All too often, whenever I ask a business owner who their ideal target customer is, they spout off figures and incomes, sizes and geography and stop at that.  Are you one of these business owners? While demographic and geographic information is important to know about your customer to make better decisions concerning how you market, understanding the psychographics of your ideal customer is key to making strategic decisions and truly gaining a customer for life.

Whenever I take business owners through the exercise of getting into the heads of their customer, there are always numerous “aha” moments that not only help them make more strategic decisions for their business, but also help them know how to better communicate, attract the right customer AND keep those that are not ideal away.  Also important when going through this exercise is the ability to segment your market based on how they think and the way in which they would do business with you instead what most businesses do … segment according to demographic or industry-specific sectors.

Who is NOT ideal and why? This is one of the first things you need to answer about your ideal market. Why? Because the key to effective marketing and communications is to attract those who are most ideal as customers of your business, while communicating in a way that also discourages those that are not ideal from inquiring. When you communicated from a true knowledge base about your customer, you will also help those less ideal eliminate themselves because they don’t think or approach things in quite the same way. Therefore, your time and energy is spent on those who are most likely to do business with you and who appreciate what you have to offer. Too many businesses spend far too much time trying to convince people to do business with them. If you are spending time convincing, then you are very likely not clear on who your ideal and not ideal customers are.  Consider those customers who have not been ideal in the past? Why is this? What attitude, values or approach in working with you were not appealing about them?

How do they live or work? Some questions to ask about who is ideal include: Who else do they resource for guidance, support, advice or services? What organizations are they involved with personally and professionally? How can you help them live better or do their job better? How can you help them serve their customers better or their family better? What is their company culture like? What is their lifestyle like? What activities are they involved in on a regular basis? Who else influences their decision and how? What do they read on a regular basis? What do they do for entertainment? 

How do they think? Some questions to ask about who is ideal include: What weighs heaviest on their mind and causes them to lose sleep? What is most important to them and why? What could they care less about? What do they wish they had answers to that you could address? Where are they most knowledgeable and where are they least knowledgeable? What values do you share? How are you like them? How are you who they would like to be? How can you help them be more like they want to be? How can you help them be better at something, achieve something, know more about something, improve their circumstances, or get more for their money? How do they view money as it relates to work, life, and spending it? What assumptions do they make about your business that are incorrect? What is it that they may not know that they need to know as it relates to your business?

There are numerous other questions you should be asking as well, but these get you started. If you cannot answer some of these questions about your ideal customer, then take some time now to get the answers. Customers like to be heard and appreciate being asked. Understanding the mentality of your customer will not only increase your confidence level in serving them, but also increase your competitive advantage as your competitors focus only on the demographics and geographics.  Best of all, you will be using your available resources more wisely in attracting customers to your business, which is a bottom-line benefit during these challenging times and any time.