The people who have been waiting for you and your business are out there, you just need to find them. PR will help you do this. And it starts with understanding your ideal customer.
If you can articulate your value then you can have incredible impact. But value is subjective. This means value is in the eyes of the beholder. And who do you think is likely to consider what you’ve got to give, to be valuable?
Well… that’s easy. Someone like you. Just like you. After all, we are drawn to our friends because we share similar values. And it is within those values that we determine what we value. We see qualities in them that we have within ourselves or that we hope to have in ourselves.
Therefore one of the best ways to discover your ideal customer and target audience is to; mirror, mirror on the wall.
Yes, introspection is the best way to go. This is the examination of one’s own conscious thoughts and feelings. The process of introspection is important to unearthing your ideal customer. It relies on observations of one’s behaviour, potential thoughts, psychographic profiling and collectively it leads you closer to identifying just who might want what you have so that you can speak to them. Directly to them and in service for them.
To find your ideal customer you need to get insanely clear on:
- Your services, products and skills
- Who can benefit from them most
- What do you do differently to your competitors
- What does your ideal customer value
- The personality traits of your ideal customer
- Geographic location of your ideal customer
- Lifestyle of your ideal customer
- Hobbies and habits of your ideal customer
- What problems do they have
- What problems do you solve for them
Using the data from these types of prompts you can develop an avatar profile descriptor for your ideal customer. Be sure to include demographic as well as psychographic details.
At the end of the day there’s no exact science to target audience identification and segmentation; but repeating this process a few times will help you get more clarity on who needs you and your business most.
Spend as much time as you need on ‘ideal customer discovery’ until you feel comfortable with not only who you’re targeting but the product and service you’re delivering to them.
We recommend that each business have at least one and no more than three ideal customer profiles detailed.
For more support on developing profiles for your ideal customer be sure to grab our DIY PR product to support you with this here HERE >> ‘Find Your Ideal Customer.’
The data in the worksheets help you to make decisions about your price point, the social channels you choose, targeting strategies that are important and the branding and language you need to appeal to them.
Look for patterns in your data and try to be as specific as you can. It’s a great idea to repeat this exercise a few times; during the lifetime of your business your ideal customer profile can change as your business evolves.
Words by Jade Roberts
raraPR Founder and Creative Director
raraPR is above all the sum of people who together help build brands and share stories. We are present in our determination to make a positive difference to the world by representing individuals and businesses that are doing good. We are an extension of the personal stories within us, those that we exist for and those within you that need to be heard.
