Who’s your optimal customer?

Clearly defining your optimal customer will help you target your  marketing and communications more effectively using digital channels. It will also allow you to begin to align every other aspect of your business with your customer’s optimal experience.

What we’re talking about is essentially going to enable you to spark potentially compelling and lucrative interaction with the best prospect audience possible… ideally at the right time. After all these are the people that are most likely to have a need and be receptive to your message.

It’s worth mentioning before we move on that traditional marketing channels like TV, radio and print are rarely effective at ‘the right time’ bit as they don’t do a great job of connecting your business with real time consumer intent, instead hoping that someone, somewhere, sees your marketing or communications and has a need.

That’s not to say that TV, radio and print don’t have a place in your marketing strategy… anyway moving on.

So who are the right or optimal customers?

Start by understanding your current customers

You may want to begin by exploring the makeup of your current customer base in order to determine common groups or segments.

Today’s marketplace is fragmented with consumers splintered into segments based on demographic characteristics including age, gender, social class, race or ethnic identity, or location.

Additionally a second dimension, referred to as psychographics makes use of psychological or social characteristics to identify people with shared traits, activities, interests and preferences.

Interestingly it’s worth noting that today’s most forward thinking businesses are experimenting with identifying consumer’s emotional motivators in order to define groups and segments most likely to present not just the best opportunity for marketing now but also in the future based on expected lifetime customer value as determined by complex forecasting that blends science, psychology, data, and analytics.

Consumer markets can also be segmented based on behaviour including loyalty, usage rates, seasonality or occasion, cancellation rate, cross sell and upsell, referral rate, and net promoter score.

Your online customer

When it comes to understanding your online customer businesses can utilise data gleaned from analytics platforms such as Google Analytics in order to understand groups and segments.

For example, WALKER.COM is able to use Google Analytics to determine who is using its website and which segments or groups are converting into a sale, lead or enquiry. This data can then be used to refine the user experience, develop campaigns, shape content, optimise the sales funnel and determine investment in the best channels or platforms likely to yield more optimal customers.

 

 

What’s the potential?

Once you understand the common groups or segments of your customers you can begin to explore the potential and subsequently prioritise each with a view to determining your optimal customer based on the following 3 characteristics:

Perspective: customers who align with your company culture, its energy and your talent.
Capabilities: customers who because of your capabilities and subsequent competitive advantage you can serve better than anyone else.
Profit potential: customers who can fuel your economic engine and deliver above average profits.

Most businesses shouldn’t try and be everything to everyone

This only results in an inefficient allocation of business resources and a mediocre customer experience across the board. Today’s marketers and business owners have more tools than ever to target their marketing and communications so it’s essential that you get really clear on your optimal customer to drive better campaign performance.

For example, WALKER.COM invests in the creation of unique content, in the form of sponsored blog posts which are shared via its company Facebook page. It also shares visually appealing and enticing imagery of its products being used by consumers in aspirational situations using its Instagram account. These Facebook and Instagram posts are targeted at an audience with the characteristics of its optimal customer, resulting in higher acquisition from channel, post engagement, increased return on investment, click through rates and subsequent conversions to sale, lead or enquiry.

 

 

 

Better business performance

Understanding who your optimal customer is and subsequently targeting your marketing and communications appropriately using digital channels will significantly improve the results of your campaigns,  success of your content, help you refine your audience, position you to create a better customer experience and ultimately increase the performance of your business.

Who’s your optimal customer?

 

IMAGE > Neil Haddon | The first time again | oil and enamel paint on aluminium panel | 180 x 150 cm | MORE: https://ocula.com/artists/neil-haddon/