The key to an effective marketing strategy is the ability to connect with your target market and establish relationships with people who need or want the products and services your business offers.  To connect with your market effectively, you need to understand who your target buyers are.  You can broadly identify who these buyers are by creating customer profiles.  Your customer profiles will help you to identify your customers’ problems and needs, you’ll understand how to speak to them using their language, and be able to provide suitable solutions using your products or services.

Creating your ideal Customer Profile.

Identify 10-15 of your best customers and send them a simple survey. This is easily accomplished using an online service such as google forms or you could use more traditional methods.

For consumers, ask them for the following info:

• Their Salary
• Age Range
• Sex
• Marital Status
• Job
• Hobbies
• How They Found You
• Why They Bought from You
• What Problem You Helped Solve

For commercial or business clients, include:

• Industry
• Number of Employees
• Type of Business
• Geographic Scope of Business
• Revenue Levels

Look at your results and write a profile of your typical customer. For example, John is 45, lives in West Sussex with his wife and kids, makes £40K/year and works in an office all day.  He bought from us because…”  Describe a real person so you can get an images of him or her in your mind.  Find a photograph from the web of your customer profile, someone who matches your mental picture. If you have a few different types then create a customer profile for each of them.

For more insight into your ideal customer find and read the publications or blogs they read, listen in on social sites to learn what people are saying using Facebook or Twitter.  You can also use keyword search tools like Google Adwords, Wordtracker to see what keywords related to your business people are searching for.

Use Your Customer Profile to Guide All Your Marketing Efforts

Now you have your customer profile, use it when creating any content for your web site, your email newsletters, on your blog, social media networks, etc. The goal is to speak directly to your customer profile. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself, “If I were John and I came to my company’s website (or blog, Facebook page, etc), what type of content would I want to see?”