organic skin care etc

Each business will range in size, location and experience, and will therefore operate in a unique way and seek different levels of virtual support.

how do they relate to you?

At the start of my Virtual Assistant career, I worked with a wide range of health businesses/entrepreneurs from the list above, all at different places in their business journey.  After a while, I began to narrow down my target audience even further, based on who I enjoyed working with the most and whose businesses I felt more aligned too.  

I went from saying ‘YES’ to every enquiry to serving only two types of clients:

TARGET AUDIENCE 1

Well-established entrepreneurs in the health space who were leading the way for others in the industry. For example, a Health Coach Business Mentor and Nutritionist who were the first in the industry to offer unique services.

I was able to keep up with their pace, enjoyed providing more advanced tech support and seemed to resonate with how they were leading the way in their field, much like how I was in the virtual space.  

TARGET AUDIENCE 2

Newly-graduated health coaches from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, who were struggling to find their feet. I resonated with this audience as I was once in their shoes finding my way as a new Health Coach years before.

Adapt your marketing

By identifying my two key audiences, I was able to align my marketing to speak directly to them, so it became clear who it was I served and made it easier to attracted them to my business.

Clarifying your target audience is a working progress so start by looking at who you want to support in the health industry.  What type of businesses appeal to you more? What experience have you had and who are you in contact with the most?

If you're already seeing clients, have a look at who you're organically attracting. Are there any trends/similarities between them? Have you noticed people you work better with, versus others?

Once you have started to build a summary of who your target audience is, you can actively seek out those businesses online, and offline via networking, and promote your freelancing in a manner that appeals to their needs.

Tailor your services

Not all health business owners will require the same level of support. So, as well aligning your marketing to your target audience, tailor your services to their needs too.

For example, for Target Audience 1 (well-established health entrepreneurs) I tailored a service that focused on a monthly VA service, because not only did they have the consistent income to pay for it, but an increasing workload for ongoing support.

For Target Audience 2 (newly-graduated Health Coaches) I offered adhoc support and projects of under 5 hours so it met their smaller budgets and I was able to offer short cuts and tips that would build their businesses faster.

As a result, these Health Coaches kept coming back for more and when they started seeing consistent income, they levelled up to my monthly support option.