Who is your ideal customer? Hint… the answer isn’t everyone… this seems obvious when looking at it like that. However it seems knowing why you need and ideal customer type or types isn’t so obvious. On a daily basis at least 50% of our leads give a really vague/round about’s answer to one of our pre qualifying questions “Who is your ideal client?”
Whilst your ideal customer is a forever evolving thing it’s important to have a clear base and know who your customer is and why. I know we all get excited about our products or services and think everyone needs it, but the truth of the matter is, we’re in business to be happy and solve a problem. Without knowing who your ideal customer is you’ll never be able to market effectively.
Think about it like this, imagine have a shoe store; sure everyone need shoes, but the type of shoe you sell will determine who will be most likely to buy that shoe, Are they mature aged, or young? Man or Woman? Conservative, comfort seeker or fashion forward?
Knowing your ideal customer profile is vital because this knowledge will help how you can align your strategies and help get your copy right. If your target customers are businessmen, then you must have strategies that will attract such; if you market teens, then most probably those ways that will do great for business would not be as effective.
Here are four ways to effectively know your ideal customer profile:
1. Get to know them personally.
First step in creating an ideal customer profile is getting to know them personally. You must examine them and see how they are similar to each other. This way, you will have an idea which strategy will work best for who.
You may group them through the following:
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Personality type
- Hobbies
- etc
2. Be where they are.
I do not intend to be literal here, by the way. When you want to know your ideal customer profile, you must know how to reach them by knowing where they usually stay. Be it their favorite hang out place, or a social media group/page they usually post on; you must know. Most of the Facebook users show the pages they link in their profile, so it should not be very hard to see what kind of things they like.
The places you can check by gathering some data manually or through a survey are the following:
- Favorite hangout places
- Liked pages in Twitter
- Retweets on Facebook
- Etc
3. Listen to their needs.
Scenario: your customers always go back to your store to purchase some sweets (cakes, ice cream). Now, step back and ask yourself: is your ice cream the best in town? Why do they keep coming back? Are they purchasing it because they are craving, or are they having some problems and they want to relax a bit?
The following questions are very effective in being able to listen to their needs:
- What products/services do they usually purchase from you?
- Why are they availing from you instead of your competitor? Is it your expertise or your prices?
- What products/services can you offer them in addition to what they are asking to better help them?
4. Allow your ideal customer to grow and change with your business.
Your ideal customer profile won’t always be perfect. Thus, it is best that you revise the facts you have gathered when you see that the current ones you have are not working well for you anymore. This is to make sure that your strategies are growing and are up to date to the current wants / needs of your customers.
The following questions will help you update your current customer profile:
- What drastic changes are you noticing?
- What products/services have been less bought and why?
- What caused these changes to happen?
Make this a practical exercise for your business, follow the tips and create your ideal customer and always reference it in any marketing you do. Ask yourself, does this promotion/campaign speak to my ideal customer? Does it solved their problem or meet their need? Comment below with what you come up with.