It’s “Get to Know Your Customers Day,” which means it’s a great time to consider: Who is your ideal customer?
A Bentley is useless without fuel or gasoline to move it around. So is a business without customers. Customers are the heartbeats that bring businesses alive.
“Get to Know Your Customers Day” is a business community celebration on the third Thursday of each quarter (January, April, July, October). And since this is 4 times a year, it’s a good idea to have a quarterly review of your customer targeting strategy and make sure you are clear on who is your ideal customer.
Having a defined customer acquisition strategy and a customer retention strategy is crucial for businesses wanting to get more customers, keep them happy and keep them coming back.
Setting four days a year to celebrate and get closer to your customers is a wise initiative seeing that businesses thrive on customers’ repeated patronage.
And setting aside time on a regular basis to get to know your customers could be the “secret sauce” to getting more referrals without increasing your marketing budget. This is a fundamental customer targeting strategy for any business that desires to grow.
Do you want to retain your old customers and bring in more new ones? Then, let’s start from the basics.
Who is your ideal customer?
Many business owners assume they have the answers when asked this question. You may fall into one of these three groups:
- One group of businesses has no idea who their ideal customer is, meaning they have no customer targeting strategy.
- Other businesses or companies have developed their ideal customer profile, but it was done years ago. They’ve neglected updating it as their business grew and as customer sentiments changed.
- Some companies developed their customer targeting strategy without first doing market or customer research. They just started offering a service or a product because they saw other businesses doing it or because they ‘thought’ the business idea was viable enough. They hoped their assumed idea customer would like their offerings.
Here is how to know your ideal customers – Your ideal customer persona or profile is defined as a detailed piece of information about your target audience with your focus on the top 3 to 5 difficulties they face that your product or service can solve.
Do You Now Have An Idea Of Who Your Ideal Customer Is?
The question is directed at you after reading the definition above – Who is your ideal customer?
Understanding your ideal customer will influence how you talk to them in your sales copies and brand messages.
Marketing and advertising are not done blindly. You should be mindful of your customer targeting strategy, which describes your ideal customers, their life issues, and/or their business challenges.
For example,
I’ve heard some business owners say, “We help businesses make sales online,” and I am left in awe of that beautiful statement that carries NO business impact as far as sales & marketing is concerned.
There is no question that your marketing strategy must include an online presence. But more is needed to increase sales. There are lots of factors that contribute to the lack of sales for businesses.
Your marketing messages must be clear. Which problems is your company solving for your customers? Stating those problems is better than just saying, “We help businesses make sales online.”
Knowing your ideal customer helps you identify and narrow down the exact problem you want to solve.
Again, who is your ideal customer?
The benefits of having answers to this question are a) it gives you clarity as a business owner or CEO and b) helps you to map out effective sales messages suited for your target audience.
Companies that have done their homework on who their ideal customer is would say something similar to any of these:
We help B2B companies to leverage LinkedIn to bring in more qualified leads per month.
Or
We help SaaS companies to reduce their subscription churn rate by fine-tuning their customer experience marketing strategies.
Both statements above show prospects, clients, and customers what your company does to help businesses make sales online. So the problem of how to generate more revenue will be solved.
We could have even refined our statements further. For example:
We help billing and payment processing SaaS companies reduce their subscription churn rate by fine-tuning their customer experience marketing strategies.
The more specific your message is, the more customers you will attract, rather than vague.
And you can speak directly to your ideal customers, whether it’s B2B companies or SaaS companies, or Billing and Payment Processing SaaS companies.
You need to know that you can’t serve everyone as a company or business owner. So the best use of your marketing budget is to follow a well-defined customer targeting strategy based on your ideal customer’s needs and problems.
According to Monash, a Customer Targeting Strategy is the selection of potential customers to whom a business wishes to sell products or services.
The targeting strategy involves segmenting the market, choosing which segments of the market are appropriate, and determining the products that will be offered in each segment.
Once this foundation of building a solid customer targeting strategy is clear, we can start discussing how you can communicate effectively to drive sales.
One of the strategies for effectively targeting customers is speaking to them in relatable ways.
This automatically makes them trust you because your mode of communication shows that you understand their pains and aspirations.
With this, you can promote solutions to their problems in your marketing messages. They will be convinced beyond doubt that you know their problems and that you have the experience needed to bring ease to their long-time frustrations.
Here’s a checklist for more effective communications with your ideal customer:
- What keeps your ideal clients up at night (their pain-points, worries, and desired solutions)?
- What are the main goals of your ideal clients (the aspirations attached to these problems)?
- How does your solution help them achieve those goals and aspirations?
- If your service or product is gender influenced, which gender mainly faces the problem you’re trying to solve?
- What factors are your customers likely to consider before making a purchase?
- How will your ideal customer find out about your product or service? What sites do they visit etc.?
- List all the ways you currently contact your potential ideal customers. What is their preferred method of being contacted?
- What have your most recent ideal customers said about your product or service?
- What does your ideal customer tell you they value in your product or service?
Since it’s “Get To Know Your Customer Day,” add a task to your to-do list to develop or update your customer targeting strategy, so your communications with your ideal customer will be stellar.
Since Noble Wise Marketing is a full-service marketing agency, we can help with branding, copywriting, and all your marketing needs. Book a free consultation call via https://calendly.com/sandranoble/webservices
Make sure sales, marketing, and everyone else in your organization is clear on who you serve and who is your ideal customer.