Who is Your Customer?  Finding Your Ideal Market!

Who Is Your Customer? 

When you're getting ready to start marketing your business, one of the most important things you need to know is who is most likely to buy your product or tap into your service.

Different groups of people respond best to different kinds of marketing - these groups are called market segments. So how do you find the market segment specific to your business?

1. Analyze Your Customer Data

When you look at your total sales, most businesses will find that most of their profits come from a small fraction of their overall customers.

This is your core customer base, and they are the ones that you should be focusing your marketing resources on.

Need help with analyzing your customer base? Check out this helpful article on Creating Your Business's Ideal Customer Profile!

2. Research Your Core Customers 

The key to knowledge is research!  First, acknowledge your assumptions, and write them down. Take some time to brainstorm over "Who is your customer?" but don’t get out the sales reports yet!

• How well do you know your customer base? 
• What are they looking for? 
• What makes them the ideal customer? 
• What do you have to offer that makes them your ideal client? 

Now, develop a set of questions that will help you validate your assumptions.

Once you have that information in hand, do a customer visit.  Better yet – do multiple customer visits!!  Pick out your best and most reliable customers. Be transparent!  Explain to them that you are trying to make yourself a better company to work with and would like their assistance in understanding what would make your partnership even better. 

Ready for the tough one?  Now, pick out a set of customers that you have had some difficulty with.  Go sit down with them and ask the same questions.  Find out what makes them continue to do business with you.  What do they like – and much more important – what don’t they like?  Take notes!  Now, you are armed with some very valuable information. 

Check out this resource to learn four easy ways to delight repeat customers and keep them coming back for more!

One of the best ways to do this is to collect the email addresses of your customers and send them survey questions, so you can figure out what kind of consumers they are. Ask plenty of questions, so you can zero in on what they have in common:

• Do they live in the same area?
• Are they more men or women?
• How old are they?
• What kinds of occupations do they have?
  
  

Once you determine what characteristics they share, you will begin to have a better understanding of your market segment.

3. Take a Look at Non-Customers

Once you've figured out who your core customers are and what they like and don’t like, you can see how much of that market segment you've captured.

If you've only captured a small percentage of your market segment, this is a great opportunity to hire a digital marketing agency, like Open Path Digital, to help you convert the rest of the segment and attract customers through modern marketing.

4. Create Your Ideal Customer Profile

This is where your surveys and research really come in handy.

Take a look at all the characteristics of your core customer base and compile them to make assumptions about your typical customer's personality and lifestyle, as well as what they care about and what motivates them to make purchases or to use your services. Put a name and a face to this hypothetical company or customer. 

Identify what his or her motivations are and why this can be someone that is easily targeted by your company. 

This is something that will make it much easier to target consumers with direct, relevant marketing, as well as formulate an effective plan for Digital Marketing Services. Want to learn about how to create a customer profile? Check out our blog post, “Creating Your Business’s Ideal Customer Profile.”.

For more information on customer targeting, you can get in touch with the premier B2B Marketing Agency Central Texas has to offer, Open Path Digital. Let us help you answer the question, "Who is your customer?"