If you’ve worked with or met me, you’ll know I talk an awful lot about ‘Ideal Customers’. So for the first in this series of ‘Finding Your Ideal Customer’ I think we need to address why it’s important and what the benefits of having an ideal customer are.
Many clients I talk to want to focus on everyone in their market. They are afraid of losing business if they niche or focus on a specific group of customers, but this results in two things :
A spray and pray approach - just as the name suggests you use a scatter gun approach across the market and hope that you reach someone who wants your products and services. Sometimes it will pay off and you find the right person, but most of the time this approach brings little or no return for your investment.
No-one hears what you are saying - try and find a message that resonates with everyone and you’ll end up with no-one hearing what you say. Bar a very few commoditised products, you need to tailor your message to an audience so it resonates with and engages them.
So what are the benefits of focusing on a specific customer group?
COST
The first benefit is cost. If you don’t have to talk to the whole market, the cost of reaching them will be much smaller. Take Facebook Ads, if you target a smaller audience your costs naturally come down. Similarly with offline media, if you only need send direct mail to 200 and not 2000 people the costs are dramatically reduced.
PRIORITISATION
No business has unlimited resources. By prioritising marketing activity that reaches, resonates and engages with your ideal customers, your resources (time and money) are going to be spent in the best way and you’re more likely to be successful.
ACHIEVE YOUR OUTCOMES
Most businesses will define an ideal customer who create the most long term value, but you might have a different view. If you are a holistic therapist who has a passion for healing, you may want customers who you can have the most impact with. Whatever the outcome that you want to generate, focusing on the right customer is a lot more likely to get you there.
FOCUS ACROSS THE BUSINESS
Having a clear view on the customers you want to focus on, allows everyone to focus on the same people. From sales to customer service, everyone across the business is aware of who they need to focus their efforts on. This brings with it synergies across your business and increased cost efficiencies.
CLARITY OF MESSAGE
Probably one of the biggest benefits to being clear on your ideal customers is clarity of message. If you are focused on time poor business owners who run a family business you can create relevant messages for them. Similarly, if you’re all about helping menopausal women then your message will be very different and very specific to them. Being clear on your customer group and keeping them in mind as you create your messaging will ensure that the right people hear what you have to say.
So there’s 5 benefits to focusing on your ideal customer. The next step is to identify who that ideal customer is and we’ll be covering that in article 2.
In the meantime, if you’d like help finding and engaging your ideal customer, please get in touch using our contact form or email me.