Is this ad targeting your ideal customer?

Marketing to the right people with the right message can sometimes be problematic! This is especially true with new marketing avenues like twitter and Google Adwords which limit the words that are used to attract leads and new business. Understanding who your ideal customer profile is will help turn generic less specific websites and marketing campaigns  into those aimed at motivating your ideal customers to buy from you.

This blog will highlight a few areas you can look at to help identify who these ideal customers are. This will improve the targeting of prospects and create a more effective pre-qualification of leads, giving you more opportunity to sell to the right people and grow your sales more effectively.

Where are they?

It seems really obvious however, if you have limitations with geographical area coverage then make it clear in your marketing and on your website. When using Google Adwords or similar make sure you are just paying for pay per clicks that cover your sales area. You can waste a lot of minutes/hours listening to the perfect prospect's needs and wants only to find they are unserviceable by your company.

Do they want you?

The best way to find out the type of company that may want your services is by understanding the benefits of your products/services to your ideal customer. Some ideas of questions to think about are... What is your niche? What type of customer will benefit from your preferred products/services?  What size of company will benefit? What mindset of client will benefit? What level of service are they expecting? etc...

And finally ..  you can also consider the type of customer that you want to work with that you feel you will be able to build a good working relationship with?

Can they afford you, and can you afford them?

This is an area that will also help you make the best return on the targeted effort. Some ideas of questions are.. What type of budget are they likely to have? Do you have a low value or high value product offering and what type of companies will buy from you at your price point? Will they be a profitable customer? Will their custom give your company kudos and improve your reputation? etc.

Already have the answer ?

If you do nothing else, analyse and rank your top ten existing customers. What specific qualities and attributes of these very best  customers reoccur? Use these key similarities to pull a list together of ideal qualities to help you target new customers better.