Why you should define your target demographic

It certainly helps if you have a clear understanding of who your target customer is. Your target demographic includes how old they are, where they live, where, when and how they shop, what they want and need, what’s important to them, their preferences, and their behavioural patterns.

Your existing customers are important sources of information. The more you know about them, the easier it can be to increase their spending and engender loyalty, and you can also use the information you gather about them to help you find new customers.

The more accurately you target customers using market segmentation the less your efforts will be wasted. This can be done most effectively by focusing your efforts on your target market segmentation – grouping customers together based on similarities, specifically with respect to the dimensions you consider relevant to your business.

Tips for creating a customer persona or profile

Profiling your customers will give you a better understanding of who your ideal customer is and what similarities they share. Learning your target audience characteristics will not only help you get to know your customers better, but also find more customers like them. Here is a step by step approach:

Before you begin your customer persona research, you need to fully understand your own products, services, and your mission as an organisation. This is an ongoing process, but from the very beginning, it’s essential to understand who you want your customer to be and how that relates to the way your products and services are developed and packaged. 

  • What do they do?
  • What’s important to them in doing business with a company like yours?
  • What is their attitude towards products in your industry?
  • Where does your product fit in with this customer’s search?

Describe your customer persona in a tangible way so you can envision this person and learn what would motivate them to search for your business.

Define your customers with the following criteria as a minimum:

  • Demographics – their age, gender, income.
  • Psychographics – their personality type, preferences.
  • Behaviour – their similar likes and dislikes, sports, hobbies.

Create a specific persona for each identifiable client group and name them. You can make these hypothetical ideal clients even more realistic by including images.

If you are a B2B business, define the characteristics of the businesses you would be looking for. These would include:

  • number of employees
  • revenue
  • geographical range
  • type of business
  • who is the decision-maker
  • budget available.

  • What language would this customer use to identify their current problem?
  • What is their greatest hesitation in trying out your offering?
  • What is the best way to engage with this customer?

Consider:

  • Where do they hang out – is it a physical location or online?
  • What do they read both online and offline?
  • What do they search for online?
  • What websites do they frequently visit?
  • What blogs do they read?
  • What are the likely search terms they will use?
  • What sort of content appeals to them the most?
  • Which social networks are your ideal customers likely to use?

If your ideal customers are as varied then the answers to this question will differ greatly.

Review the needs and benefits that make your customer purchase your products or services. Consider:

  • Where do they begin their research?
  • What is their problem or need?
  • What are the benefits of finding a solution?

If you are a B2B business, consider:

  • Do they make purchases by impulse?
  • Do they seek out referrals?
  • Will they need approval by a committee before making a purchase?

Reach out to your current ideal customers to gain additional insight into what made them select your business over others. Ask them:

  • How did you originally find out about our company?
  • Why did you originally buy from our company?
  • Why do you continue to buy from our company?
  • What do we do that others don’t?

To determine the profit potential of each segment you’ll need to analyse the revenue and cost impacts of serving each segment. 

This information will enable you to invest the appropriate resources to tailor product, service, marketing and distribution programs to match the needs of each target segment.

Never overlook the importance of regularly measuring each segment’s performance and adjusting the approach as market conditions or your business needs change.

Determine how best to collect data and metrics on this.

Identify how this content is best created.

Survey your audience consistently to get their feedback and perception of your business and its products and services. Use tools like Survey Monkey, your existing email list or social media accounts. Consider using incentives like a discount coupon to encourage them to participate.

Consistency is important for the long-term success of your customer growth because each member of your team needs to be working towards the same goals in order to achieve them – use a template when creating and updating your customer profiles.