I understand that starting with this statement may not be the best lead in this day and age, but you do have to start your process thinking here. Start-up or an existing business has to define their ideal customer. When you do, you understand your marketing challenges so much more clearly. So, who do you want as a customer? I would assume that you would like to have one that is economical to obtain, profitable once you have them and easy to retain. We need to start with a few specific characteristics but the overwhelming issue that you must address is how that interaction with the customer happens within your company, and if you can support it in a way that is acceptable to them.

How Many Customers Do You Need? Think of the throughput of your organization and the mix of customers that you can effectively support. Can you only a support a few large customers, or many small customers? If you would like a mix of both, consider your percentage, 80/20, 70/30? Think how this would change not only your marketing but your operational structure?

What are the characteristics of your marketplace? Do you understand the market size, the growth rate(shrinking or growing), the different segments and your competition? You also need to understand the economic value of customers in each category that you may segment them in. After you determine the characteristic, ask yourself: Can you economically compete in this arena? Cost to service certain markets can be considerable; it may be a good time for a SWOT analysis?

Decision Matrix template provided by Systems2win

What specific characteristics vary among customers that affect their profitability? We try to have an ideal customer but the bottom line is that all customers are different. Some of the specific characteristics that might be different are:

• Volume
• Sales support
• Inventory required
• Distribution support
• Credit and collection costs
• Speed of collection
• Engineering support
• Order entry support
• Field service

Maybe the most important consideration is when you consider the items that your organization values the most, do your customers value them also? It is a hard road to go if you sell your organization on the values that identify your organization and then turn around and find a customer base that disregards them. So, who do you want as a customer?

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Is your Value Stream Mapping backwards?

Technorati : Buyer Persona, Ideal Client, SWOT, Target Market

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I don’t have a success story, I have a sobering story. Here it is:
Number of pieces mailed: 10,000
Response rate: 1%
Number of inquiries: 96
Number that you manage to reach by phone to qualify: 70
Cost of qualifying by phone, per inquiry: $30
Number who turn out to be qualified leads (20%): 14
Total cost of qualifying ($30 X 70): $2,100
Campaign cost of $10,000 + phone qualifying cost = $12,200

Total cost of $12,200 divided by 14 qualified leads = $871.42. In other words, you must spend $871.42 to get to each lead who needs your product or service, can afford it, has authority to buy, and is ready to buy now. Not so good for a small business….

I will call this method Machine Gun Marketing. Another method of Machine Gun Marketing is the Marketing Idea of the Week. You have an Ad Rep call on you and they have this special 3 for 2 deal. Plus, they will be attending and handing out another 1,000 pieces of whatever they are selling. Oh yeah, you will also be exclusive to your area of expertise and  they will even create the ad. What a deal! But….you will have to do something by Thursday, this being Tuesday. Sounds like a great idea?

If it is not part of your overall marketing strategy, if it not targeted, and I mean really targeted, and you don’t have extra cash in your marketing budget that you were just clueless on how to spend it and you don’t have collateral material supporting it and you cannot create the ad yourself(a two-step ad, by the way), and you already know how you are going to measure it and….. I have told Ad reps, that I do not respond to this type of marketing, many have stopped calling. I wonder why…has their machine gun jammed or just ran out of bullets?

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After a recent presentation to a group of start-up businesses, I asked for feedback. The only negative feedback I received was that someone was really looking for that Aha moment. Or that one great thing to do in marketing that could help them jettison their product or service.

Why is that? I think inexperience marketers always wonder why little of their marketing works. They run ads, get PR and time and time again are baffled that just little works in the way of marketing. I disagree that there is not anything that works. I believe just about everything works, but only just a little. The world has become so fragmented on the way it receives information that you have to reach even a very target audience in numerous ways. I think that is why building a community with your existing customers is being emphasized. If they are targeted enough and have a strong enough dependency on your product or service, you will have the ability to communicate with them.

In implementing a Duct Tape Marketing System that Aha moment comes when the customer finally discovers their Target Market/Ideal Client. Immediately after that time it seems that their core message materializes and their marketing messages start following a defined path.

Even with have a defined message, you still have to use numerous methods to reach your audience. Again, there is not one way that is going to work. But what does work is great content and linkage. You must link every single event together and build on that. Think like a spider web. Every connection you make, you must find a way to link it to another event or another instance and to another and to another. Soon you will have started to spin your web and when you start collaboration you can start tying their net into yours.

It gets a little more elaborate than this but if you are looking for that big bang from a marketing firm, I don’t think it is there. I just don’t think it can be made cool enough for you!

