In every business, it’s important to know who your ideal customer is. Entrepreneurs and business owners often make mistakes because they don’t know who their target customer is. When business owners first figure out who their ideal customer is, it’s often a time of a lot of change. Business owners run their companies for years without knowing who their target market is. They don’t understand why sales are always so hard and don’t seem to go smoothly.
Every business owner should know who they want to do business with. The main goal of every business should be to find a customer, sell your product or service to that customer, and make sure the customer is happy enough that he or she would buy from you again. If you know who you want to market to, your efforts will be more focused and likely to work. The easier it will be to make content for your target audience, the more you know about them. People start coming up to you. When a possible customer thinks you “get” them, your offer is much more appealing.
There are different steps involved in determining your ideal customer.
- Define your product or service from the customer’s point of view
Customer-focused companies think about how their customers feel. So, their products and services are made with the customer in mind. Marketers also make it easy or comfortable for customers to place orders. Zhanna Sedrakyan, Director of Operations and Management at Contact Consumers says, “Customers must be happy with what they buy, or they will start to buy products from other companies. That’s why business owners try to give all customers a good time when they shop or buy something”.
Choices of products
A customer-focused approach means making products that people want. Customers usually have different tastes, so product options include things like features, sizes, designs, scents, flavors, and other parts of the items. For a company to be customer-focused, it needs to know how to correctly identify its key customers and market segments. Some customers may choose to buy better goods. Others may care more about the price. For clients who are sensitive to prices, marketers need to set acceptable price ranges. Small businesses often do customer surveys to find out what products and prices customers like best.
Advertising
When advertising, small businesses must also think about how the customer sees things. They have to send the right messages to catch their attention and get them to buy their products. Marketers also need to know what kinds of media their customers read so they can reach them. Not every person who buys something is a customer. Businesses are also customers that buy services. And business owners and managers read a wide range of magazines. For example, managers of consumer products may read magazines like “Advertising Age” and “Businessweek” that are aimed at the business world.
Distribution
When selling their products, marketers have to think about how the customer sees things. One way they do this is by giving their clients things that are important to them. For example, a restaurant that wants to cater to the lunchtime crowd might choose a spot downtown near other businesses. Banks often open grocery stores to reach more people and be open longer. This means that bank customers can do their business later at night. In the same way, an online business may make a website that is easy for customers to use and buy from.
Benefits
Customer-focused methods can help small businesses in a number of ways. One benefit could be more sales and money coming in. Companies are more likely to sell more things if they have products that people want at prices that are fair. More sales can lead to more money in the bank. When a business owner carefully looks at the customer’s point of view, he is more likely to get more customers. People are more likely to shop at a store where they have had a good experience in the past. They often stick with certain businesses, restaurants, or products for a long time.
According to Helga Dosa, Head of Marketing at Brand Rated, “The biggest benefit of having an ideal customer is that it allows you to focus your marketing efforts. Instead of trying to reach everyone, you can focus on the people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service”.
- Define your Ideal Customer
Every business wants to get a good return on the money it spends on marketing and sales. This means bringing in customers and prospects who will help your business grow. Most of the time, they are the same customers you already know well and can serve well.
Unless you have an unlimited budget for marketing, you should give the most attention to clients who will help your business the most. To do this, you need to first figure out who your ideal customer is. You can do this by making a “profile of the ideal customer.”
Who would be the ideal customer?
What does the perfect customer look like? It tells you what kind of customer will get the most out of what you have to offer and give you the most in return. As described in your ICP, your ideal client is the type of customer on whom you will focus for a certain amount of time.
Your ICP will be a fictitious firm or organization if you operate as a B2B firm. If you have a business that deals directly with consumers, your ICP will be a detailed description of your ideal clientele. In your profile, you will talk about what makes this company or type of customer unique. ICPs, which stand for “ideal customer profiles,” can be made for a wide range of goals, services, and situations. Your ICP may change as your life changes.
ICPs are different from buyer personas. This is very important info. Your ICP should match up with any buyer personas you make. If the ICP shows a business, the buyer personas will talk about employees like Max the marketer, or Sally the CEO. If the ICP stands for a certain type of customer, the buyer persona gives a more complete picture of the people in that group.
How do you find the perfect customer?
How will you put together this ICP? The following is what you should do.
