As an entrepreneur or business owner, it is very important to focus your time and energy on targeting the right customer. Knowing how to target your ideal customer comes from knowing who your client is in the first place. It’s important to define your product or service from your potential customer’s point of view, which we will touch on shortly.

The ability to determine your consumer and to satisfy your customers so that they are a returning client should be your main focus as a business. If you know who your target audience is, your marketing efforts will be more focused and specialized on this particular individual.

If you think of any type of business, the end goal is to satisfy their clients in one way or another. Whether it be with a new product they are selling, a new tool to help with the security of your software, or a new way to market a business. None of this is possible if you are targeting the wrong audience and you are not putting your product or service in front of your ideal customer.

Do you know your ideal customer?

Some businesses might struggle with determining who their customer is, and that’s ok at the start. However, if any business is going to succeed; they need to have an income stream. Therefore, they can only be in business for so long before they need to determine who their business is designed for. What type of problem is your business or service solving for someone else? These customers are your target! You want to target customers who will benefit from your product or service. What needs is your product or service solving for that customer? How does your business improve your ideal customer’s life?

Who will benefit from your product or service?

What is your ideal customer’s age? Are you targeting both men and women? What is their education or occupation? What is their situation like on a day-to-day basis? It’s important to do your research and compile as much data on your ideal customer in order to figure out exactly who they are. Existing customers can help set the precedence for this as well as your digital platforms. You can utilize social media to help determine your customers and how they can benefit from your business.

Research the social media platforms your customers use:

Social Media

There are many ways to utilize social media for businesses, but you need to know how to properly use each platform. One platform might speak more to your business and customers than the other, therefore, trying out each platform might produce different results.

One way to find out is to survey your current customers if you are not a start-up business. By surveying your customers, you can find out which social platforms they use, if they read blogs regularly, what type of people they follow or dedicate time to, and whether or not they listen to podcasts. You can compile this data, which will help you find the right audience. Then, you can put that data to use with media campaigns, blogging prospects, and ad dollars to narrow in on the exact audience you need to target your product or service.

For example Facebook Ads – you can use different email lists to target specific people who have opened your emails or have sent you an email in the past and this ad will show to them and people with similar interests.

Determine precisely when your ideal customer purchases your product or service:  

Is there a specific time of the year that your customer purchases your product or service or a specific day of the week? What has to happen in order for that customer to purchase from you? Once this information is determined, it will help you communicate better with your ideal customers in order to help complete the sale. Some of this information can be pulled from Social media or Google analytics. All this information you generate will help you market your business to the right audience and hopefully amplify your business’s growth potential.

One quote that speaks wonders to me is “When you try to serve everyone, you end up serving no one.” Likewise, don’t let this happen to you! Find your ideal customer and do everything you can to answer their problems and keep them as a returning customer. Happy customers are usually returning customers if the need is there, which means less marketing you will have to do to find more customers!

About the author:

Tali is a results-driven digital marketer with a track record of growing her clients’ businesses and driving revenue. Her 15 years of varied and in-depth experience has helped to make her an industry leader. In a rapidly evolving field, she’s been able to stay several steps ahead of the mainstream trends.

As the business owner at WSI Digital Path, Vaughan, she takes great pride in delivering powerful but cost-effective solutions for her clients.