Who is your best customer? We ask our clients this question a lot. Before we get into tips for discovering the answer, let’s clarify something. The answer is NOT everyone. Even if everyone can use your product or service, everyone is not your best customer. You can’t effectively market to the whole world. It’s too hard. Let’s talk about some ways you can identify who your best customer is.

 

Look at Your Current Client Base

Look at your analytics and insights from Google and from your social media platforms. This will allow you to see who’s engaging with you now. Look at your invoices. Who are you serving already? Your current database will help you determine your future database. For instance, if you’re a wedding planner and you know your next customer is usually your last customer’s bridesmaid, that’s valuable information to help you plan your marketing efforts. 

 

Consider Their Habits

 

What is your customer looking for? Where do they spend their time? Are they an Apple or an Android? Laptop or mobile? (That’s rapidly becoming mobile for everybody, FYI.) Knowing the answer to these questions will help narrow your field.

 

The Big 3: Demographic, Psychographic, and Geographic

Demographic includes things like age, gender, income, and marital status. For instance, an employed, 23 year old, African-American female who makes $50K per year. Psychographic has more to do with their lifestyle. It includes things such as social status, opinion, and activities. For instance, a trendy person who hangs out in coffee shops and loves Disney. Geographic is, of course, where they are physically located. To find your ideal client you really need to take each of these identifiers into consideration. 

 

What Are Their Goals?

 

What are your ideal client’s goals? What objective are they trying to accomplish with you? That sounds really simple but it’s deeper than that. Let’s say you’re a heating and air company. What are your client’s goals? Are they trying to maintain their system so they don’t have to replace it or are they trying to keep their power bill down? Those are 2 very different objectives. Is your biggest money-maker the maintenance calls where you go out and inspect and maintain HVAC units for $199 and you can do those all day or is it new construction where you are doing complete system installation? You need to know which is a better fit for you. 

 

Their Fears

 

What is your ideal client afraid of? For example, if you’re an HVAC company, they’re afraid of being hot. This is Alabama. You don’t want your air going out. I don’t want to get brain damage because my AC went out for 24 hours so maintenance is a big deal. Also, I don’t want to pay $400 a month for my bill so that is another fear your client may have. You have to identify your client’s fear so you can craft your marketing to appeal to them. 

 

How Do They Make Their Buying Decisions?

Is your ideal client an impulse buyer or a researcher? Do they need feedback from others? Knowing this is a big deal. If you are a retailer it may be more impulse. Someone may get online, see your coffee mug, and think “Oh, I have to buy this!” If it’s impulse you know you need a shop set up on your website and the ability for people to pay online. 

 

If your ideal client is more of a researcher, you have to have the information they’re looking for available on your website. If they want other people’s input, you need testimonials readily available. 3rd party endorsements, such as those on Yelp, Google, and Facebook will be extremely valuable. You have to ensure your current clients are giving feedback so that your future clients will see it. 

 

Less is More

 

When it comes to ads, knowing your ideal client is going to be very beneficial to you. If you can niche that target down it’s going to be more cost-effective and easier to hit. Remember that the riches are in the niches as they say. 

 

Who Do You Want to Work With?

 

This last one is very important. Identify who you actually want to work with. You know what I am talking about. Everyone has dream clients that are just amazing. The kind of clients that when they call you, you are happy. Everyone has also had those clients that when they call you look at your phone and groan. Stop working with those types of clients. If you don’t connect, it’s not a good fit. You can’t be everything to everybody. You can’t make everyone happy. You’re not chocolate. That’s not how it works. 

 

Who is Your Ideal Client Avatar?

 

Now that you have the steps to narrow your focus, spend some time this week discovering your ideal client avatar and watch your marketing efforts go a lot farther.