Who Is Your Customer?

What do you know about your potential customers? Do you know who they are? Can you make a list of the interests, needs, fears and desires that they all share?

These are important questions. If you don't know who and what your customers are, your marketing efforts are going to be non-specific & un-targeted -- in other words, "Generic". And while generic advertising may pull in a sale here and a sale there, it is not going to put you on anybody's top-ten list.

No matter how great your website is, it is the words that make up your content that make the difference. Good navigation, interesting graphics and a pleasant layout are great, but all that is just "Packaging" and packaging does not sell much.

Nor does it matter if you are selling your own product or if you are an affiliate. If you want your efforts to produce more sales, if you want to convert more of your casual visitors into paying customers, you really do need to know exactly who your target audience is. Only then can you tailor your marketing to them, and the higher conversion rates you want will follow automatically.

Don't assume that everyone is a potential customer. Even if your product or service is such that "Everyone" actually is a potential customer, your marketing should still target the specific needs of the individual. The more targeted you can make your advertising, the more likely they will respond, and the more sales you will make.

The first thing to do is define who, exactly, your target audience is. Get into their heads and walk a mile in their shoes. Doing that will help you to write your ads, reviews, articles and recommendations so they feel as if you are talking directly to them. They will feel as if you understand where they are coming from, where they are going and how they want to get there.

Let's do an exercise: Say your product is ... um... Relaxation CDs. Okay then, who are the potential customers for Relaxation CDs?

* Stressed-out executives
* Students studying for finals
* Insomniacs
* Stay-at-home moms

If you use the same approach, the "Generic" approach, for each of them you will have a few sales. On the other hand, if you were to create different advertisements leading to separate landing pages for each of them your sales will go through the roof!

Why? Because even if they have the same needs, they perceive those needs differently:
the stressed-out exec wants to unwind after work...
the student wants to concentrate on her studies...
the insomniac just wants to get to sleep...
and so on.

It's up to you to figure out the different reasons that people would want your product or service... and the different reasons they would buy from you.

How do they perceive their own wants & needs?
What are they most frustrated with?
What do they wish to accomplish?

They may have the same needs, but they'll have different wants. For the exec landing page, you write the benefits of your Relaxation CDs to emphasize the after-work relaxation. For the student who wants to pass the finals, a landing page that emphasizes the aid to concentration will be more appropriate ... and so on.

I can hear you now: "But Tim, that's a lot more work!"

Yes it is. So what? Are you really satisfied with the trickle of sales you've been getting? Are you really willing to keep working your 9-to-5 until you're 65? Or are you willing to figure out who you can best market to and make the effort to cater to their specific wants & needs?

The answers to the following questions will help you to identify with your target audience. The closer you can identify with them the better your efforts will be rewarded.

First - the general customer profile: How old, what sex, married, single, etc...

Once you have the general profile, you should try to learn their:
* Level of education
* Approximate household income
* Industry or type of work
* Homeowner, renter or living with parents
* How many children, and pets
* Location: Urban, suburban, rural

You should also try to figure out the following:
* Probable hobbies & recreational interests
* Type of groups or clubs they would join
* What kind of TV shows they would watch
* What kind of magazines & books they would read

The answers to these kind of questions will help you to figure out what their wants & needs are, and what specific categories they will fall into: Executive, student, homemaker, etc... and that will tell you what type of advertising they are most likely to respond to.

How do you get the answers to those questions? Part of it is just common sense. Whatever your product is, it will appeal to a fairly specific segment of the population, that would be the General Customer Profile.

The trick is to refine that general profile into some specific categories...

Your server logs and/or traffic counter logs can give you some helpful demographic data.

If you use a site-search that gives you reports on what people are searching for, it can help you figure out what people want.

After you make a sale, you can ask customers for a short testimonial. What they say can give you an insight into why they bought from you... and their reason for buying may give you some promotional ideas that you never would have thought of otherwise.

All that is helpful, but the best way is to just ask them. There are polling & survey services and software that you can put on your website that will help you to answer many of those questions.

It helps to offer some sort of incentive to get people to take the time to fill out a survey: a free ebook, report, wallpapers, anything that you can deliver online. You should also reassure them that their information will not be sold to a spamlord.

It will take some time, first to gather information, then to tailor ads and landing pages, but it's all worth the effort. If you don't know anything about your customer, you will never be able to make that necessary personal connection and you'll just have to be satisfied with the trickle of sales that you've been getting.

Know your customer; relieve their fears, sooth their anxieties and solve their specific problems -- and you will make more money. It really is as simple as that.

To Your Success!
Tim

Related Tools & Resources:

SurveyConsole - customizable, remotely hosted surveys. The 'Basic' license is free, so you can try it out.

Voting Booth Generator - Generate a custom script for your online surveys, a free service from UPoint

Free Survey Script - a full-featured CGI survey/poll script from BigNoseBird you can customize and install on your server.

By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.

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