Targeting Your Best Customers

It seems our society has an affiliction where "if some is good, then more is better!" It's something I've helped a number of small business owners reframe over the years.

In my consulting business, I've proven that trying to serve as many customers as possible, without regard to alignment, ideals, and living up to my – would I enjoy having them over for dinner – test … just isn't worth it. In fact, the opposite is true.

The more targeted customer that I go after, the better I feel about working with them, the better the results they get and the more money all of us make.

John Reese, who is a brilliant marketer (famed in internet marketing circles as the first person to make a million dollars in sales in 24 hrs.) had an excellent post about this recently. Here's an excerpt:

" The WORST thing you can do with your marketing is try to “be all things to all people.” This is what many refer to as the SHOTGUN APPROACH — you advertise and promote your business to anyone and everyone with the thinking that you’ll sell more by reaching more people.

Massive mistake.

If you truly focus your efforts (the way you communicate, your marketing style, the benefits that you stress, the stories you tell, the keywords you bid on, the places you choose to advertise, etc. etc.) towards your most ideal prospect then you stand to make the most money."

I recommend you read it at his blog.

Sometimes it can feel like it's counter-intuitive … but concentrating on fewer (but better targeted) clients can absolutely cause your business to grow.

Here's an important key. Make sure you stay in touch with your best customers. Your loyal customers need more communication, not less. Your competition is going to try to woo them especially if the market is tough.

There's no special tricks to doing this. Just regularly staying in touch and telling them that they are appreciated sends a powerful message. Your best source for new business is your current customers. Budget part of your marketing for this specific purpose; regularly communicating with your existing customers.

Other opinions from the web: 

Your Target Audience – Who Are They & What Do They Want? - Put your thinking cap on, and come up with more ways to get to know your target audience. Perhaps you could visit a company that falls within your target customers’ line of work, and observe them for a few hours. …

Research paints portrait of digitally savvy consumer - Learn how to create brand engagement with target customers directly on the content real estate of your chosen partners' websites. If online ads are dead, what will you do to connect consumers to your brand? Learn more.

How to select a target market - My target market was upscale serious fly fishermen. At times I thought about compromising the home page to push components in addition to the custom rods. I was tempted to work hard on improving the components section of the web site …