Who's ideal?

Who is your ideal customer?

Do you know?

Have you ever really thought about it carefully and properly defined who this person is?

And I'm not talking about writing down some nonsense psychographics and demographic personas that ad agencies love to do; I'm talking about some real data-driven research into who this is.

Weirdly not too many organisations have a clear definition of who their ideal customer is. Plus when we use the word 'ideal' - we're not talking just about people who's needs perfectly sync with what we're selling.

An ideal customer is one who:

• Wants what you offer
• Is willing to pay full price
• Likes to buy high margin items
• Is loyal and sticks around as a active customer for a long time
• Buys often
• Tells all of their friends to become customers too
• They might also help to suggest improvements to the offering and give really useful insights

If you have a customer that behaves like this - you obviously want to keep them, for as long a possible and try to recruit more customers who behave similarly to them.

Equally, it's important to also know who are the individuals that you don't want as a customer.

Less-than-ideal customers are:

• Difficult to convert
• Buy only when there is a sale
• Always have a complex problem that needs to be resolved
• Quick to use social media to complain
• Buy infrequently
• Are expensive to lure back through discount vouchers or traditional acquisition expenditure

It's obviously a far better idea to identify who your ideal customers are and focus you efforts on them, rather than wasting time and money on trying to service your less-than-ideal customers.

Here's a nice example to illustrate:

When you go to the ballet next time, notice that there are audience members that are the good ballet customers (usually middle-aged women who were all ballerinas when they were 6 years old) and their accompanying long-suffering husbands / boyfriends / potential lovers who even though they have a paid-for ticket - are not ballet fans at all.

The non-ballet lovers who probably rather watch a game where the Springboks lose to Georgia by 50 points than be sitting watching Swan Lake.

Both of these customers are sitting in the audience, both clap when appropriate, both paid the same price for the ticket - but only some of them need to be impressed by what's happening on stage. The grace and sweat and precision is lost on the others.

Knowing who's who and adjusting your treatment accordingly is the difference between a business that ultimately thrives over the long-term and one that wastes increasing amounts of marketing money just to stay in the same place.

It's fair to say that this is fairly critical information to have. Right?

Clarify your strategic intent

Over the years, Jonathan Cherry has consulted to numerous organisations helping them clearly define their strategic intent and strategy map for accelerated business growth and resilience in uncertain times.

If you need a facilitator to take you through this process for your organisation, please get in touch here to chat with Jon.