Sharply defining your customer is a “starting block” for your go-to-market race.
- How many of them are there?
- What size?
- What is the published market research?
- Are there demographic and market research reports written on your target market?
In today’s sophisticated marketing world, you can’t go after a market without being armed with data – fortunately there’s lots of it.
At this stage of the game, you’re not necessarily looking at the way the market works, but simply defining the kind of company that your product or service most fits. Ultimately, it’s about knowing your customer. In every market segment, there are cultures, commonalities, unspoken rules of the game that exist in enclaves of the high tech, business and manufacturing worlds.
You need to know what these are. If you don’t have a feel for the people you’re selling to, you’re already at risk of falling further behind your competition.
While with a consulting firm focused on smaller business services firms, we worked with a small regional web design company with heavy specialization in user experience and interface design. As is typical for companies this size, they defined their customers primarily by geography – any business in their area needing help with larger web projects. Over a two-year period we helped them refocus on one particular market segment they had past success with – large, socially focused non-for-profit organizations.
While this was a positioning move, it was much deeper than just looking a certain way to a particular market – or choosing which mailing list to use. By focusing on the specific non-for-profit sector, they were able to start understanding the target customer’s culture, eventually adopting the language, pace and unspoken “feel” of the non-for-profit world.
They’re back on track, growing revenues and profits with a dedicated core of clients who view them as their specialist firm for web design and deployment in the non-for-profit field. In the same way, your understanding of your target customer will influence your marketing and the direct sales communication you have with them and the way you interact and serve them.
Adapted from the forthcoming eBook, “Know Thy Customer” by Jose Palomino
