Now, this is a great offer for mamas to take advantage of a discount for Get Babied! services. What was even better, though, was their offer to other childbirth professionals! For $15, Get Babied! would add that childbirth pro’s business name, logo, and summary of her offer to that coupon!

What a win-win! Here are some benefits of this offer:

1. Get Babied! builds connections with other community businesses.
2. Get Babied! has an additional income opportunity by offering this to other birth pros.
3. Childbirth professionals have a great marketing opportunity at such a great price.
4. Mamas can take advantage of a great discount and choose from a wider variety of local businesses.

This is good karma, that’s for sure! Have you participated in something like this? If so, share it with us in the comments. If this sounds like a great idea for your community, use it and tell us how it worked for you!

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2. Resource – Hypnobabies Hypnosis CDs for Pregnancy, Birth, Postpartum, and Birth Professionals Too!
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So how do you identify your ideal client? One way to do so is to write a story about your ideal client, answering some or all of these questions:

• How old is she?
• Is she a first-time mom or not?
• Is she in a relationship?
• Is she of a certain heritage/faith/belief system?
• Does she have a high-risk pregnancy?
• What kind of birth does she want?
• Where will she have her baby?
• How informed is she? Will she need a lot of informational support?
• How involved will her partner be during the birth?
• How much is she willing and able to pay?

While you do this exercise, try to really see, hear and feel your ideal client. Once you have this description, it will help you:

• Generate content for your website and other marketing materials.
• Screen people who visit your website. They will see from your website content whether they fit your description or not.
• Create your elevator speech and follow up statements.
• Know whether people who are interviewing with you will be the right fit.
• Remain focused on the type of people you want to work with. This will help you with your marketing efforts in so many ways.

As you gain more experience, you can refer back to your ideal client description and tweak it.

If you’ve developed your ideal client profile, I’d love to hear how it’s helped your business grow. Add a comment below!

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Focus on the unique benefits your customers will experience by hiring you. Sure, you can talk about what everyone else talks about in their marketing materials. However, in order for you to stand out, you want to be sure and highlight the problems and solutions that only you can solve for them.

How do you do that? If you’ve determined your niche (and even if you’re still working on that), you will want to create a clear picture of your prospective clients. Depending on your field, you will be asking different questions. Here are some questions a birth doula or childbirth educator may ask herself:

1. What is their age range?
2. What is their marital status?
3. What is their income level?
4. What is their faith/ethnic background?
5. Is this their first birth?
6. What is their birth philosophy? Do they have one? Does that matter?
7. Where do they plan to have their baby?
8. Is their birth high risk?
9. Does your client have specific needs or desires?

Once you have a  clear picture of who your ideal client is, make a list of problems they have, AND the ways you can solve those problems. Get really creative and draw upon your unique skills. What special gems makes you different from other practitioners in your area?

Finally, look at the solutions you have to offer. What unique benefits will clients experience by working with you? When creating your list, focus on how your solutions will affect them physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. The more prospective clients can get a feel for you from your marketing materials, the more likely they will feel a connection with you.

Your prospective clients will likely want to know more about your background and training, but before they consider that, they will want to know how you can help them. In order for you to stand out from the crowd, identify that something special that only you can give, that your clients will really want and benefit from having you on their team.

So what makes you special? Things to consider:

1. Do you do home visits or private sessions/classes?
2. Do you offer additional services, like massage or nutritional counseling, or lactation support?
3. Are you a one stop shop, ie: you provide childbirth education, birth and postpartum doula services, and breastfeeding support?
4. Do you have special partnerships with other practitioners and can offer special discounts for their services if they purchase yours?
5. Do you work in a practice where clients get the benefits of being served by you and your fellow practitioners?

This is just a starting point to get you started. If you are just starting out, you may not have a clear picture of who your ideal client is or what makes you special. The great thing is, you can change your focus as you go along and gain more experience!

For your particular field, what questions have you explored to determine your niche?

