Profiling Your Target Customer
Today studies are showing that a potential customer needs to be warmed to your product and service through around ten different touch points (often spanning a year), before they feel comfortable enough committing t a purchase decision.This is a long term game - requiring a clear vision of what yo aim to achieve and then consistently showing up to the best of your ability in a positive mindset and willing to serve and support others,
A key component of this strategy is identifying what platforms your ideal customer hang out on and consistently offering value to them on those platforms. The value you provide can be saving time or money, making more money, making life easier, increasing their happiness, etc. Always keep this thought in the back of your mind, “what can you do for your customers”? Instead of “what can I get from my customers”?
The first step you need to take is to define your target market. Having a clear profile of your target customers will help you weed out the ‘maybes’ and ‘nevers’, and ensure that your marketing activities are targeted and cost-effective.
Consider the following in profiling your target customer
- Where do they live? Their interests? Age?
- What stories do they collectively value?
- What type of platforms do they frequent?
- Identify the traits, habits and demographics of your ideal customer.
- Identifying the pains and gains they have.
- Developing a survey to gather information about different challenges they have you could a provide solutions to.
- Testing the fit of your product and necessary adaptions.
- Getting early feedback on uptake of product by your ideal customer.
- How to find out where your audience hangs out and create a presence there.
- How to connect positively with your customers in ways that add value.
Once you have clarified who your ideal customer is you can further differentiate between the early adopters (who are more likely to initially buy from you) and he mainstream market (which is more accessible once your product is further developed). At an early stage of development feedback is critical and you need to engineer as many opportunities to engage with your early adopters and refine your product as possible.
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