The Usual Suspects… Profiling Your Customers

“How can I get more customers?” is one of the most common questions asked of our business coaches. Lead generation continues to be one of the most problematic areas for small businesses today.

Many of our clients are left scratching their heads wondering just where all their customers are hiding. Others find themselves in the frustrating situation of getting leads that don’t turn into sales. They all want to know how they can get more people in the door to buy their products more frequently.

Paul, the managing director of an IT training company was sure he knew exactly how people could benefit from his technical training program. He had spent over 20 years in the IT industry and throughout his career saw exactly where the greatest demand for training was. Yet despite promising results in the first year, he was soon faced with sharply declining sales and the need to rapidly pull in more leads just to stay afloat.

In the previous eight months Paul had been successful in getting around 80 new leads a month. Those leads converted to about ten new customers for their training package. Yet without warning their sales started to drop off until they were only getting four or five new customers a month. What had happened? They were doing the same things, but it just wasn’t working anymore. They came to us asking, “How can we get more leads?”

Since their marketing generated the same number of leads as before we wanted to find out why their conversion rates were dropping first. Together we analysed their current customers to try and get a detailed picture or profile of a typical client for their business. We wanted to be sure that the quality of their leads hadn’t changed over time. The results of that study were astounding and immediately pinpointed the source of the problem.

We discovered that our client’s typical customer was between 25 and 40; male and working in the IT industry in systems support roles. They also all had a desire to move up into more technical work in the networking field. Of course they had some clients who didn’t fit this mould, but 78% of them did.

We then took this profile and compared it to the people their advertising was bringing into the business. Less than 47% of the total leads they were now generating fit the profile. That was why they were only getting 4 or 5 new customers for every 80 leads. They had gotten off track with their marketing and were attracting new but unqualified prospects to their business.

Having understood the problem fully our clients had two choices. They could either change their marketing activities to more accurately target their customers or they could expand their product range to accommodate the new customers they were now attracting to their business. In the short term we changed their marketing material. Now not only they are back on track, but also improved their conversion ratio by working with one of our business coaches.

What this example illustrates is a common problem to many businesses we consult with. Often the problem is not a need to get more leads but a need to better qualify the leads they are already generating. We do that by using customer profiles and it allows us to bring in more of the right kind of prospects into the business.

Ask yourself right now. “What is the typical profile of my customer?” Is your answer coming from the hard facts, or from guesswork? Most of our clients have a fair idea of who their customers are but they are still missing the mark with their advertising. Once we defined their customer in detail it became obvious to them how to improve the number of qualified leads they were getting and increase their sales.

The first step in accurately profiling your customers is to keep a detailed and up to the minute database. You must record your customers name, address, demographics and any other information relevant to the type of product or service you are offering. Without this data you cannot accurately profile your customers.

Such a database becomes an integral part of your marketing process. You can then look for common denominators among your customers. It’s unlikely you’ll get a 100% match. But a match of around 80% is definitely a key indicator of who your customers are. You might even discover that there are multiple customer profiles for your business depending on the product range they are purchasing.

Knowing your customers in this way helps you to make the most of your marketing budget. Few businesses can afford the marketing strategies of the big conglomerates. You have a limited budget and it’s essential that you get the most value for your marketing dollar. Once you’ve got your customer profiled, aim all your guns at them. Make sure all your marketing activities are targeting them and have the greatest positive impact on them.

It doesn’t matter at this stage if your total number of leads doesn’t increase. What matters is that you are pulling in more of the right kind of leads with the right profile in mind. In time, your targeting will pay off and the right kind of leads will increase. It is useless to have people call your business who are not going to buy. It wastes your time and your resources. Focus just on the people who will spend money with you.

For more detailed information on improving the quality of your leads through customer profiling call your Instant Business Success Coach today. We have a step-by-step system for capturing the right information about your customers and profiling them for great business results. (02) 9411 1345 or email info@instantbusinesssuccess.com