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Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been exploring a better-defined niche for my doula business. It’s evolved over the two years of my work with women, and it’s about to be transformed again pretty shortly. Today I’ll share with you what a niche is and why you should consider one for your birth business.

A niche is a specific group of people you want to attract and serve. It is a group that really fits YOU – what you know, what you’ve experienced, and what you’re really good at. Most importantly, a niche, your niche, should focus around what really drives you. Your PASSION.

What are examples of niches:

• Women who want to work with single moms/teens/certain heritage/certain fath/[insert particular segment of population]
• Women who want to use hypnosis/Bradley/[insert your method] during labor
• Women who want a massage therapist/yoga instructor/[insert your specialty here]
• Women seeking support through a planned Cesarean/induction/home birth/VBAC[insert type of birth]

There are birth professionals who enjoy working with all kinds of women and have no desire to limit themselves, and it works well for them. Others really want to specialize and are very clear about who they want to work with.

Here are some reasons why you should consider a niche for your birth business:

• Marketing becomes much easier because you know exactly who you want to target.
• Having a clear target makes it easier to focus your energy.
• You will be able to clearly define your niche to those who will refer business to you, making it easier for them to pre-qualify potential clients.
• Potential clients will be able to pre-qualify themselves when they visit your website by determining whether your philosophy meets their needs.
• You will be able to develop supporting classes, products and services that meet the needs specific to your niche.
• You will be seen as an expert by the women in your niche.

Before I go, I just want to talk about passion a bit more. When you are passionate about something, how does that feel in your body? How does that affect your energy? Passion provides your entire being with energy. You’ll find that words come easily to describe your work. You’ll know very quickly how to help someone or where to go to seek help. You will more likely feel driven to move forward than being stuck in place. Most of all, your niche will really be drawn to you. They will really feel it in their own bodies that you are the right person to work with because they will connect with your passion.

If you do have a niche for your birth business, please share in the comments what your niche is.

If you don’t currently have a niche, I encourage you to consider exploring some possibilities. Next week, I’ll offer some tips to help you identify a niche for your birth business.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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• Do you participate in any online forums or Yahoo Groups that have to do with birth? Look at old posts and emails that you have written.

• Have you written any handouts for your doula clients or childbirth classes? There is a wealth of information you can share.
• Do you maintain a blog? What blog posts can you use to create an article?
• Look for old emails to clients that offer useful information. What could be transformed into an article?
• Do you produce an email newsletter for a group of subscribers? Take that material and turn it into an article.
• If you have conducted any surveys regarding your work, write an article about your findings.

Once you have compiled material from these sources, put together some articles that are 250-300 words in length, think up some catchy titles and start submitting them to online article directories. If the original material you are using is much longer than 300 words, see how you can break it up into multiple articles. If you are starting from scratch and want some inspiration, here are some ways to find inspiration:

• Think about what you are passionate about.
• Make a list of topics you already know a lot about.
• Visit online forums for pregnant mamas and find some hot topics.
• Identify some trends about birth or that are occurring in the media, or find recent news stories that talk about a new study or statistics.
• Visit some online article directories like Ezine Articles or Associated Content and do a search on some topics you are interested in. Consider writing about a topic that you DON’T find on these sites.
• Choose a topic and create a Top 10 list.

I hope this gives you a good start. I’d love to find out what you’re inspired to write about. Please comment below!

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Writing Articles for Visibility

Articles serve as a means for you to be seen by potential clients. Articles can be featured in print publications or published online on your business’ website or blog, in your email newsletter, or in a free online article directory such as Ezine Articles or Associated Content.

How does this increase your visibility? Large online article directories such as the two mentioned above have the advantage of having extremely high rankings on search engines. What this means for you is, if you have an article in one of these directories, there is a good chance that when someone does a search for the topic you wrote about, your article will be found high in the search results.

So how will someone find out more about you, the author, once they reach your article in the search results? All authors create a Resource Box that is placed at the end of each article, where you will write a sentence or two describing who you are and what you do. It is here that you would put your website address, where readers can click and be directed to your site.

