Do you dream of doubling or tripling your business?

Every business needs an effective marketing strategy. customer-profile-08072015One of the most fundamental aspects of a strong marketing plan is developing your customer profile. Creating your customer profile based on the following information will make a huge difference in your marketing strategy.

Without a doubt, customer profiling will increase your sales. Trying to sell products without a customer profile is like poking in the dark.

For example, if you sell to individual consumers you want to know their age, education, income level, location, spending habits, etc. If you sell to businesses, find out what industry they are in, their revenue, number of employees, how much they spend, and what other suppliers they use.

Unless you are a brand new business find out as much you can about your existing customers. Study your sales records, interview your customers, and get as much information from them as you can.

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Don’t ignore one of the most important parts of marketing: defining your ideal customer.

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Define your ideal customer. What similarities do they have?

Our customer is:

  • Business and consumer
  • Business (B2B) (small, number of employees, revenue, fortune 500)
  • Consumer (B2C)
  • Demographics (factual information) – age, gender, income, education, etc.
  • Psychographics (not quantitave) – personality, activities, values, opinions, habits, preferences, etc.

Do you want help with your marketing strategy? Contact us now.

Our customers are located in:

  • San Diego (local)
  • Southern California
  • The United States (nation wide)
  • The World (global)
  • or, you can be very specific and identify your customers by zip code or neighborhood. For example, if you have a dry cleaner business, you will most likely have a much smaller target than a marketing company such as ours.
  • Where are your customers hang out?
  • What books do they read?
  • What websites do they visit?
  • What do they search for online?

Buying decisions are based on:

  • Price (Are you in the commodities business? It is very difficult to compete on price.)
  • Quality (high end, bargain, luxury, personalized, custom)
  • Service (exceptional)
  • Convenience (location, business hours)
  • Where do they begin their research?
  • What problems do you solve for them?
  • What are the benefits to finding a solution?

Who makes the buying decision?

  • Individual (manager, business owner)
  • Department (which department, marketing, sales,?)
  • Team (management, committe)

Buying frequency:

  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Quarterly
  • Annually
  • As needed (triggered by event)

Buying channel:

  • Online or offline or both
  • Direct (sole proprietor, firm, manufacturer)
  • Wholesale
  • Distributor
  • Retail
  • Seminar
  • Trade show

Reach out to current customers to learn about why they bought from you:

  • Why did you buy from our company?
  • Why did you buy from us instead of a competitor?
  • Why do you stay loyal to our brand?
  • How are we different from others on the market?

Create customer personas:

  • Describe your customers through profiles, called personas.
  • Create a persona for each customer group and name them.
  • Include images of ideal customers, real or hypothetical.

Only after you have created your customer profile will you be able to focus on the appropriate target market. The customer profile will prevent you from wasting your marketing dollars. Your customer profile will help you be more consistent with your marketing messaging.

Do you want help with your marketing? Contact us now.

 

 

photo credit: Tetra Pak® – Packaged juices