How well do you know your customer? Have you ever thought about who your ideal customer is and whether you have enough of them?
The old saying ‘the squeaky wheel gets the oil’ also applies to your customers. A customer that isn’t a good fit for your business can end up costing you a lot of time and money. They can also prevent you from attracting and nurturing your ideal customers. It is important to fine tune your marketing strategy to align with what you know about your customer. This means ensuring your key messaging speaks to your ideal customer and shows up in the places they are.
Here are some tips to find and understand your ideal customers:
- Create your Customer Avatar or Buyer Persona.
A Customer Avatar is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. Your Customer Avatar should be based on data, interviews and educated guesses. For new business owners, your avatar will contain more educated guesses, which is fine, but you should look to use real data as soon as possible. - Give your Persona a real name.
It is easy to write your sales and marketing copy when you are visualising a person. - Gather input from everyone in your business.
Ask your team to peer review your personas even if they are in different departments. The more view points included, the better your final personas will be. - Include the problems that your persona is facing and how your business solves these problems.
- Print your Customer Avatars out and put them somewhere visible. Whenever you produce new sales or marketing material, ask yourself – does this resonate with my avatar? If not, revise your messaging.
Knowing your ideal customer ties in directly with annual planning. You need to know how to connect your customer profile with your long term goals for the business.
To learn how to improve your business across the four pillars of Strategy, Cash, Capacity and Clients – register for The Business Bootcamp.
The Business Bootcamp is a program designed to help you take control of your business right now – giving you the opportunity to set yourself up for immediate and future success.