This article was written in collaboration with The Voice Bureau former collaborative partner (and current friend!), Tami Smith.

Right People (AKA ideal clients or site visitors). Every brand has them.

This is true whether you’ve launched a product yet, have revenues of $500/month or $10,000/month, and despite whether you blog 2x a week likeyouknowwe’reallsupposedto or not.

It’s easy, in a frustrated state, to feel that your Right Person — the person most inclined to hire you, to buy your products and services, to read your articles and social media posts, and to become a brand advocate for you — is a needle in a haystack. Where, in the big bad internet, is this elusive one-in-a-million (billion?) individual, who is supposedly “hanging out” somewhere online with scores of other People Just Like Them who are waiting, wallets poised, to snatch up your latest creation, because you, to them, are like the entrepreneurial Second Coming?

This, as I’m sure you’ve gleaned from my sarcasm, is not exactly the way getting better qualified site traffic and better conversions (i.e. more opt-ins or sales) works.

There’s no secret place on the internet where all of your Right People are hanging out hoping to meet someone just like you.

But Right People? They’re real. Ideal clients? Not a myth. (Although there are many myths about how to size them up.) [link]

How do we know? Let’s take a look.

In the whole world over, there are a finite number of ‘types’ of people.

While we’re all individuals and our needs and desires vary from person to person, if you study universal human nature (and psychological-behavioral patterns), you’ll find that people tend to fall into 4 basic types: we call these types Humanistic, Spontaneous, Competitive, and Methodical.

• HUMANISTIC TYPES are attuned to the interconnectedess of all people and things. They’re wired to be helpful. They dislike conflict and prefer to focus on beauty, harmony, and solitude. They seek unity.

• SPONTANEOUS TYPES are attuned to freedom, flexibliity, and possibilities. They’re wired to be enthusiastic. They dislike rules and restrictions, and they’re turned on by big vision, adventure, and a sense of community. They seek approval from others.

• COMPETITIVE TYPES are attuned to winning and achieving. They’re wired to be powerful. They dislike weakness, inefficiency, and people who slow down action by getting mired in feelings or wishy-washy deliberations. They love order and strength, and they desire to be the best — sometimes their personal best, sometimes best in class. They seek control.

• METHODICAL TYPES are attuned to the search for pure, irrefutable truth. They’re wired to be deep. They dislike brashness, things that can’t be proven, and sloppiness. They’re attuned to details, measurements, and proof. They seek certainty.

While the Four Buyer Types are a well-known, well-documented marketing framework — a part of the methodology we employ at The Voice Bureau to guide our copywriting client projects and more — this perspective doesn’t apply to business alone.

Four different types run through our world in many ways.

There are The Four Seasons. The Four Temperaments. The 12 Signs of the Zodiac, which can be grouped into 4 Elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire). The Four Blood Groups (A, B, AB, O).

Of course, there are blends, too: there are Spontaneous buyers with a Competitive edge, and Methodical buyers with a Humanistic edge. In terms of Blood Types, you can be O+ or O-, etc. All of us have access to all four types (we human beings have great range), and sometimes we switch from one type to another based on context, or our needs in the moment. But essentially, we’re wired to be motivated like ONE primary type, consistently over time.

The bigger the brand and the larger their marketing budget, the less precise the company can afford to be about marketing to one primary type. This is why car manufacturers, credit card companies, pharmaceuticals, and major food brands can design for all Four Buyer Types in each social channel, while keeping their brand voice distinct. They have whole teams of people and millions (billions?) of dollars to help them pull this off.

But solo and small businesses? We’re obliged to specialize.

Solo and small business owners — like The Voice Bureau, and like our clients — have limited resources (time, money, interest, human power). In order to be most effective (and usually, most profitable), it’s necessary to design a brand conversation and an offer for a particular type of person — someone most likely to buy.

Here are some tips for moving closer to designing a strong Content Strategy:

• Understand your Brand Voice and how it meets the needs of your Right Person buyer.

• Consider building yourself a Brand Language Bank — a branded lexicon of words, phrases, and “handles” — that engage your Right Person buyer and make your conversation fresh (without being convolutedly cutesy or abstract).

• Step into the shoes of your Right Person buyer and ask yourself, “Why would this be important to her? Why would this solution work for her?”

Here are some beginning tips for engaging your specific primary Right Person “type” through your content, using an empathetic marketing model:

• If your Right People are HUMANISTIC, engage with warmth, intimacy, even love, and show them you’re a real person who genuinely cares about people, planet, and profits. The Humanistic buyer appreciates a peek behind the scenes of your business, as they want to believe that you are who you say you are. Create content that will present all sides of the picture with equanimity (big picture thinking). Keep your tone and your calls to action harmonious and conflict-free. They’ll get value out of content that helps them to move forward toward their goals, without risking overwhelm. Focus on presenting small slices of your brand conversation that feel positive, encouraging, uplifting, and promote a peaceful approach to life, work, and business.

• If your Right People are SPONTANEOUS, engage their possibility orientation by using visionary language. Design offers and experiences that keep them at the center of attention. It’s about them, not about you (although the Spontaneous buyer is drawn toward a charismatic personality who opens doors for them to experience something new, fresh, and exciting). The Spontaneous buyer grooves on community, sisterhood/brotherhood, feeling like they belong, and having opportunities to self-express. Keep your tone and your calls to action clear, easy, playful, and positive. They’ll get value out of content that connects them to their unique potential and ability to have an impact. Avoid overcomplicated explanations, lots of hoops to jump through, or dry navel-gazing philosophy. Focus on presenting visually-oriented content that feels cutting edge while activating their love for lifelong learning.

• If your Right People are COMPETITIVE, engage their drive to “get it done now” by being direct, straightforward, and competent. Demonstrate your credibility and assume that your Right Person will choose to do business with you because they see you as the best option. Match their high Excellence value with your own, and redeem all opportunities to demonstrate your wins. Position yourself at eye level with your high-achieving buyer. The Competitive buyer is relentlessly focused on activating ideas and being in control, which creates security. Through your content, show them how they are the hero/ine, how they can rise to challenges, and conquer obstacles. Avoid asking them to go against their nature, which includes slowing down, seeing things in grayscale, and admitting they have been wrong. Note that your Competitor buyer may be oriented to compete with himself or herself, just as much or more than with others.

• If your Right People are METHODICAL, tap into their desire to know why things are the way they are, through understanding all the nuances and seeing the big picture as well as the fine details. Validate their passion for solving problems, pointing out what isn’t working (i.e. being a contrarian), and finding the next layer down. Provide them with research, resources, systems, tools, frameworks, and visual data to balance their overactive brain. Frequent content is less important for the Methodical buyer, just so long as your content is deep, thorough, and consistent. Methodicals care less about the personal details of a brand creator’s life; rather, they’re obsessively interested in the brand’s reasoning for doing what it does, the way it does.

If you understand your buyer, you’re closer to understanding what content they need/want to see from you in order to make a purchasing decision.

In the comments, we’d love to know:

In your perspective, have you already been using this Buyer Type approach intuitively, without quite knowing why? If so, how did you come to “know” that you wanted to talk to this type of person? What have you noticed? How does it feel? We’d love to hear about your process and experiences.

(Image credit.)