Defining the ideal customer is fundamental for any company or brand, because it helps to direct marketing and sales strategies and to develop products or services that meet the needs and desires of your target audience.
Some of the risks of not knowing your ideal client are:
- Attracting the wrong leads
These are people who won't buy, or will only buy once and for the wrong reasons. They will end up getting frustrated with the brand or your product/service. This will generate negative comments about your brand, which will end up damaging its credibility.
- Loss of competitiveness
If your brand isn't focused on meeting the needs and preferences of the target audience, other competing companies that know the customer profile better can gain an advantage in the market.
- Waste of resources
Without knowing the ideal customer profile, your company could end up investing resources in marketing actions that don't bring a return, which could negatively affect the company's budget.
- Not getting the expected return from marketing and sales actions
These investments will not be directed in an intelligent and focused way. As a result, there will be little money left over to invest in studying the clients with the greatest potential.
The main benefits of knowing the profile of your ideal client:
- Better knowledge of your target audience
Once the ideal customer profile has been defined, it will be easy to understand the needs and preferences of the public your company wants to attract. What's more, if your ideal customer is well identified, it's possible to target research in order to gain more knowledge about consumers.
- Personalization and segmentation of actions
Once you know your target audience, you can create marketing and sales actions aimed at the customer profile your company wants to win over. This segmentation increases the company's chances of reaching this audience and converting leads into customers
- Higher return on investment
With more targeted actions, your company's investors will be more accurate and efficient, bringing more returns, both in terms of acquiring new customers and strengthening your brand among your ideal audience.
- Increased sales conversion
With knowledge of the ideal customer, the company can adjust its sales process, offer solutions specific to the customer's needs and personalize service, which generates greater profitability.
- Reducing costs
By knowing the profile of the ideal customer, the company can avoid wasting resources and focus its investments on strategies that produce better results. This in turn can increase its operational efficiency.
Steps to define a company's ideal customer:
- Analyze the existing customer base
To identify the ideal customer, it's important to analyze the company's existing customer base. You need to bear in mind that it's not just a question of customer relations, but also aspects such as sales volume and profit, etc.
Analyze: Which customers buy most often? Which products or services are most in demand? What are the common characteristics of these customers?
What are the characteristics of these customers?
- Demographic characteristics;
- Geographical features;
- Consumption profile characteristics (volume and frequency of purchase, the product purchased, the type of payment made, whether additional purchases are made, etc.)
- Identify the customer's pain points
It's important to identify the problems or challenges that the customer faces and that could be solved by the products or services that your company offers. This helps to define a clearer and more efficient value proposition for the target audience.
- What do these customers value most in your company?
This point is crucial to guaranteeing customer satisfaction, as it helps to improve the customer experience, indicate business opportunities, distinguish your company from the competition, improve your brand image, increase profitability, etc.
- What channels do these customers use to communicate and inform themselves?
It's important for the company to know which channels its customers are on, as it allows for more efficient and direct communication with customers, which can improve the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction, thus improving the brand's reputation. It also improves the marketing strategy as it helps the company to create a more efficient strategy and identify other business opportunities.