Do you know your customer?

All great marketing starts with understanding  your customer. 

Way too often when I ask a client who their target market is and they’ll either say “It’s everyone” or they’ll say some basic demographic information like women 35- 55. Let’s look at this as a series of what you should know about your customer.

Worst - It’s everyone

It’s never everyone. That’s so important I need to repeat it. It’s NEVER everyone. You might want to take money from everyone, but you won’t  market to them.  In some cases it  may be detrimental to do business with them.

In my consulting business I used to take anyone who would pay my fees, but ended up working with clients who really weren’t a good fit. Once I started pre-qualifying clients it greatly improved my ability to consistently deliver results which has improved my income and my peace of mind.

Better than nothing - It’s women 35 – 55

This is much better than everyone, but if that’s your only information your marketing is probably not going to work well.

The 35 year old single, working, Manhattan, New York woman  thinks, acts and purchases very differently than the 55 year old married, retired, Manhattan, Kansas  grandmother. Even if both would use your product you need to market it to them differently.

Basics - Demographic profile

A basic demographic profile will at least answer questions like age, sex,  income, educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, race, marriage status and even location.

Age – not more than a 10 year age range for a basic profile. If your product/service crosses several age ranges/ customer personas create marketing for the most important segments. Start with your most profitable and work from there.

Sex – Men and women need to be marketed to differently. An online fitness company was selling a fitness training product and found that while their program worked for both men and women they were converting men.  Once they looked at the research they found that women weren’t looking for “six pack abs” they were looking for a “flat stomach.”  They  created an additional ad series targeting women and a doorway page to his main website that asked if they were a man or a woman and doubled their business with minimal effort.

Single / married /children – single people purchase different products and services than married people.

Income – how much do they earn will affect their potential purchasing power.

Home Ownership –a home owner purchases different things than a renter.

You should always have a good basic understanding of your customers demographics.

Better - Demographic and Psychographic data

Demographics explain who your customer is and psychographics explain the reasons why  they buy.  Major factors to understand are lifestyle, social economic group and personality.

One of the best explanations is Young and Rubensteins’  4CS (Cross Cultural Consumer Characterization) It’s their proprietary psychographical segmentation model that places consumers into seven unique character groups based on the motivations that drive them.

The 4Cs

Resigned             Rigid, strict, authoritarian and chauvinist values, oriented to the past and to Resigned roles. Brand choice stresses safety, familiarity and economy. (Older)

Struggler             Alienated, Struggler, disorganized - with few resources apart from physical/mechanical skills (e.g. car repair). Heavy consumers of alcohol, junk food and lotteries, also trainers. Brand choice involves impact and sensation.

Mainstreamer   Domestic, conformist, conventional, sentimental, passive, habitual. Part of the mass, favouring big and well-known value for money 'family' brands. Almost invariably the largest 4Cs group.

Aspirer Materialistic, acquisitive, affiliative, oriented to extrinsics ... image, appearance, charisma, persona and fashion. Attractive packaging more important than quality of contents. (Younger, clerical/sales type occupation)

Succeeder           Strong goal orientation, confidence, work ethic, organization ... support status quo, stability. Brand choice based on reward, prestige - the very best . Also attracted to 'caring' and protective brands ... stress relief. (Top management)

Explorer               Energy - autonomy, experience, challenge, new frontiers. Brand choice highlights difference, sensation, adventure, indulgence and instant effect - the first to try new brands. (Younger - student)

Reformer            Freedom from restriction, personal growth, social awareness, value for time, independent judgement, tolerance of complexity, anti-materialistic but intolerant of bad taste. Curious and enquiring, support growth of new product categories. Select brands for intrinsic quality, favoring natural simplicity, small is beautiful.(Higher Education)

Best 

Demographic/Psychographic profiles combined with social behavior and/or purchase behavior

With today’s technology you can track customers online and offline behavior. Items  like lifetime events, purchase history, items liked online and even browsing history.  It’s combination of offline data with online data that is a treasure trove for smart marketers who only want to market to people who are interested in products like theirs.

Online Behavior – pages liked, videos watched, websites visited, online purchases

Lifetime events – When someone gets engaged, gets married, has a birthday or has a child.

Offline purchases - - Purchase a car, purchase a home, moves to a new city and other offline purchase behavior.

Think about your customer and how lifetime events and their social behavior effects their purchasing behavior. The better we know our customers the better we can market to them.

If you need help understanding how you can access some of the targeting tools  give me a call and I’ll help you develop a better customer profile.

Doug McIsaac

I love helping companies experience exponential growth. If you are starting out and are dead-serious about taking action and growing a business, I can help you.

I'll show you how to generate leads and customers online the right way. Using best practices, practical experience, and passion, I use the most cutting edge tactics in SEO, PPC, Content Creation, Social Media, and Web Design to make sure you're found online, high quality leads are generated, your phones ring and new customers are acquired at a profit. We're serious about results and ROI.

Let's schedule a call and get to work!

Doug McIsaac
McIsaac Ventures
Social Montana