Generating Inevitable Sales by Utilizing a Target Customer Profile

The most successful businesses realize that only a limited number of people will ultimately buy their product or service. How can you make your product or service so appealing to certain market segments that sales are inevitable?

A Paralyzed Target Market

As Psychologist Barry Schwartz notes in his book The Paradox of Choice, many developed nations have become societies of great abundance — where individuals are offered more freedom and choice (personal, professional, material) than ever before. His argument is that infinite choice is paralyzing and exhausting to the human psyche.

In a market of abundance consumers have a wide array of choices in each purchasing decision. A consumer will make a purchase when one or both of the following conditions are present:

1. A customer is comfortable choosing your offering after reaching their threshold of product research.
2. The perceived pain of using your product or service outweighs their current increase in discomfort sustained without your product.

We’ll get back to these two conditions in a moment.

Create A Customer Profile

Assembling a customer profile will allow you to assign characteristics to a concrete mental visualization of your average target customer. A customer profile is an analysis undertaken to gain insight into a given customer base. It seeks to understand the key factors that determine who is and, conversely, who is not a potential purchaser of a your product or service.

There are four widely accepted ways of dividing your market into market segments (with the aim of creating a customer profile):

1. Demographic Profiles - Potential customers are identified by criteria such as age, race, religion, gender, income level, family size, occupation, education level and marital status. Choose those characteristics of your demographic target market that relates to the interest, need and ability of the customer to purchase your product or service.
2. Behavioristic Profiles - Information is gathered about what was purchased, how much was spent, when was the last purchase, etc.
3. Pyschographic Profiles - Profiles on your market’s lifestyle, their attitudes, their beliefs, their family stage, market trends, status seeking, etc.
4. Geographic - Where do your customers live, work, or play?

The Most Important Consideration: Who Does Your Customer Aspire to Be?

After you’ve assembled market segmentation research your next goal is to create a profile of your target customer. Give your target customer a name, a place of birth, a hairstyle - the more detailed your target profile is the better off you will be. The most effective target profiles can be assembled by citing characteristics of well known characters in movies or television shows. At this point you’ve exhausted all of your creative abilities on determining the characteristics of your target customer. Take ten more minutes to write a single paragraph describing a typical day in your target customer’s life.

Most books, blog posts, and business school professors will STOP at this point, leading you to believe that your advertising now just needs to be created in such a way that it addresses your target customer. At Beacon & Milestone we are firm believers that most purchasing decisions within societies of abundance are dependent on the goals and aspirations of your target market, NOT the characteristics of your target market. Was all of that work for nothing? No.

Wear Their Shoes

This next exercise will allow you to nurture a successful marketing strategy that your potential customers will pine after. You’ve created your target customer and a description of their typical day. Now we’ll create a profile of your target customers aspirations. Who do your target customers idolize? Who do they want to be? What would their ideal picture of their life include? Answer these questions in a few short paragraphs.

Putting Theory in Action

Combining the knowledge created in the exercises above will give you a substantial competitive edge. Remember a customer will make a purchase if one or both of these conditions are present:

1. A customer is comfortable choosing your offering after reaching their threshold of product research.
2. The perceived pain of using your product or service outweighs their current increase in discomfort sustained without your product.

Align your target customer’s comfort with their aspirations and you will have a decent chance of making sales.