Trying to chase all types of customers leads to attracting the wrong kind of customer
Just because someone might have the budget and need for what you sell doesn’t mean they are the right fit for your business.
Trying to chase all types of customers leads to attracting the wrong kind of customer.
How to Customize Marketing to Attract Your Ideal Customer
Today’s customers are invisible until they’re ready to purchase. They don’t call up a company and ask for a brochure or wait for a salesperson to come calling. They do their homework online, asks their network for suggestions and essentially create their own brochure.
Much of what organizations have to do to attract and be found by the ideal customer is customize their marketing processes and it applies across the business in audience development, sales and even service.
Attracting Your Ideal Customer With Marketing
Begin by segmenting and then building a detailed profile of your most successful accounts (profitable+refer your organization).
Your best customers have the following two key behaviors: they are profitable and also refer business to you. Not to mention when customizing your marketing it’s not practical to engage all of your customers in a conversation.
- Discover who your 5–10 best customers are, then email or phone them asking for feedback on your organization and marketing processes.
During this phase your organization needs to “go Oprah” on those 5–10 customers and ask open ended questions. Some of the things you’re after is the MEDIA CHANNELS your customers give their attention (eyes and ears) too, the LANGUAGE your customers use when describing why they buy from you, the WORDS and PHRASES your customers use when explaining what they value about what you do, and the DESCRIPTION of the perfect buying experience. You can’t get that by asking them to rate things from 1 to 10.
5 Open Ended Questions To Ask Your Best Customers
- Why did you decide to hire us or buy from us in the first place?
- What’s one thing we do better than others you do business with?
- What’s one thing we could do to create a better experience for you?
- If you were to refer us what would you say?
- Can you tell me about three other companies that you love?
With that information, develop a detailed profile of your ideal customer. Then, show up in the right places (social media channels, networking events, publications, search engine, mobile) at the right time (when ideal customers are looking to solve a problem or research a solution). You may be featured in fewer publications and meet with fewer people, but you’ll close more sales.
Far too often businesses create advertising campaigns around irrelevant pain points and features, referral programs that don’t create referral motivation, and optimize their websites around industry specific jargon and terms when their ideal customers really pay attention, engage and respond to other communicating factors.
