When I was in the advertising
business, I would always ask my clients “Who are your customers?” I would quite
often get the common response of “Everyone.”
Even if I would question further, I got the same response. I finally would start to talk about categories
like most frequent customers and those that only came in around specific times
of the year and we started to get a better picture.
Those retailers were not unlike
many other small business owners. They
want to claim everyone as their customer, when in reality, there is only a
certain percentage of people who would use that business’s product.
Who Are Your Customers?
One of the ways to look at segmenting
a business’s customers is break them into the users or choosers. Quite often it is not the users who are
buying the product but rather the choosers.
Both audiences need to be marketed to, but in different ways and the
business owner must know the motivation to buy or recommend behind each segment
so the marketing efforts can be successful. Realize by knowing these motivations,
the business increases its ability to drive sales up.
What Type of Person is the Buyer?
A business owner starts a customer
profile by letting go of the myth of “everybody is my customer” and really
thinking who are my most frequent buyers. The owner should also know what
motivates them to buy or the product’s benefits and features. Here you want to
learn about client’s values, attitudes and lifestyles.
What Are Their Buying Habits?
The second step in profiling
customers is to learn their buying habits. Where do they shop, spend money,
spend leisure time or even more important, where are they using your product.
Knowing where they are using the product allows marketing to be not place but
time specific which increases the results of the marketing the business is
doing.
Who’s the Ideal Customer?
The third step is to determine how
many of the ideal customers are really out there in the marketplace. Knowing
age, marital status, home-ownership and other descriptive criteria will help in
rounding out the picture of the top customer.
Where is Marketing Currently
Reaching?
The final step is to start using
this new found information to better target the marketing being done. Ask the
question – “who is my marketing currently reaching and do they look anything
like my ideal customer?” If not, then
revise your plans and change up a few things so the message is reaching the
right audience.
Your local small business
technology development center is available to help you in determining the
correct audience by calling 573-243-3581.
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