How to Find Your Ideal Customer

First, what EXACTLY does your business/product/service offer to your customers?

Think about these things from your client’s point of view:

What problems you solve….What challenge you address…How does your product/service improve your customer’s life….Why people buy from you and not your competitor…What makes you different/better/sets you apart…Who benefits from your product/service…..Who actually finds value in your product or service?

Next, determine who is your ideal client? NO, the answer is not “Everyone”. This is an attempt to be sure your future marketing is a targeted approach, not just a shotgun approach. You want to be sure you are selling and promoting the right content in order to attract your ideal customer.

This part is work. This will be an overall outline of everything that makes your customers tick.

Hands with laptop typing

First, dig into the demographics of the person your business/product/service would ideally help:

Gender, average age or age range, marital status, interests (AARP or TYPROS), hobbies, attitudes, beliefs, media format they prefer, occupation/industry, location, how they shop, average income, level of education….

What you are looking for here are common threads to help narrow your focus.

You can really get into your customers’ heads by doing some interviews with them or even a customer case study.

Set up time to chat with them, so they will not be interrupted. And really listen! Or consider sending them a survey asking them for their help.

Ask how or where they found out about you, why they choose you over your competitor(s), what they like about you, what they like about your product/service, what they would improve, and how you could do better.

You can also use your Google Analytics to help find out more about your customers.

social-media

  • To find out who has bought from you in the past:

    Depending on how you currently track sales or conversions, you’ll look in Behavior ⇒ Events, Conversions ⇒ Goals, or Conversions ⇒ E-commerce.

  • Find out what topics or content-types your target audience likes best: 

    Go to Behavior ⇒ Site Content, and sort by Page Views.

  • How to find out how most of your target audience found out about your site:

     Go to Acquisition ⇒ Overview, and dig down into each channel to find specific info.

  • If you want some basic demographic info about your audience:

     Go to Audience ⇒ Overview to find info like country, city, language, and even operating system used.

Another way to see what your customers (or potential customers) are thinking is to join industry groups on various social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit to name a few. Here you can see common problems, questions, and comments about your product/service.

You can also use your social media analytics to see who is currently “following” you and dive into your demographics. Keep an eye on your posts and see what gets the most engagement (text, images, videos, etc.).

Through all this research, you should have a much clearer idea of who your target audience is and where they hang out online. This will give you the best chance of reaching your ideal client because you will have a focused marketing plan.

Posted in Marketing