

Who are your ideal customers? The more you know about them, the more of them you’ll attract — and the more successful your business will be.
To identify the characteristics of your ideal customers, start with any data you’ve gathered about your best customers. If your business sells to consumers, that information may include:
If your business sells to other businesses, customer characteristics may include:
Review data from your customer relationship management software, loyalty program software, customer purchase history, and public records. You can also learn more about your best customers by:
In addition to the demographic data above, your goal is to discover:
Combine all the information you collect about your ideal customer to create a customer persona. A customer persona is a description of the ideal customer as if he or she were a real person. (You may even have a real customer in mind that exemplifies your ideal customer.)
Here’s a sample customer persona for a bicycle retailer:
Mike is a 55-year-old professional with a household income of $150,000. He’s married with adult children and lives in the suburbs. Fitness is a priority for him, and he spends $5,000-$10,000 annually on high-end bicycles and accessories. He wants functional products, high quality, and convey status.
If you have more than one type of ideal customer, you need different customer personas for each type. For example, the bicycle retailer might also have this customer persona:
Josh is a single, 28-year-old urban professional with an income of $90,000; he spends $5,000-$10,000 annually on bicycles and accessories. Josh prefers off-road and mountain biking and likes to customize his bikes. Biking is a social activity for him, and he enjoys being the first in his crowd with the latest bike gear.
Using your customer persona/s, design your marketing and sales strategies to attract your ideal customers by:
Focus your sales efforts on your ideal customers by:
Identifying your ideal customers will help you weed out customers that are less than ideal—those that are harder to sell to, don’t spend as much money, and aren’t as profitable. By focusing on your ideal customers, your business will grow faster with less effort, becoming more successful and profitable.
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