Identifying Customers

Who Will Your Customers Be?

Identifying customers are is a very important part of the planning for your new business. If you don’t know who is going to buy your products or services, why they will buy, or where to find them, your marketing efforts are likely to be ineffective at best.

Why Will Customers Buy Your Product or Service?

Customers do not buy your products because of the features.

Although the color, style or add-ons might influence their buying behavior, it is actually the benefit they will gain or the problem that will be solved by owning the product.

Before you can identify your target customers you need to gain some insight into what the benefit is to the customer, and how important that benefit is to him or her.

Who are Your Target Customers?

Potential customers can be identified by personal characteristics such as age, race, religion, gender, income level, family size, occupation, education level and marital status. Each of these criteria will influence the level of interest in your product or service and the ability of the customer to purchase from you.

Another factor in the desirability of your product and services to your target group will be how well it satisfies their buying needs.

To target you offering appropriately you need to find our what is it about your product or service that your target customers really care about. If the target group cares about price, there is no point in providing a product with all the bells and whistles, but at a higher price.

Understanding the buying behavior is also important. Do your target customers buy your product or service just once, or will they buy over and over again? How long does it take them to make the buying decision and who is it that actually makes the decision?

Finding Your Target Customers?

Once you have developed a comprehensive profile of your target customers, you will need to work out where you are going to find them. Will they come to you, necessitating a shop front or on-line presence or will you have to go to them? Do they read newspapers or trade journals or are they members of professional associations? Are they involved in family activities or the local community?

All of the information you with the process of while identifying customers will be invaluable when you are trying to design your marketing strategy and planning where to spend your advertising dollars.

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