Direct Marketing - How to Identify Your Customer in the Workplace
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Whether you're offering a service or selling a product, there are those who are likely to patronize you, those who might patronize you and those who probably are not in need of what you are offering. Knowing who your customer is is an integral part of planning your business, from determining whether your business plan will be successful to learning how to market your business. Luckily, there are a number of steps you can take from your workplace to help you identify your customers and tailor your business to them.
1
Make a list of the customers your workplace currently serves, or, if the list is too massive, the types of customers you serve. For instance, are your customers individuals or small businesses? If businesses, what type? If individuals, what age and gender?
2
Identify each of the customer's or customer group's primary characteristics and how you satisfy a need for the customer. For example, if your business provides graphic design services and one of your customers is a restaurant, you might note that it is small, it is local and its owners prefer to work face-to-face rather than over the Internet or phone. You might also note that you satisfied the restaurant's need for affordable, unique branding that would make it identifiable among the town's many other restaurants.
3
Label each of your workplace's customers as a loyal, fickle, renewing or new customer, as described by Donald S. Crawford, the sales and marketing manager of Shickel Corporation. According to Crawford, loyal customers are those who continually patronize your business. Fickle customers, on the other hand, are those who are likely a competitor's loyal customers but who may be shopping around for another provider. Renewing customers are those who are coming back to use your services after being away for a significant period of time, and new customers are those whom you think you could turn into loyal customers but with whom you have not yet done business. Once you have labeled your customers, you can come up with a plan to win or keep them.
4
Study your competition's customers. Make a list of all customer types to which your competition are catering and you are not. Identify customers with similar profiles whom you might serve.
Tags:
Direct Marketing, Marketing
1
Make a list of the customers your workplace currently serves, or, if the list is too massive, the types of customers you serve. For instance, are your customers individuals or small businesses? If businesses, what type? If individuals, what age and gender?
2
Identify each of the customer's or customer group's primary characteristics and how you satisfy a need for the customer. For example, if your business provides graphic design services and one of your customers is a restaurant, you might note that it is small, it is local and its owners prefer to work face-to-face rather than over the Internet or phone. You might also note that you satisfied the restaurant's need for affordable, unique branding that would make it identifiable among the town's many other restaurants.
3
Label each of your workplace's customers as a loyal, fickle, renewing or new customer, as described by Donald S. Crawford, the sales and marketing manager of Shickel Corporation. According to Crawford, loyal customers are those who continually patronize your business. Fickle customers, on the other hand, are those who are likely a competitor's loyal customers but who may be shopping around for another provider. Renewing customers are those who are coming back to use your services after being away for a significant period of time, and new customers are those whom you think you could turn into loyal customers but with whom you have not yet done business. Once you have labeled your customers, you can come up with a plan to win or keep them.
4
Study your competition's customers. Make a list of all customer types to which your competition are catering and you are not. Identify customers with similar profiles whom you might serve.