Describe situation
Before you can make an ICP, you have to say what it’s for. This will give you the drive to keep working toward your goal. It will also help you avoid FOMO since you can make multiple accounts with different settings. For each event, it is important to have a clear and focused profile. Describe the following things about your situation:
Write down what you want to accomplish with your ICP. It could be money, a lot of new customers, people who speak up for your customers, or something else.
Your timetable: Put a time limit on when you want to reach your goal. This will help you stay on the right path.
Your current skills are: Think about your skills and make sure you can finish the task in the time you’ve given yourself.
Tell them what you can do for them.
Part of figuring out who your ICP is is figuring out what kind of value you would give to your ICP. This number could be very different depending on your products and services, your business, and many other factors.
As a B2B company, you can increase your value by helping your customers do things like make more money, save money, be more efficient, give better customer service, or boost morale. If you run a business that sells things to people, you might be able to help them save time or money, learn a new skill, have fun, get healthier, or improve their relationships.
There are many ways for a business to help its customers in a positive way. You just have to choose which ones work best for you.
Explain what an Ideal customer would bring to the table
You also need to figure out how much an ideal customer is worth to your business. Like the value you give your customers, this feature can be very different.
People will pay money for your goods or services. This is the most obvious reason. Still, there is a chance that you will get even more out of it. In an ideal world, a customer would tell others about your business, leave a positive review online, or share one of your social media posts. They might have ideas that help your business and its products get better. You might also like clients who are easy to help and don’t need as much hand-holding.
Find out who your best clients are
If you look at the customers you already have, you might find something that will help you figure out who your ideal customer is. Pick your 10 best customers and find out what makes them so great. Often, the answer lies in what they both have in common.
Start with what you know about your customers already. This information could include what kind of business they run, where it is located, and how big it is in terms of how much money it makes each year or how many people work there. Check your records to find out what they can do for your business. Then, talk to your best customers about how they buy things and how your business could help them.
The owner of Cardboard Cutouts, James Green, says that making a detailed profile of your ideal customer can help your marketing message be more effective. If you know who your target audience is, you can tailor your message to them and make your marketing more effective. To make a profile of your ideal client, you need to think about everything about your consumer.”
Set up your page
Next, make an ICP using the information you gathered and what you learned while making customer profiles for your best customers. What kind of person do you think would buy something from you? Here is where you explain what it is. Give some basic information about them, like what they do, where they are, and, if you can, how big they are. Include information about how much money they can spend on your product or service.
Define the short-term and long-term goals, brand values, and biggest pain points for their company. Show how these problems are affecting how they do business. Then, explain how your approach will help solve these problems as much as possible.
Also, tell them how they can buy the things you sell. Write about how customers decide and who the most important decisions are made by. Note how they do their research and what they think is the most important thing when making decisions. They may depend on word of mouth a lot. They might also want to try the item out first before buying it.
As you progress, improve your profile
Most of the time, you won’t get everything right the first time. There are no problems. As you work with more customers and learn more about what you can do for them and what they can do for you, your ICP may change. Make sure to check your ICP often to make sure it is still up to date. Check your sales, internet traffic, and any customer complaints to see how well your profile is working.
How do you find the right people to buy from?
What do you do after you’ve found your ideal customer? You must use the information to find new customers who meet the ICP. You must also retain your current consumers. The tips below will help you use your ICP to get more of your ideal customers and make more money.
Tell your people
If people in your company don’t know about your ICP, they won’t be able to use it. Once you’ve made an ICP, share it with everyone on your team who needs to know about it, especially those who work directly with customers, like sales and marketing. Everyone thinks the same.
When you tell your team about your ICP, they will be able to use it to guide their work and make sure that everyone is working toward the same goal, which is getting your ideal customer. If your ICP changes, let your staff know.
Make Strategies
Once you’ve made an ICP, you can use it to guide your plan for getting and keeping ideal clients. Your ideal customer profile might help you figure out how to go about marketing, sales, and making new products. You should use all of these strategies to meet the needs of your potential clients and show them that you can give them the answers they’re looking for. Now is a great time to start making client profiles that will help with your marketing.
Change the way you talk
In your ICP, you should talk about the problems and wants of your ideal customers, or at least the ones that your solution solves. You could also write about their likes, dislikes, values, and personality traits. With this information, you can make ads and sales materials that are aimed at your most likely customers.
Now that you know more about these customers, you may decide to change how you deal with them. Because of this, they may feel more at ease talking to you. If you’re trying to sell business software to professionals and you know that the most important thing to them is how easy it is to use, you should focus on that.
