Marketing Strategy’s Secret Weapon: Customer Clarity

Marketing strategy’s secret weapon is not all that secret.  When you need customers, the feeling that it’s better to be “doing” and figure out what works as you go along can seems right.  The siren song of “we’ll just put it out there and see who it appeals to”, can be strong when you need something to happen.

Resist that urge.

You’ll save time and money in your marketing by spending a bit of your valuable time on the marketing strategy before you start. The mission of strategizing is to gaining as much clarity as you can and focus on your target ideal customer.  How do you gain that clarity?  Here are actions you can take to get that clarity before you start.

1. Create a target customer profile.  Knowing who you are talking to is critical.  This knowledge drives your marketing plan.  If you have more than one target customer profile, make a plan for each.  The reason being is that the all-things-to-all-people approach seldom works. You risk losing credibility with one group while appealing to another.  If you’ve been in business long enough to have some customer history, take a look at the commonality in your best customers.  Is one person representative of that group?  If so, create a profile reflecting that person.  Include everything you know about them – age, location, values, experience, education-level, family, hobbies.  Include psychographics along with demographics.  If you are planning a business, create the profile of the customer you anticipate.

2. Ask questions.  If you need help creating a target customer profile, do some customer insight research.  Find the people you think are your customers and ask them directly for their opinion or feedback.  This is a powerful way to get your marketing operating correctly from the start.

3. Track.  Whatever action or actions you choose, track what you know about your customers going forward.  That way, you’ll know your customer profile was accurate, and you can use it to improve your marketing strategy as you go forward.   If you find you’ve attracted a different customer profile, tracking allows you to adjust to the right customer profile quickly, and get the right marketing in place.

Have you been surprised by your target customer group, or are you stuggling to find one?  Leave me a comment.  I would love to know your story. – Maureen