Why you need a fleshy picture of your ideal customer and how to get it.
Last month’s post – Gone fishin’ – talked about the importance of targeting your customer. So you might be wondering why we’re here talking about it again! However, in the post, I mentioned the need to nail the problem your client has – and as a mentor in the ABN MentorNet program, I’ve seen the need for a few tips about this… So, when it comes to growing your business, there is one foundation piece that’s almost more important than any other – and it’s what I like to call the fleshy picture of your ideal client. Even if you sell B2B, or purely online, you’re still selling to people. This means that it’s essential to know them if you meet them down the street – or in a LinkedIn group!
What’s the big deal?
Now some of you may be thinking, yeah, know who my customer is, what’s the big deal? I know that already! Move on. And without being rude about it, I’m sure some of you really do, and some of you just think you do. I led a marketing strategy workshop this week with the leadership team of a medium sized business. It’s a healthy business, with a $10 million plus turnover, founded by a CEO who is one of the smartest women in business I know. When we were discussing the agenda for the workshop, she said to me: “I really think this will go quicker than you think because we’re very clear about our customer and our value proposition.” However, the phrase: “We target high volume, low margin customers” is not a fleshy picture.
Here’s my definition:
- You know some of the demographics – age, gender and so on and if a business, similar kinds of things but in an organisational context. But this only takes you so far. For example, for some products or services, age groups may be wide.
- You get to know some of the psychographics – this is the why people do the things they do; how they behave, what media they consume.
- You get to know what’s on their shopping list – and this is the key.
Why people buy
People aren’t really as complex as you think and when it comes to buying things, more often than not we’re driven by the negative. We want to remove or avoid problems, we’re unhappy with what we have, we’ve run out of something else. Sometimes of course we are driven by something positive – we want the transformative experience. But when you get right into the real reason people buy your service or product, you also start to be able to work out what’s on their shopping list – and by this I mean, all the conscious or unconscious questions they’ll have before they make a decision. This is the heart of the fleshy picture and it’s essential for positioning your value proposition and knowing how to speak to your customer in all of your communications.
How you develop your picture
If you’re in business, you already have a leg up because you already have customers. My advice is to start with the ones you have. Think about one client or customer you have, develop their picture and then say, ok, how many of people or businesses do I have like this? And then, do I like working with them? Are they profitable for me? Are we in sync? If you do this for each different customer type that you have, you will soon see that there are usually some types of customers that you don’t particularly want, but some that you really do… and that you have a very fleshy picture of the ones you want more of.