Technorati : Effective-Marketing, Ideal-Client, Marketing-System, Target-Market

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A few suggestions to simplify your marketing:

1. Quit trying to sell to people that don’t want your product.
2. Quit the phone calls
3. Quit mailing to people that don’t read it
4. Narrow your print ads to publications that address your target market
5. Place online ads where they are much targeted.
6. Approach bloggers and social networks that are targeted to your market only.
7. Ask customers and prospect what they want to hear about.
8. Look at key trigger words that will tell you to stop marketing
9. Get creative and service only our customer’s needs.

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Time and time again, I struggle with people identifying their ideal client. This is my attempt to take some of the mystery out of the selection. I think once you have this identified, 50% of your marketing is done.

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4.  Create a list we can interview that makes up your buyer, present, past and NEVER. Oh, yes, interview them.

This is normally a huge stumbling block.  People time and time again want to build their marketing strategies and tactics within their own four walls.  Marketing is about customer communication. So if you’re going to build a plan to do that, you must start at the very beginning, communicating with them. And it is important to get a complete mix, including the ones that don’t buy.

It’s simply not about you, your customer does not care about you and many of the points you’re trying to get across in your present marketing material.  He simply cares about who demonstrates best how they can make him more money or make his life easier.

Interviewing people outside the company is scary to many. Typically, companies will agree to a survey of some type.  But to leave an outside organization call and communicate with their customers is seldom acceptable.  But I would encourage someone other in the organization to talk to these people rather than someone they communicated with them during the sales process.  People will continue thinking that it is sales tactic or a type of sales trying to solicit information from them and will answer accordingly. It either takes an independent firm or someone that can assure them that it’s got nothing to do with sales or the judgment of an individual.  It has everything to do with the system.

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But many of my clients come to me because they are in trouble or starting up. The first question I always ask is, Who is your ideal client and What is your target market? The second question – Who is not and What is not? After that, I know if I can help them or not. If they cannot define either question, we are in trouble, because I must convince them it is not everybody.

However, I ran across an exercise the other day through a nonprofit site that I thought was excellent. Now, I have modified it and have given credit below but take a look at this process and see if it helps you:

1. Accept that your target audience is smaller than you think: That’s right, just accept the fact that it is not the world. Maybe, if you are limited geographically that would be start. But acceptance is the key right now.
2. How many people do you need: Do you need all of China or just one province. What will it take me to be successful? If it is just 1 new customer a week that would mean a certain number of contacts per week would be needed. Looking at your sales cycle, think through the process. If to get 1 customer it takes 5 presentations a week. To get 5 presentations it takes 25  direct contacts a week which takes activity of 100 leads per week. You are just taking a simple sales cycle, putting numbers and time to it. 
3. Focus on the ones you can persuade: Start looking at the people that will buy into your product or service. Lets face, trying to sell something to someone that is going to make his life/job more difficult is tough. Pick you battles with the people that have the most need for your product.
4. Segment till you can’t segment anymore: What is important? What is not? As you segment, peoples buying patterns become very apparent. I always find this part of the exercise fascinating. You start creating the actual value that you give to a customer in this segment. But on the other hand, you may actually see where certain segments that seemed completely different actually have commonality.  
5. If not the same person, target audience with most influence over decision maker: Sometimes early in the process, you cannot reach the decision maker effectively and must start with another person. Of the people you could start with, which one will eventually have the most effect over the decision maker? Why not start your marketing efforts here? 
6. Find distribution sources: There is nothing that can bring numbers more quickly to the table than distribution and affiliations. We could include networking into this group but my experience is that networking does not bring large numbers and really fits more into the channels above. Distribution and affiliation is where the true mass of numbers are. Consider who has the contacts to bring you the type of customers that you have described above.
7. Find an audience that will show and voice support: Are there certain groups that may have a strong reason to support your product or services. Should they be marketed to in a different manner than an individual or organization that intends to purchase the product. These groups could prove very powerful for you or even someone that could influence regulation or public support.
8. Test target before launch: Your perception may be wrong. Don’t build an entire marketing plan and strategy around your perception or your team’s perception. You  must go out and test the waters. Try your theories out, now is the time to be wrong. Offer some incentives that could accelerate people through your marketing cycle so that you can gauge your end result.

This information was based on a study I read that was a combined effort of  the Communications Leadership Institute, www.communicationsleadership.org and the Spitfire Strategies, www.spitfirestrategies.com. And of course, it has been duct taped!

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Service, Product, Retail, Construction, Professional services, Employee, and Volunteer … it doesn’t matter. A referral system should include 7 basic steps that helps you identify and succeed in ways you never imagined. The principles are outlined in a 7-step process that we will communicate this week in leading up to Referral Week. It is the basic understanding on how to apply the Referral Flood program to Your Business or Organization .

