WHO ARE MY CUSTOMERS?
Describe whom your customers are in each of the following categories. You’ll find that the number of customers in each category grows the closer you get to the “end user.”
MY CUSTOMER PROFILE
Rank the characteristics of your customers that are most important in determining how receptive they’ll be to your product or service. For the characteristics that have no bearing on whether or not they’ll buy from you, leave the space blank.
Rank the characteristics of your product or service that are most important to your target customers.
Now describe your customers according to the characteristics you have identified. Start with the characteristic you ranked as most important, providing details on how you think that characteristic will influence your customers’ buying decisions.
If I asked you to tell me whom your customers—or potential customers—are, how would you answer?
Let’s say you’ve created a new breakfast cereal for children: “Yummy Tummy Oats.” You’ve packed it with good things: vitamins, minerals, great nutrition. You figure you’re going to wipe out the competition because every parent wants a nutritious breakfast for their child.
There’s only one problem: Who’s your customer? Is it Mom or Dad pushing the grocery cart down the cereal aisle, comparing the nutrition information on the side of the box?
Or is it the end-user (the “consumer”) of your product—the kid—who couldn’t care less about nutrition but wants cereal that tastes sweet, has cartoon characters on the package, and packs toys inside?
Or is it the cereal buyer for the grocery store chain? He cares little about nutrition or cartoon characters. His concerns are more down-to-earth: how much money you’re going to spend on advertising, how quickly you’ll replenish inventory, and whether you’ll pay him a “stocking fee” to obtain shelf space. Parents and children aren’t going to have a chance to buy or eat “Yummy Tummy Oats” if you don’t meet the supermarket buyer’s needs first.
On top of that, if you don’t have your own sales and distribution force, you may first have to find a cereal distributor and convince them to carry your product.
The parent. The child. The store buyer. The distributor. That’s a lot of “customers” you have to satisfy with each box of “Yummy Tummy Oats.”
You give yourself a competitive edge by thinking of each of these “customers” and planning for their needs and motivation.
Being responsive to the details that are important to distributors, retailers, sales representatives, and others helps you plan your marketing materials, operations, packaging, even the nature of the product itself. If yours is an industry where sales reps must purchase their samples, for instance, you can set yourself apart by supplying samples free. If retailers
