5 Top Tips for Really Knowing your Customer

Knowing who you want to serve and knowing who you actually serve can be two different things. In your business vision you may have an idea of who you would like to serve. But is that really who is attracted to your business?

People come in all shapes and sizes, with different experiences and life journeys. Knowing who your real life customers are can help you target your marketing and get the best result for your marketing spend. Here’s 5 ways to think about who your customers are and how you might best provide your products or services to them.

Niching

Some marketers call it ‘niching down’ – knowing exactly who your niche is and how you serve that niche.

Instinctively, business owners often think that if they niche down too much, then it will exclude others from being interested in what you have to offer.  In fact the opposite can be true – by niching down, not only will you attract people from within that niche, but you will also attract others who would like to be in that niche, but perhaps aren’t there yet. With 8 billion people in the world even a narrow niche can be quite large.

For example, let’s imagine your business is selling ride-on mowers. Is your niche the people who already own ride-on mowers or is it people who want to own ride on mowers, but don’t yet? Is it people with a property big enough to warrant buying a ride-on mower or is it the people dreaming of owning that property one day? And at what stage are they likely to be undertaking research and at what point will they make the decision to buy?

Knowing exactly where your ‘ready to buy’ people are can help you maximise your budget.

Demographics

Once you’ve worked out who is in your niche, consider what else they have in common. In our example above, let’s assume that your niche is people who already own property but do not yet own a ride-on mower – the most obvious niche from the example above.

Have you ever stopped to consider what the majority of your customers are like? Are they in a similar age bracket, at a similar life stage, from a common geographic area? Do they have a similar disposable income?

Interests

What other interests does your niche share? Do they have children at school or university? Do they have a city residence and a country getaway where they intend to use the mower or are they tree changers who have moved out of the city for good and are looking to live the good life?

Pain Points

What are the issues that cause them pain in relation to your products or services? In our example above is it weekenders who can’t get to the mower shop on weekends (because it’s closed) but who need to get their mowers serviced? Is it having the time to do the research on which mower best suits their needs?

Their Goals and Values

Knowing what is important to your key customers can give you an insight into how you can better provide value to them.  If the mower customers are weekenders then time constraints may be their challenge and getting things done efficiently, or between weekends may be important to them. Is their goal to get the lawn looking like a bowling green or are they just happy for a rough cut grass to keep the weeds at bay?

Understanding their goals and values will help you to value-add to your products or services and often times you can do this from your existing knowledge or expertise with very little actual cost.

Perhaps you can offer a maintenance or call back service or offer free advice in the form of a written Guide or brochure.

Knowing what your customers are looking for can help build your rapport with them, help keep you top of mind and focus your marketing efforts to their needs.

What can you provide your customers that won’t cost you much more than a bit of time that will keep them wanting to do business with you?

P.S.

Found a spelling or grammatical error in this post? Then contact me as soon as possible and let me know. In return for your super proof reading, I will offer you a free 30-minute review of your digital presence and some fresh ideas you can try out for free.

Get in Touch

If you’d like help with your digital or online marketing, then make a time to chat by using the orange button below. I can help you to:

  1. Clarify your target market.
  2. Identify the suitable images that will resonate with your message and your target market
  3. Create keyword rich content to update your site and entice your customers
  4. Get your digital presence ranking up.

Learn how to think like a marketing pro.

Click here to find out how you can increase turnover and build profit by finding and engaging clients and customers who are excited about your products or services!
UPDATED

Digital Marketing 101

Get regular digital marketing tips without the geek speak or spam.