Know your Customer – and who you want your Customer to Be

It isn’t enough to know who your customer is; you need to know who you want your customer to be. As a business owner, you determine, for the most part, your customer base. You decide what demographic you want to attract, to sell to, to have patronize your establishment. It is an important fact that many business owners overlook. They go about it backwards, thinking about their product or service and how the customer can use it instead of thinking about their customer and how they can tailor their product or service to address that customer’s needs.

I liked what the article said about finding an identity. You need to, as a business, find out who you are and work that to the best of your ability. As they said, you can’t always be something for everyone. No matter the size of the company or the vast amount of products or services they offer, it cannot offer something for everyone. Even large companies with vast and varied products will find at least a few sects of the population that will not be interested in what they have to offer. As a small business owner, you need to know who you are.

Now, that does not mean that you must limit your company to just one demographic. No, if your product or service appeals to housewives as well as business men, more power to you! Pursue those groups with all the gusto you can manage. But make sure that you are targeting your marketing efforts to those groups and not just throwing random efforts to the wind to see what gets a response. Know who you are selling to and who you want to draw in – but don’t lose your creativity.

There is nothing wrong with thinking outside of the box. If there is a niche that you think may work, go for it. Just don’t pin all your hopes on a long shot. Keep your set customer base demographic happy and keep marketing to them as well. It will help you build a rock solid business.