by Victoria Reynolds
Identifying your ideal client is a fundamental step to successful marketing for small business and ultimately the key to overall success. Ideal clients are those individuals that want your product or service, can afford to pay for it, and will convince their friends and family to become a loyal client of yours also. Once you have drilled down on the demographics you believe will represent your customer, the next step is to “get inside of the head of your customers;” understand the consumer behavior and motivations of your target.
Ask yourself, who your best customers are, and why? What are their needs and problems? How will you and your business meet those needs and fix those problems? What’s most important and least important to these customers? When you finish this exercise, ask your best customers the very same questions. The second part of the process is the most important of all. This will either validate your conclusions or throw them completely under the bus. Either outcome, however, will lead to a more successful business.
Once you have the profile down, begin to develop your strategy for finding them and keeping them. The steps to a marketing plan are pretty simple: Define your target, develop a strategy, execute, assess, revise, and repeat. Identifying a target market makes the strategies for designing, pricing, distributing, promoting, positioning, and improving your product easier, more effective, and more 
cost-effective.
For example, if research shows that a sturdy recyclable package with blue lettering appeals to your target market and if you’re focused on that target market, you should choose that type of packaging. If, however, you’re product or profit oriented – rather than people oriented – you might simply make the package out of plain Styrofoam because it protects the product (product oriented) or because it’s cheap (profit oriented).
Here’s another example: If you know your target market is 24- to 49-year-old men who like rhythm & blues, are frequent CD buyers, and live in urban neighborhoods, you can create an advertising message to appeal to those types of buyers. Additionally, you could buy spots on a specific radio station or TV show that appeals to this type of buyer, rather than buying general media time to “kinda cover all the bases.”
Make sense? But always remember, when you’re making marketing decisions and you say “kinda,” it’s costing you money. That is why it is important to know who you are aiming for (your target market) and create a strategy for a direct hit. When you are faced with a target market decision it is important to think narrow. Choose to serve one will-defined market rather than a multitude of people groups. By doing so, you enable your company to develop goods and services tailored to that particular market. And don’t forget once you have found, courted and wed your ideal customer, leverage the power of that blissful union and let them find you more of the same!
Readers: What are your thoughts on targeting your customers? What has worked for you? We’d love to hear from you!
*SBA’s participation in this blog does not constitute an endorsement of the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration or any other person or entity. SBA’s programs and services are provided to the public on a non-discriminatory basis.
