Depending upon where you are in your client journey, you will have different ideas on who you identify as your main customer.
You can determine your ideal client from several perspectives. If you sell primarily to consumers you may have a cross-section of demographics to appeal to. Depending on our product line, you may have different campaigns to target each group.
In the B2B world you are probably more focused on how your product or service solves a specific problem for your customers. The problems your customers have in common bring them to your product or service.
Your customer’s experience before and after a sale and how you engage with customers will have a direct bearing on how your customer will feel about your product or service. These are questions to ask:
- What matters to your customer?
- What problem is your customer trying to solve?
- Does the product or service meet the customer needs?
- Did the product work as expected? Did you provide excellent service?
There are other things to consider too such as what the experience was like leading up to sale and how you engage with your customer after the sale. Do your customers share any ideas on how to change the product or service for a more desirable outcome?
Group customers into categories – from all categories of information that identifies who your customers are:
- Pain points
- Urgency
- Location of your customers
- Types of customer service interactions
- Social media engagement
You may gather information about your current customers just by speaking with them and asking a few questions. On a more formal scale, ask them to fill in a survey. Looking at your sales data is also a key point to find out what your customers have in common.
- How does your product benefit your customers?
- What does your product provide or do that helps your customer?
- What is the main problem that your product or services solves for your customers?
- Who are your main competitors?
- How does your product or service match the market they serve?
- Is there a void in the market segment that your product or service could fill?
- What does your sales data tell you about your customers?
- What does your customer profile look like as you dig into the information you have?
- Where does your customer come from and what does your customer like about your product or service?
- What drives your customer? What is important to them?
Collect as much information as you can so you have a clear picture of your customer.
Knowing your customer is the first step to your marketing plan