An Actionable Framework for Analysing Your Customers

In this Impact Commons piece, Impact Amplifier Director, Tanner Methvin sheds light on Target Market(s), Competitive Landscape and Value Proposition. Later in the article, we’ve shared a link to a free module from our Impact-OS Investment Readiness course for social entrepreneurs, which covers these subjects in more detail.

The most common mistake social ventures make regarding their current and potential customer base is not applying any kind of framework or systemic thinking to who their customers are and why they would buy their goods or services. Without applying this kind of rigour, it leaves entrepreneurs without a process or the tools to keep navigating their market until they reach sustainability and can position themselves to thrive.

There are four key questions to apply when thinking about your target markets:

?? Who are your current and potential customers? The best way to answer this question is by developing personas for each customer type:

1.??? Who are they (age, gender, profession)?

2.??? What does a day in their life look like (movements, purchasing patterns and power)?

3.??? What do they value in life (likes, dislikes, goals, loyalties)??

??How big are your customer segments? Once personas are established, it is critical to use a market sizing tool for each persona. The tool we find useful addresses three key questions:

1.??? How big is the total addressable market (everyone that potentially could buy your good/service)?

2.??? What is your served available market (everyone already buying a good/service like yours)?

3.??? What is the serviceable obtainable market (customers to target in the immediate future because they can be accessed and secured)?

?? Who are the competitors for your serviceable obtainable market? It is critical to understand who your competitors are; where and how they compete with you; what about them is better/worse than your offering; and why will any of their existing customers switch to your good/service? Too many entrepreneurs delude themselves into believing they don’t have competitors or they are so superior that their competitors are not worth considering. Everyone has competitors, and it is critical to understand why your potential customers have chosen them.

??What is your value proposition for each customer persona? One value proposition may not work for all your different customer types, so developing different versions can be critical. A value proposition should be able to be articulated into a simple sentence structure, like: For?(target user) who wants/needs?(target application), the?(product name)?is a?(product category) that provides?(compelling reason to buy). Unlike?(main competitor), our product?(statement of primary differentiation). ?

Once you know who you are targeting, the size of that group, who else is serving their needs and what makes you different, you can begin to design and plan around how you will market to them so that they can: See you; Know who you are; Like you; and Buy your services.

?? FREE RESOURCE: Impact-OS Target Markets, Competitors and Value Proposition Module

Our team has given you free access to our learning management system, which covers these essential subjects in more details for a fixed period of two weeks.

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3 Easy steps to gain free access

1.??? Click ‘Enroll’ on the course titled Investment Readiness Accelerator - Target Market 2024 Edition

2.??? Create your login details for secure access

3.??? On the course overview page, click the ‘Start Now’ button to access your free Target Market module

?Start here >

Introducing ?‘Impact Commons’ for social entrepreneurs, by Impact Amplifier Director, Tanner Methvin .

Impact Commons is a firewall-free collection of fast, sharp and invaluable insights for social entrepreneurs who have completed their startup phase and are now ready to scale. It is about learning quickly from an expert to avoid applying capital to costly resources and processes unnecessarily.