Each time you submit a new article, you will get another incoming link to your website. The more incoming links you have to your site, the higher your search engine ranking becomes, making it easier for people to find you in an online search.

Another advantage of having articles in online article directories is the possibility of having your article picked up by other online publishers, who will use your articles in their own publications, giving you yet more visibility.

Writing Articles for Credibility

When your articles offer useful content, readers will see you as an expert on the topics you write about. After reading a few articles, they come to know, like and trust you. This know/like/trust factor will eliminate several barriers to the selling process because more potential clients will be coming directly to you, already interested in your services.

Return on Your Investment

By investing a small amount of time to write articles that can benefit the types of clients you serve and placing them online strategically, you will find these articles will work for you for a long time to come. According to Ezine Articles, submitting an article to their directory is “7-10 times more effective than regular advertising.” You will do it once and won’t have to do anything else to maintain your online articles. Isn’t that easy enough?

In my next post, I’ll give you some tips on figuring out what to write articles about.

If you’ve had marketing success with articles, please share your experiences in the comments or on the Savvy Doula Business Group discussion board on Facebook.

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What’s in it for me?

Spend some time watching commercials on tv or ads in a magazine. Cosmetic ads promise you will look younger and have “radiant” skin. Clothes will make you look and feel thinner. The latest technological toy assures you will be more efficient, enjoy better quality sounds and sights, or just look cooler than the guy with the older model.

Services are little trickier. For certain products and brands, there is a level of expectation. I expect to have exceptional service and high quality accommodations if I book a hotel room at a Ritz-Carlton. If I decide to stay at a Best Western it’s because of the value-pricing, and my expectations are much lower in terms of the amenities and overall experience. For services from individuals, I want to be sure to receive timely and courteous service, an enjoyable experience, and I want to like, know and trust the provider.

So what about doula services?

Spend some time thinking and writing about the following:

1. What is my philosophy about birth?
2. Who is my ideal client? Create a mental picture of your ideal client.
3. How does your philosophy align with my ideal clients?
4. What is your personal style? Are you the grandmotherly type? More spiritually-based? Hip or crunchy?
5. If you were to hire a doula, why would you be looking for one? What problems do you have, and how will a doula solve them?
6. What benefits will your ideal clients receive from working with you?
7. How will they feel as a result of working with you? Confident? Empowered? Safe?
8. Where will you find your ideal clients?

How does all this translate into your marketing materials and marketing efforts?

• Your personal style will be communicated in the look and feel of your marketing materials. Your logo, your business name, your personality should come alive in your website business cards and brochure.
• Direct your marketing efforts to avenues that will reach your ideal clients.
• Connect with professionals and businesses who serve your ideal clients and see how you can help one another with referrals.
• Your goal is to make a connection with your ideal clients. When they read your materials, will they be nodding their heads in agreement with you because you have identified their problems? Are they relieved when they see how you can solve their problems? Are they looking forward to feeling the results you say your clients experience?
• Your experience and philosophy also play a part in their search and should be in your materials as well. This will help them learn more about you and get to know you.

In their search for a doula, women and partners are going to be looking for results. If you can pinpoint the results they are looking for and align with their goals, your marketing efforts will differentiate you from other practitioners. This will hopefully lead to an interview, where they will be able to make a face-to-face connection with you. Even in your interviews, continue to focus on what potential clients are looking for, and be authentic in your responses about your ability to follow through in order to meet their needs.

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To make things easier, create a statement that, in about 15 words or less, describes WHAT YOU DO for women. For example, I could say to you:

“I give pregnant women guidance to help them have easier birth experiences.”

In the amount of time it takes an elevator to travel one floor, I could tell you and you would more or less understand what I do. This is called an elevator speech.

What makes an elevator speech powerful?

