Do you know your ideal customer? Other than one who pays their bills on time, that is. Sometimes in branding, and in marketing, businesses cast too wide a net – and end up spending time, energy and money trying to attract prospects who really aren’t a good fit with your products or services.
Have you ever stopped to think about who your ideal customer is? By ideal customer, we mean a customer who gets their exact needs met with your product or service, and they are happy enough to spread the word. If you haven’t given it any thought, now is a good time, as the market is getting more competitive every day. Here at Brand3, we work with clients to increase your brand’s value, and one of the first steps in that process is to identify ideal prospects, and then build a brand image and develop messaging that speaks directly to fulfilling their needs.
Think about what you offer your customers, from their point of view. What problems do you solve, or what needs do you fulfill? What sets you apart from your competitors? Think about your most successful projects or sales. How can you do more of those projects? When did you have projects or sales that fell through? Why? How can you avoid the same thing happening again?
Consider reading through customer testimonials and reviews (good and bad). Read through project emails. Do you see any common threads in the successes? The answers to these questions will help you with the next step.
We’ve developed a new Discovery Primer to help our clients create an Ideal Customer Profile we can then use to build the brand and brand messaging.
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You may want to divide prospects into three groups, where group A is your ideal customer, group B are real potential clients, and group C, where they probably don’t fit with your company for one reason or another. You should probably eliminate group C from your marketing efforts.
Identifying your ideal customer goes far beyond simple demographics such as age, gender, income, etc. Think about past, current and future customers with regard to things like:
How easy is it for you to contact the key decision maker? Do you have to get past three other people, or will a simple email get a response?
Once you get access to that person, how easy or difficult is it to convert or close the sale?
Take time to evaluate the profitability of each prospect. Easier access and easier conversion means easy profitability. But it may be worth some extra effort to land a new client.
Look at the frequency of sales and overall volume of sales potential from each group. Repeat customers are gold.
Rate each group by how likely they are to sing your praises. Would they offer a testimonial? Make an unsolicited review? Tell others that you’re the only company in your niche they would ever do business with?
Once you’ve identified your ideal customer, the real fun begins, with branding or a brand refresh. Brand3 takes the knowledge we’ve gained in the discovery process and apply it to brand positioning, your mission statement, tagline, brand promise and more as we work with you in your brand development. By clearly defining your ideal customer, you more clearly define your brand value to those customers.
We can then take all of that information and our creative services team can create content for your website and marketing campaign. We do web design & development, so if your website needs a refresh to align with your brand, or you’re a startup without a website, we can help. This content will be designed to answer prospective customer’s questions and help them realize that you offer a solution to their problems, or have the product they need.
Beyond your website, we can also develop targeted marketing materials that go straight to your ideal customer. If you have several market segments, we can develop marketing materials – both digital and print – that will target your ideal customer where they spend the most time. You can market to one group on Facebook, and market to another through direct mail, or to a third market segment with magazine ads. Knowing your ideal customer allows you to spend your branding and marketing dollars wisely.
If you’re interested in learning more about how identifying your ideal customer can shape your branding and help you with targeted marketing, Brand3 can help, by bringing valuable experience and objectivity to the process. Call us today at 844-527-2633 or use our contact form to schedule a consultation. We provide branding services to clients throughout Maryland, and work with clients nationwide.
