How to know who your ideal target customer is – and why is it important?
Here’s a topic which is close to my heart and if you’re in business, it should be close to yours too. How do you find out who your ideal customer is, where do you find them, and why does it matter anyway?
It’s very simple really. The more we know about our ideal customer:
the easier it is for us to create new products and services for them.
OR
the easier it is for us to align our existing products and services to them.
As a startup business, it’s vital you know who and where your sales are going to come from and that you’re marketing to the right people.
Business owners worry about narrowing down their target audience.
Something I hear from small business owners all the time is that they feel as if targeting a specific ideal customer will stop them from selling to other people. They worry that narrowing down their potential audience will reduce their opportunity to sell their product or service.
Honestly? No.
There are two important things to remember here:
- It is not forever – businesses change and evolve. Your ideal customer may change too.
- It is not for your whole business – you may have more than one product or service.
Each will have its very own ideal customer.
Remember, this is about who you are targeting, leaning in on, going after. But anyone can buy from you.
Be Specific
It’s important to be really specific when you are profiling your ideal customer. You should have one particular product, package or service in mind. The more products you have, the more customer profiles you should have. You can treat each one as a different campaign.
When I say ‘be specific’, I mean, really specific. ‘Over 50’ is not your ideal customer. ‘Parent’ is not your ideal customer. You need to know where your customer is. What is their name? What’s their age? (Not their age bracket!). What do they like? What do they watch, listen to, read? And, most importantly, what pisses them off? What problems do they have that you could help them with? Only by getting to know your ideal customer in this depth will you be able to really align your message to them, or even create a product especially for them.
I’ve created a FREE Customer Avatar Template for you to use to help you with this exercise. You can download it here.
You can also watch my ITC live recording here!
If you don’t know where to start, you could think about some of the people you’ve worked with in the past. Who did you enjoy working with? Who made you feel fulfilled? Who works in the biggest industry? Choose someone who has ticked your boxes – and profile them.
Once we’ve found our ideal customer, how do we reach them?
So, you’ve profiled the hell out of your ideal customer, and you feel like you know them pretty well now. You know who they are, what they like, what they dislike. You probably even know what movie they went to see last week and what they had for breakfast. And you know their pain points.
But how do you reach them?
Here are some ideas for you to try:
– Look at your competitors. Who else is trying to engage your ideal customer and who
follows them? You need to profile them too.
– What hashtags are your competitors using? And what keywords?
– What platforms are they using? Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram? Pinterest? Twitter?
Where are they? That’s where you need to be too!
So, now you know how to profile your ideal customer you can download my free worksheet and get started!
Don’t forget you can find loads of useful information over on my FREE Facebook group.
Look forward to seeing you in there!