1. It is specific, simple and brief.
2. It doesn’t contain complicated terminology, the process of how you work, or even your title.
3. It explains who you work with (pregnant women), what you do (give guidance to help them), and a benefit they receive from working with you (have easier birth experiences).
4. It more often than not encourages the person you’re speaking to respond with “Tell me more.”

Time to Create Your Own Elevator Speech

To create your own elevator speech, do the following exercise:

1. Identify who your ideal customers are.
2. Name the major problem they have. Why do they need you?
3. Say what you do to help them and how?
4. What is the result they experience by working with you? What is the main benefit they see by hiring you?

For example:

1. My ideal customers are pregnant women.
2. Their major problem is that they want to feel supported during their birth experience, with physical, emotional, and informational support.
3. I help my ideal customers by giving them guidance to help their decision making process prenatally and during labor and birth.
4. As a result of working with me, they feel their labor and birth was easier to manage because of increased confidence and the ability to cope well throughout labor.

Finally, create your speech using this format:

I [what - helping verb] [who - ideal customers] [how - how you solve their problem] [result - the benefit they received from working with you]

I [what - give] [who - pregnant women] [how - guidance to help them] [result - have easier birth experiences.]

“I give pregnant women guidance to help them have easier birth experiences.”

Practice Makes Perfect

Once you have an elevator speech written out, memorize it and start using it. If people express confusion more often than they’re asking for more information, revise your speech. As you gain more practice, your elevator speech will begin feeling more natural to you.

What Do I Say Next?

So you’ve said your elevator speech and are asked to speak more about what you do. Now what? We’ll take a look at what you can say after your elevator speech in the next blog post.

Have you created or refined your elevator speech? Share it with us in the comments section below or in the Savvy Doula Business Discussion Board on Facebook! Have a great day!

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1. Your business name should clearly describe what you do. If you are a birth doula and you plan to offer other services in the future, think about whether you want “birth doula services” to be part of your business name. Think long term.
2. Is your business name a reflection of who you are? Consider your birth philosophy and whether you want to reach out to a particular audience. Do you only want to work with teen moms or women with high-risk pregnancies? Make a list of words that describe your philosophy and the types of clients you want to work with.
3. Is your business name easy to remember and spell? Names that are too long or have tricky spellings may make it difficult for people to recall your business name.
4. Does your business name set you apart from your competition? What name helps you stand out among others in your area?
5. Consider using your name as part of your business’ identity. What easier way to brand yourself than by using your own name? If your name is difficult to spell, it may be better if you don’t use your name.
6. One way to brainstorm business names is to make a list of benefits your clients would experience from using your services. What would really strike a chord with your potential clients?
7. Whittle your choices down to two or three business names. Once you have chosen a few names, you will need to see if that name is already taken. A Google search is a good way to check. You will also have to check with your local government to see if the name is available in your state when you apply for your Assumed Name Certificate. You will also want to see if the domain for your business name is available.
8. See how others respond to your business name. Tell your friends the name of your business. Wait a few days, then call them back and see if they can remember what the name was. Could they remember it? Is it a memorable name?

Sometimes, the best way to come up with a business name is to wait for your intuition to give you one when the time is right. In the meantime, you can always just go by your full name.

Unless you are planning to create a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or Corporation, there is no tremendous rush to figure out your business name. You can file your federal taxes under your full name as a sole proprietor.

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So how do you get your name out to other professionals? Back in August, I wrote a post about Ronnie Noize the idea of developing a “Team 100″ List. Here it is again with a link to an excellent article she wrote with step-by-step instructions for building your referral network. I will also be posting a reprint of an article by author C.J. Hayden with another way to build your Team 100 List.

What is a Team 100 List?

The Team 100 is a list of 100 people with whom you have a professional relationship. These can be fellow colleagues in your field, other birth professionals, and any business owners who you would like to refer your clients to, and who could reciprocate the favor by sending clients your way.

For step-by-step instructions on creating your Team 100, read this article by marketing coach Ronnie Noize. Ronnie also has other great articles about marketing and business building and will be a great resource for you.

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