A big part of marketing is getting the right message in front of the right people. That’s why one of the first things we ask our clients, or potential clients before we bring them on, is “What is the ideal customer that you’re trying to attract?”
It’s also known as “customer persona.” For instance if you’re a plumbing company and you say, “anyone with a toilet is my customer,” that’s not defining your customer. I know that sounds silly, but bear with me here. If you live in an apartment or you rent your home, you do have a toilet, but typically you’re not the one calling the plumber. So in this case, “anyone with a toilet,” doesn’t really describe the person you’re trying to reach.
You do want to reach people who have toilets, but you want them to be the people who will do the calling to get the toilets fixed, or to buy a new one. Usually that’s the homeowner. Your ideal client is someone who not only has a toilet, but who owns the toilet—and the house it’s in!
Of course if you’re trying to get corporate or commercial accounts you might well be interested in a customer who lives in an apartment. But then again, it’s really the owner of the apartment complex you would want for your client.
So for our company, Market With Mario, not every business owner, or every business, is a good fit for our particular strategy. So we don’t go around saying, “Oh, any business owner will do!” We have certain criteria that we look for that we know we’re going to be successful with in a win-win relationship.
What makes a perfect client for us?
- They have at least 3-5 employees.
- They have a service that they perform.
- They are local and in the McKinney area, because we like to go on location and take pictures and videos to use in their marketing.
- They understand that marketing is not an expense but an investment; it’s our job to get them a return on this investment.
- The owner prefers to work on the business, and not necessarily in the business. There’s certainly nothing wrong with a business owner getting his or her hands dirty doing the work! But we like to work with companies where the owner is involved in the vision of moving the company forward, and not necessarily being busy mowing the yard or fixing the toilet.
- They have happy employees! Why is this important? Typically businesses that have happy employees have great service and rapport, and they’re doing well in the community. If they have disgruntled employees, typically that’s a business owner that I probably don’t want to work with. 🙂
So I highly encourage you to take out a pen and paper and write this down: “Who is my ideal client?” Once you have that, you can start peeling back to think about what kind of content resonates with them. Where do they hang out? What accounts do they follow? What do they do on the weekends? Really dig in to that persona, because if you send out a generic message to everyone it’s not going to resonate as much as if you hone in and narrow down your target audience and really speak to them. And I guarantee you, you will see real results that affect your bottom line. If you find this post helpful, please share it with the owner of a plumbing company who fits our client persona. Thanks and we hope this helps you define and target your next customer!