How To Identify Your Perfect Target Market

Get To Know Your Ideal Customer

Knowing and understanding your target customer, and then mapping out their thought process are two critical fundamentals that must be executed properly if you want to build a more successful and profitable business. This article will share ideas to help you begin this critically important process.

FINDING YOUR IDEAL TARGET MARKET

Your target customer is the customer who shares your passion for your product or service. These are customers who want what you offer – instead of just need what you offer. They don’t just use your product or service, they love it! They don’t just purchase what you sell; they actually feel they couldn’t live without it! Your target customer will result in fewer returns and complaints. They’re thrilled with you and your business. They buy from you today, and they’ll keep buying from you tomorrow. They’ll demand you create additional products and services for them to buy because they trust you and know you have their best interests at heart. They’ll tell their friends and family all about you and encourage them to do business with you. And maybe (best of all), they’ll spend more money with you over their lifetime than your average customer will.

Your target customers will provide your business with tons of referrals, and they’ll offer you unsolicited testimonials. They’ll post their praise about you and your business on social networking sites (which garners you free publicity). When you identify your target customer, you find yourself loving what you do. The end result is you begin to work less and start earning more – a lot more.

This impacts your business long term. It impacts all future products or services you develop. It impacts the customer service your client’s receive. And it impacts all of your marketing and sales efforts, especially when you begin to develop your marketing materials and sales scripts.

IDENTIFYING PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL TRAITS OF YOUR TARGET CUSTOMER

But in order to create compelling marketing, you must first identify your target customer and you must identify them both physically and emotionally. So let’s get started.

First, we need to help you develop your target customer’s physical profile. We have to define their physical characteristics in detail. Remember, we want to start by identifying everyone on the face of the planet who NEEDS what you sell. We’re going to help you develop this vital information by providing you with this sample target customer profile form.

Then we’ll focus on helping you develop the emotional profile for your target customer. The emotional profile begins to define your target customer’s hot button situations so we know specifically what it is they really WANT from your product or service.

The emotional profile helps you determine what your ideal clients want, NOT what they need. Once developed, it perfectly complements the physical profile and begins to form a crystal clear picture of your perfect targeted customer. But let’s first define the available universe of human beings that NEED what you sell, and that’s the job of the physical profile.

To begin, what exactly do we mean when we refer to their physical profile? It’s simply referring to the statistical elements that apply to your current customers, such as their gender, age, education level, marital status, income level, employment status, home ownership, and so on. The data that you compile in profiles like this will help you to define the physical characteristics of everyone on the planet who NEEDS what you sell.

TARGET CUSTOMER PROFILE FORM

• Business Name
• Address
• City
• State
• Zip
• Country
• Phone
• Email
• Marital Status:
  • Single
  • Married
  • Separated
  • Divorced
  • Widowed
• Gender:
  • Male
  • Female
• Spouse/Partner
• Age
• Birthday
• Children
• Yearly Income:
  • $0–$25,000
  • $25,001–$50,000
  • $50,001–$75,000
  • $75,001–$100,000
  • $100,001–$125,000
  • $125,001+
• Education Level:
• Job Title / Position:
• What are their typical buying patterns?
• What do they purchase prior to what you sell?
• What related products / services do they purchase?