• 17Finding out about your target customer
• 18Understanding what people buy

85
inspiring ways
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your small business

17 Finding out about your target customer

What does this mean?

Your target customer is someone who has the need, desire, time and money to do business with you. Finding out about them is about doing whatever you can to get an insight into their lives, habits, likes, dislikes, problems and aspirations. It is all about finding out what they want to buy now and in the future.

Why is it important?

It is important to find out as much as you can about your potential target customers. This information will help you to sell to them, market and promote your business in the right way for them and ultimately influence them positively. The more you know, the more you can do to ensure you hit the right spot with every step you take towards converting them from prospect to enthusiastic user of your products and services.

Finding out about your target customer will help you to establish the quality of the market for your products and services. You need to know that your product or service is attractive to the people you want to buy it.

The more you know about your target customers, the more targeted your marketing efforts can be. The more targeted they are, the less likely you are to suffer wastage in time, effort and money.

Your challenge

Being very specific about your target customer can be a hard thing for some business owners to do. Depending on your business type there may be many different targets. Think back to the ideal target customer you described after reading Chapter 3. Are there one or two specific groups of people that you need to know as much as possible about?

If you have been in business for a while it can be easy to make assumptions about the people you do business with and decide what it is that you think they want. This can be a dangerous thing to do. People change, their desires and needs change and new problems are arising all the time. To continue to make a success of the communication of your business to the right people you need to be continually finding out about them.

What to find out about your target customer

• Their demographic profile: for individuals – gender, age, income, education, occupation, location; for companies – industry type, number of employees, location
• Their psychographics – these are the things that relate to the character of the individuals you do business with
• Their interests and habits
• Their location and how to reach them
• Where they may be currently looking for the solutions like yours
• How they go about buying the products or services you are selling
• How they like to buy
• What they are comfortable paying
• The impact of special offers or packaging
• Where they go to find products or services like yours
• The particular things that are important to them when they are buying a service or product like yours

YOUR SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• How much do you already know about your target customers?
• What can you do to constantly update this information?
• What are the evolving problems of your target customers?
• What is happening in the market in general that may be about to influence them?
• What are the main problems your target customer has that your product or service could fulfil?
• Describe some of the habits your target customers have.
• What do they read, where do they go, what are they interested in?
• What is the best route to your target customer?
• How could you find out the answers to the questions you have?

How to find out this information

There are many ways in which you could do this. The first is as simple as asking questions. A networking event is a useful forum for doing this one to one. Another alternative is a focus group. This is where you arrange to get together a small group of people who represent the range of those you see as typical of your target customer. You may need to offer an incentive for these people to help you with your research. You can also run surveys that ask a selection of pertinent questions.

Observation is also a very useful way to see what your target customer responds to, and what is currently available for them. Visiting competitors’ business premises as a customer and just watching what goes on can give you a lot of useful information. Sahar Hashemi the successful entrepreneur who founded the Coffee Republic took, as part of her initial customer research, the Circle Line round London, stopping at every junction to see what was available for business people and shoppers who wanted a nice cup of coffee.

Taking the time to talk to the customers who use your business now is a great way to keep up with their changing needs.

The internet, industry press, survey reports and books are all rich sources of information about your target customer.

How to use this information

Finding out about your target customers is a continual process of exploration and interest. It is useful to develop a system to do this year on year. Don’t make decisions behind closed doors and never forget to keep in very close touch with the people that are vital to your business success – your customers.

18 Understanding what people buy

What do people buy?

When people buy goods and services what is it that they are really buying? It is not so much about what the product or service is as about an important outcome getting fulfilled. People buy outcomes. They buy the important result they want at the time. What does someone buy when they get a hair cut? It is not just shorter hair they want, but the ultimate outcome of looking good. What does someone buy when they buy a meal out in a restaurant? It is not just food that they want to eat, but a fun and social interaction with friends or family perhaps. People buy either to satisfy a positive or to avoid a negative outcome. People move towards pleasure or away from pain. Fear of loss can be as big a driving force as pleasure in gain. Here are some examples of outcomes that people buy in a variety of purchasing contexts.

■ Results	■ Value
■ Support	■ Advantages
■ Avoidance of worry	■ Reliability
■ Escape from pain	■ Freedom
■ Avoidance of losing money	■ Fulfilment
■ Answers	■ Happiness
■ Improvements	■ Solutions
■ Enhancements	■ Time-saving
■ Time and effort saving	■ Pleasure
■ Joy	■ Prestige
■ Self-respect	■ Reward
■ Benefits	■ Protection

What motivates decisions?

Buying decisions are motivated by what is important to a person. What is important is connected with personal values. A value is something that matters deeply to a person. Your values create mental filters which search for satisfaction when choosing a product or service. In order to influence you will need to address the satisfaction of these values in your presentation. Notice how some of the following marketing messages address customers’ values.

Sainsbury’s – ‘Making life taste better’
Home Base – ‘Making a house a home’
Norwich Union Direct – ‘Let us quote you happy’
Audi – ‘In pursuit of perfection’
Printinco – ‘Looking good in print’

Notice how these companies address with a few simple words a promise of something more important being satisfied upon making a positive decision to buy the product or service. There is a promise of a personal outcome being achieved and values being satisfied.

Why is this important?

If you can attach the fundamental outcomes your customers are looking for when they search out your product or service to any marketing message you create, you will have a much greater influence.

Look at the difference between these approaches to the same thing.

• One hair stylist says come and get your hair cut, the other says come and transform your looks.
• One estate agent says come and buy a house, the other says come and buy a home.
• One bank clerk says open a savings account, the other says plan a secure future.

Which one is more motivational? The one that suggests an important value or outcome being satisfied is automatically more appealing than one that just presents the product or service as it is.

Your challenge

Your challenge again is to understand and be able to express the important outcomes people want when buying your goods and services. What outcomes do people get satisfied when they buy your service or product? Do you know? How could you find out? People are all different and will have their own reasons for their purchasing decisions. At a higher level, however, certain outcomes and values will resonate with the majority. You need to get to the outcomes that will resonate with the majority of customers you have.

GREAT QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL BUYERS – SPECIAL RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Your buyers are a great source of information and, if you ask them the right questions, you can learn a lot more about what really drives their purchasing decisions.

• What is really important to you when you buy x?
• What do you expect when you buy x?
• What is the most important thing to you?
• Why do you buy x?
• What does buying x do for you personally?
• What results do you expect when you buy x?
• What is the reason you are making the decision to buy x?
• What is personal to you that motivates you to buy x?
• What is at the heart of your decision to buy x?

How to use this information

You can use this information to improve your marketing messages, advertising, website copy and your general communication with your customers. The greater your ability to target the exact motivations driving your customers’ decisions the quicker you will convert initial interest to a solid sale.