Episode 108: Affinity Marketing 108

One of the most common questions I get from gym owner on our free call is, "How do I get more leads?" The "magical" nature of online ads distracts many away from easier, more natural opportunities The Affinity Marketing plan is made of concentric rings. Each ring or “loop” represents a new audience for your service. The center ring ("Axial Clients") has very high affinity, because they're already buying your service and loving it. But it's the smallest possible audience. As we radiate out from center, audience size increases but Affinity decreases. You'll have to do more work to "warm up" a potential client to get them to purchase, and even more work to keep them. In this episode, I walk through some simple strategies we teach in the Incubator to leverage your relationships with your clients and future clients. Starting from the middle dot and working outward, here are the “Affinity Loops”: Axial Loop – your best clients (or, if you don’t have any clients yet, yourself). The center dot in our target. The ones on whom the entire business pivots. Affection Loop – the people closest to your best clients. Their spouse, parents, or kids. Probably the people who live with your best clients. Activity Loop – the people who work with your best clients (or your own coworkers.) This loop could also contain complementary service professionals. For example, if you’re a personal trainer, your ‘occupational loop’ could include nutritionists or physical therapists. These are people with whom your best clients share an activity. It could also be a recreational activity, like midnight basketball. Acquaintance Loop – the “friends of friends”. People with whom you have one degree of separation. You might not know them directly, but you have a friend in common. Attention Loop – future (or past) clients who aren’t currently using your service, but are still active on your email list or another conversation, like a business owners’ group. They’re not paying you money, but they’re still paying attention. Awareness Loop – people in your neighborhood or in a similar niche who are aware of you, but aren’t exactly sure what you offer or how your service works. They probably don’t know anyone actively using your service. Audiences Loop – People in your target niche who aren’t yet aware of your service or how you can help them. Ambient Loop – Every potential client for your service who isn’t disqualified or “filtered out”. If you perform surgery in Idaho, the people in your Ambient Loop would include anyone who would drive to your location for surgery; can afford the surgery; need the surgery or know someone who does. Disqualified candidates would be people who don’t need the surgery; people who have access to a better surgeon; or people who can’t afford the surgery. We’ll walk through each loop briefly, and I’ll share one example for each. Your job is to use the attached Affinity Loops Cheat Sheet and add at least three names in each category. A few notes: As we move from the center toward the outer ring (Ambient Loop), audience awareness cools off. People on your Facebook feed might not really know what you’re selling, or even what you do for a living; but you can bet your mom sure does. Audience attention follows awareness. The further you get from the center ring, the less influence you have over the people in that Loop. The further from center you get, the more education a prospective client will require before signing up for your service or buying anything from you.