Want to attract new business? Know your customer. This advice might seem obvious, but how many small and medium-sized business owners really know the demographic information of their best customers? These are the repeat customers who’ve developed a loyalty to your business—and they are key to your long-term success.
To get the best results from your marketing, develop a template that shows your writers and designers your best customer. This will give them the foundation to create ads, web content and marketing collateral that are focused on your best customers, so you can reach others like them and expand your customer base.
How to build customer personas
If you don’t have the time or money to do a customer survey or focus groups, think about the problem(s) your product or service solves. If it’s a health-related solution, identify who would benefit—men? Women? Both? A particular age group? Is it a product that’s not covered by insurance—will they need to be in a higher economic segment to purchase it?
Don’t stop until you’ve gotten to know your ideal customer. Is he or she educated? In a particular profession or industry? What attracts them the most—bargains, exclusivity, fear or wanting to fit into a demographic or lifestyle group? Are they married or single?
Start piecing the information together to build a basic outline of who your best customer is.
Characteristics provide you with information
If your product target is married men, the things that appeal to them can be different from divorced women. And their interests can vary widely with their age group.
If your sales come from a particular profession, your best customer may require specialized education. If that’s the case, consider including industry jargon in your marketing. Use those terms properly if you want to have any credibility in that professional space.
List your customer’s demographic statistics*, choose a name for your customer and create a short paragraph describing his or life. The more fleshed out you can make your persona’s life, the easier it is for your writers, designers and marketing strategists to understand your persona’s needs and create marketing that will appeal to them.
*Demographic basics: Sex, age range, relationship status, children or no, education-level, income range and professional status.