Step #2 – Identify your ideal referral client – In order to receive high quality referrals you must be able to quickly communicate the exact type of person or business that has the ability to make great referrals. That is not hard, is it. Anyone that breathes and you have met. If you convey that message I can assure you will get exactly what you ask for, and you better be careful. But if you can identify exactly what makes an ideal referral client there will be the synergy needed to make a referral.

What is different about a Referral Client:

1. It may not be your best customer or your best vendor. It is the person that knows "your ideal client" best.
2. It always helps if the company or person that refers you is famous. I am not talking sports hero or anything but the better known may establish great credibility for yourself.
3. They need to have a built in reason to motivate you. It is still about what’s in it for me.
4. Is there a way that you can motivate them that requires little effort on your part to fulfill.
5. They need to have the ability to repeat the process. Just because they know 1 person that might buy is not reason enough to build a system around.
6. A natural connection point to your organization. If you have to work to have a dialog, both of you will not be active enough to make it work.
7. You need to be important to them. There has to be a reason that they have your best interest at heart.
8. Use social media to make contacts and follow-ups. It is a different animal, but it is an important to distinguish.

Ok, simply stated Ideal would mean: A Star with a wealth of contacts that would be willing to give them to you freely. That is ideal.

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The most used the excuse I see in developing a buyer persona is that the buyers vary too much.  Okay, let’s just try to segment a portion of your customers.  Maybe it’s only 10% or if your lucky as high as 50%.  But creating some channel will facilitate in mapping out that buyer persona.  If we look at how will the purchase was made and determined by that group, it will lead into some very insightful information.  But I would encourage you to really try to understand the compelling reason they chose you.  That reason alone can clarify your marketing your sales processes, and improve your production forecast.

I know that may sound silly over just one statement but look at it this way.  If you could know the compelling reason that 50% of the customers buy from you, what would that mean to your bottom line?

P.S. A quick check to validate this, would be to talk to a few prospects that you lost.  Ask them what their compelling reason, not to buy from you.

We use our Lean Marketing Assessment to see where you stand and how well you leverage your core message and it is at the basis of our Product launch strategy. Learn more about these two products.

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The Marketing Mavens by Noel Capon is a great book to assist you in this  identification. They have  slightly different take on it but the book brings out some points that may help you identify your market and client. He professes that the fundamental challenge of business today is to serve customer  needs amid continuous change.  Nothing earth shattering but he also states that the top companies do this based on these five core values:

1. Pick markets that matter.
2. Select segments to dominate
3. Design the market offer to create customer value and secure differential advantage.
4. Integrate to serve the customer.
5. Measure what matters

If you really think through his process, you can see how apparent your target market may become. Also, it corresponds to the Product Market and Product launch processes that I adhere too.

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THEN CLICK THRU AND READ THEM

YOU ARE NOT MY TARGET CUSTOMER

Be Small, Act Large: Positioning Yourself as a Big Company
Beyond Your Web Site: Seven Ways to Build Online Presence
Five Practical Ways to Improve e-Mail Marketing

This is just about everything I say not to do. The antonym to these titles and messages is what I promote. Here is a quick glance of my titles:

Be Authentic: Tell you story and position yourself as an expert in your Target Market.

Start a Community: Provide great Content and people will come.

Convert you e-mail list: Ask them to join you on social sites and leave them notice your expertise within a community!

My number one strategic thought for 2009: Quit Branding, Instead spend time building your Customer persona and addressing that need!

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Seth’s Blog: Thinking bigger The bigger point is that none of us are doing enough to challenge the assignment. Every day, I spend at least an hour of my time looking at my work and what I’ve chosen to do next and wonder, “is this big enough?”

In Duct Tape Marketing, we always teach strategy before tactics. But saying that, I agree with Seth that you must be constantly challenging strategy. And of course in his post he takes that to the next level by encouraging us to think bigger.

Even to this day, I see most companies judging marketing by the material was put out.  They seem to be more worried about appealing to the masses, versus their target market. I believe it is much easier to be remarkable within your target market and making it practical to do.  As you move towards the masses, the less remarkable, you can be and the less effective you can be.

Can you be remarkable to your target audience?

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Why you?(your client)

Why me?(your company or product)

Why now?(timing is everything)

Now if you can answer these things hammer away. Like a good trial attorney once said repeatedly: "If the glove don’t fit, you can’t convict"

Technorati Tags: Target market ,Core Message ,Ideal client ,Marketing

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