Perfect customer Introduction
Finding your perfect customer is critical to effective Marketing. At all times. As the COVID-19 lockdown continues, I hope that you’re finding this series of business resilience blogs helpful for navigating your business through and nearly out of the disruption.
This is the ninth week in the Business Resilience series. New subscribers can catch up here. Most readers will be familiar with the over-arching theme which uses a market gardener to represent small business owners as you nurture and grow your ideas and take them to the market. This week has delivered new opportunities with open-air markets reopened. It is an ideal time to prepare your business for finding a newperfect customer in an altered world.
Maximise your outcomes from new leads
My own business has capitalised on some new opportunities this week, too. I want to share my tips and tricks with you. First, you will notice that this week’s image of herbs grown in pots is very different from the previous images which linked to the vegetable patch theme. This change is deliberate. It is intended to remind you that the Marketing environment will be distinctly different after lockdown. You cannot make any comfortable assumptions after a period of any type of de-stabilising disruption. So why did I choose herbs?
Recognise your customers’ changed mindsets
The first thing which I urge you to appreciate on your return to business is that everyone’s mindset will have been affected by the pandemic. This means that your customers will have become accustomed to assessing the risk that’s associated with many daily activities and live with a constant, low level of anxiety. They will not welcome any purchase-decision which adds to their reservoir of anxiety. Therefore, it is critical that you identify how your offer fits their needs more closely than ever. If you offer the right thing to the right person at the right price, they will feel no element of risk, making their commitment an easy step to take without anxiety. This is the psychology which underpins multibuy and supersizing offers from large manufacturers and food retailers.The herbs grown in containers will help you to envisage these key pointers:
- Adjust – Herbs are very different from vegetables. Your new perfect customer will be very different from your current one.
- Contain – The pot protects delicate plants like basil from unruly invaders like mint. You must focus your offer clearly on your desired target. Do not scatter your message too widely at present. Remember, you’re looking for the perfect customer, that’s all. Encapsulate your message with precision.
- Closeness – Many sources, including rhs.org, recommend growing several herbs in a single pot. You must look to fit your new anxious customers’ needs equally snugly. There will be a new focus on community and caring for others.
Sounds great, but what should you actually do? I’ve had a successful week promoting one of my pro bono projects, St. Augustines RC church, which has pivoted to take its Mass online, broadcasting via YouTube. I needed to instruct the parishioners and anyone to whom this new facility might appeal about how to access the service, the church’s “product”. Simultaneously, I needed to deliver a very specific request from A21 Cars &Vans. She wanted me to find people who have a mini to sell. On reflection, I realised that I approached both tasks using a similar method, as follows:
First, I mined my own personal, close contacts to approach those to whom Mass or mini for sale might apply. Next, I recommend that you draw upon any sources of bulk communication. Email lists, website notices, and newsletters are common options for businesses to leverage. Social media offer invaluable routes to an audience with the chance to carefully select Facebook groups and the micro-targetting of Nextdoor, which, like Twitter, has a useful search function.
The right match delivers results:
I succeeded by delivering 125 to the first experimental, live broadcast which has now been viewed internationally by 410, many of whom will not have been familiar with YouTube beforehand, a fabulous springboard for St. Augustine’s to develop in future. A21 connected with two mini owners looking to sell and she’s looking for more.
This week’s actions to help you to FIT closely with your customers after lockdown lifts. Here’s a short list of suggested tasks:
- Consider how you can present your offer in a way which reduces the risk for a new client to remove any fear of “what am I getting drawn into?”
- Think about what you might need to adjust your language or tone for a community-driven world
- Focus on a very clear, contained message.