What if you could create a perfect marketing message that spoke directly to your ideal customer? I mean a message that really connected with the internal conversation they were having with themselves right at that moment. In a previous blog post I spoke about marketing saturation and how many ads we are exposed to everyday, and the answer is just mind blowing.
Who is my customer
The fact is that most businesses sell to multiple customer types so how do you compose a message that resonates with all of them? The answer is simple – You Don’t! The idea that there could be one message that grabs the attention of everyone that might possibly want to do business with you is simply ridiculous. But if you look at almost anyone’s website this is exactly what you see. A massive amount of information that covers almost anything that anyone visiting the site might be interested in. It just doesn’t work!
In the words of John Nemo, who runs a LinkedIn lead generation company, you need to niche it down. If you have never read his book – LinkedIn Riches, you should. It might just change the way you think about lead generation on LinkedIn. Anyway, the concept is you need to clearly identify with one very well-defined customer – Your customer avatar. This is not to say you can’t do business with other customer types but your approach and your solution to that customers problem are a perfect fit.
I often use the Dominos Pizza story as a perfect example of this. If you have ever had a Dominos pizza you know it is certainly not the best pizza on the market. So why are they so dominant in the pizza industry? They discovered a market segment, that they would perform best in, and design their entire business around it. The result is a $17 billion company with stores all over the world. Pretty good strategy, don’t you think.
Multiple Customer Types
What if it’s just not possible to niche down to one customer type? Not all companies can find a way to separate themselves from the crowd but you should at least try. If you can’t and you must have multiple customer types than create unique messaging for each customer group. In my own experience, my company sold multiple types of services to different departments within the same account. One message wasn’t going to work. The overall company identity and mission had to resonate with all of the department directors but the problem we were solving for each of them was unique.
In the old days, before digital marketing even existed, we didn’t have the advantage of landing or squeeze pages to direct our customers to, when marketing to them. Today however, you can create a message unique to each customer without watering it down to make everyone happy while maintaining an overall company identity. So, if you need to address multiple customer types spend some time understanding who each customer is and what the message and language is that will really connect with them. Then create a location, be it in your CRM or on your website that you can direct them back to with a well-defined message identifying the problem they are having they don’t want, and the solution they want but don’t have. You need to grab their attention by connecting with their internal conversation. What is the specific problem you are solving for them and what does your solution look like in their eyes? Pictures work well in this scenario.
Conclusion
Spend some time in the New Year identifying your ideal customer. Who are they? Where do they go to find solutions to their problems – social media, industry journals, support groups. What language fits them best – professional, casual, witty. What type of solution are they looking for in their mind. You might have the right solution but are presenting it in the wrong way. I have seen many business owners go immediately to price, thinking low price wins, when response time, efficiency, or quality is the answer the customer was looking for. Starbucks coffee gets two and three times the price of other coffee vendors because they spent time to get this right!
If you have multiple customer types, speak to them separately rather than trying to create one message that will fit them all. It’s not who you are – It’s how you solve the problem they are having! Now let’s Get It Done!