Find the right people to talk to
By looking at the information in your ICP, you can target a certain age group or type of person when making an ad campaign. If your ICP says that your ideal customer is between the ages of 18 and 24, then only people in that age range should see your ads. Using this policy, you may be able to boost sales while lowering the costs of advertising to the people you don’t want to reach.
If you learn to shoot more accurately, you can save a lot of money. On average, marketers think that they waste 26% of their money on methods and media that don’t work.
Talk to each other
Before you can count on people’s money, you have to convince them to buy your products, but the conversation with them shouldn’t end there. After the sale, get in touch with them to ask for reviews, offer technical support, or make more offers.
Business-to-business (B2B) entrepreneurs often have to help their customers use their products or services to make sure they get the return on investment they were hoping for. If you do this, you can keep your customers happy and improve the reputation of your business.
After a customer has used your products and found them useful, you must convince them that your B2B solution has also been useful. Because of this, there will be less confusion about prices and more repeat business.
How do you find people who might become new customers?
If you find that more of your ideal customers are coming to you, there is still room to grow. One way to get more customers and fans is to go to different places.
Lookalike Audience
Lookalike audience modeling is an effective way for marketers to get more customers. This method uses machine learning to look at a target demographic and figure out what makes it unique. As an example, you might focus on a subset of customers who share your ICP as your main target group. The program can then look for other options that are the same in other ways.
If the demographics of your ideal customer profile (ICP) match those of your lookalike audience, you have a winner. You can also find out more about the kinds of people who might be interested in your products and services.
Don’t stop using your ICPs
Keep your ICP up-to-date as you learn more about the kind of customers who will get the most out of what you have to offer. Lookalike modeling or another method could be used to get this information. Keeping your ICP up-to-date could help you find new important clients you hadn’t thought of before.
You can also make new ICPs if you find a new group of customers who could use your services. Keep in mind that you might have a lot of ICPs for different services, products, and scenarios. If you think about who you want to reach, you might find new ways to get customers and get into new markets.
3. Figure out how your customer buys things.
The customer buying process, which is also called the purchase decision process, shows the steps a customer goes through before buying your products. If your salespeople know how your customers buy, it will not only help them, but it will also help you make sure that your sales methods are right.
Figure out the problem or need
People often say that this is the first and most important step in how a customer makes a decision. If you don’t know why you need something, you can’t buy it. The need could have come from inside (like hunger or thirst) or from outside (such as advertising or word of mouth).
Stephen Jacobs, Chief Innovative Officer of Proximity Mills, says, “Your ideal client is the type of person who is most likely to be interested in and benefit from your products or services.” If your company is new, it might be a little harder. But figuring out what problems your business can solve for potential customers can help you narrow your attention.”
Searching Information
After figuring out what the problem or need is, a client may look for information to help them decide what the best thing to do is. This is the buyer’s attempt to find information sources inside and outside the company that relates to the most important buying decision. Your customer can get information from words, pictures, the Internet, and other people.
Evaluation of Alternatives
Customers will think about different products or brands based on their different qualities and whether or not they can give the customer what they want. At this time, what the customer thinks is very important. Another important part of the assessment process is getting people involved. A client, for instance, will think about more than one business or brand if they are interested and have a good attitude. They will only think about one company or brand if they know they can’t trust them.
Alternatives to buy
In the next-to-last step, the purchase is made. Philip Kotler said in 2009 that negative feedback from previous customers and a lack of motivation to listen to the criticism could “disrupt” a final decision to buy. After the first three steps are done, a customer may decide to buy a new telescope. But if his best friend, who is a passionate astronomer, tells him he’s wrong, he’ll have to think again.
Behavior after a purchase
Buyers will compare what they got to what they thought they would get and decide if they are happy or not. Because of this, these stages are very important for keeping clients. This can make a big difference in whether or not you buy similar items from the same company in the future. It can also affect the information search and alternative evaluation phases. If your customer is happy, they will stick with your business, and the stages of gathering information and thinking about options will often be sped up or skipped altogether.
Conclusion
Whether you succeed or fail depends on how well you can find and attract the right customers. How might growing your network of possible customers help you sell more? How can I get more people to buy what I have to sell? Find out what makes you different and make that your main point of conversation.
The vast majority of business owners don’t have a clue who their best customers are. So, businesses lose money when they try to sell their product to people who don’t need them. The success of your business will depend on how well you can find and market to the people who can get your product or service the fastest.
