Do you know your customers?

Audience Segmentation as a key to successful business

Juni 15th, 2011, 10:02 am

Remember the last time you talked to your customer about expectations referring to your business? You can´t? Then you better start getting to know your clients.

Audience Segmentation is what you have to focus to develop the best and most efficient marketing strategies for your business. We give you a little start-off aid.

1. Potential customers

There is a difference between consumers and businesses. Companies usually spend more money, aim for long-term relationships and have a higher contract volume, whereas individual consumers are unpredictable and their order volume is instable.

That doesn’t mean you have to choose one of these customer groups, just make sure you decide what is best for your company. It also helps to know if your product rather appeals to consumers, businesses or both.

defining_targets_differently

2. Profile your customer

Determine specific attributes of your clients to help you “understand” them. Here are some criteria you could use. Be creative and choose which is important for your business:

Demographic

– Gender (male or female)

– Age

– Profession

– Education

– Household income

– Country

Psychographic

– Political attitude

– Religion

– Hobbies/Interests

– Expectations

– Consuming behaviour

You could e.g. create a survey and send it to your clients. Don´ t just gather the facts, also spend time to create a ranking, evaluate the given information and divide it into categories like “important”, “interesting” and “not important for us” to extract the best results. The internet is also full of statistics with useful information, which you can relate to the customer profiles you identified.

3. Follow trends, your customers do

People change, lifestyles change. Be sure to know the latest trends. Follow news, read websites and bulletin boards for changes in your market segment. Old-fashioned designs and products are often a reason for clients to change company. People do appreciate seeing businesses moving forward and adapting to their needs.

4. Talk to your customers

This is probably the most important fact. Be available and transparent. Give your customer the feeling that you´ re interested in their opinion, that you understand their needs. To stay in contact with your client there are a lot of possibilities almost for free e.g. do surveys, call them, create a facebook page or a twitter account. The options are quite unlimited.

Now it´ s your turn. Grow your business with help of your customers. Invest time to get to know them and optimize your marketing strategies. Even with a small budget you can be innovative and make your clients feel like kings and queens and they will thank you for sure.

LS

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