Each Sunday our goal is to share a piece of gold with you. Some small piece of information that helps you to have a better week and achieve a better outcome.  

Today, let’s talk about knowing your target customer.   

No one enjoys the idea of wasting money. However, we see millions of dollars wasted each year on bad or unfocused marketing. Getting the attention of anyone in today’s world has become increasingly difficult. Some say that humans have attention spans equal to that of a goldfish. I’m not sure if that is true or not, but I certainly know that we are continuously hit with a barrage of information, ads, notifications, alerts, messages, and more. Because of this, creating a successful marketing plan requires that you know detailed information about your targets customer.  

In Adapt or Die, we introduce the Target Customer Profile (TCP) Worksheet which outlines many questions that you can use to help gain a better appreciation for where and how to reach your TCP.  

In the worksheet, we look for somewhat obvious answers, like:  

  • Describe your ideal customer. 
  • What is the size of the customer group? 
  • What is the customer’s age group? 

But we also ask additional questions to help your marketing strategy become more focused. Such as:  

  • How does your TCP spend their free time?  
  • How do they further their education or expand their knowledge?  
  • What are their social media preferences?  
  • What value does your product or service provide for them?  

When we filled out the TCP Worksheet at JMARK, we assembled our client Relationship managers, our service team managers, account executives and others together with our marketing professionals. We held a 90-minute meeting and didn’t even make it through the whole process. However, the insights and information gathered were remarkable in helping us apply our marketing dollars in the right areas for each person we decided to focus on reaching.  

We also recommend spending the time and energy to interview existing customers that are your best customers so you can get an inside view of how they perceive your value. Ask questions like:  

  • Why do you do business with us?  
  • What can we do to earn more of your business?  
  • What would we have to do to lose your business?  
  • What is the biggest value you gain from working with us?  
  • If you were going to change something about how we engage, what would it be?  
  • What do you like the best about our product or service?  
  • What do you like the least about our product or service?  
  • What are the events that lead you to decide to purchase from us? 
  • Failure of another resource? 
  • Pain? 
  • Growth? 
  • Business maturity?  
  • What would you recommend we do so we can gain the attention of more people like you?  

These questions will help you to learn how to focus your marketing resources so that you are not “burning” cash, but instead investing in a successful strategy that will have a return.  

To learn more about this and other strategies, check out Adapt or Die and watch for our up coming master class that walks through the Algorithm of Success.