How to Get and Keep Your Ideal Customer

You only need one customer. At a time, that is. You only need the one customer that buys.

Customer profiling is imperative: the better you know your ideal customer and target them with valuable, relevant information, the better the odds that they will pay attention and buy. Figuring out how to sell to one ideal customer paves the way to selling to many.

Of course, you can scattershot your marketing to hundreds or thousands. This can be a waste of time, energy and money. You will be more successful speaking to the one customer that wants and needs your services. Then implement a consistent marketing program that will assure that their time of need intersects with your promotion.

How to Get — and Keep — Your Ideal Customer:

• Profile your ideal customer or define their “brand persona” — the company’s size, location, budgets, attitude, ease of contacting decision-makers, etc.

• Research their wants and needs — check out RFPs they issue, query them via email, a phone call or in-person, connect with others on LinkedIn who may have worked with them in other capacities

• Confirm that you can provide the product or service that your ideal customer wants and needs and at the customer’s preferred price point

• Determine what media they access and what marketing channels will reach them

• Tell the stories, document case studies and provide examples of how your product or service solves a problem, meets a challenge or answers a need

• Utilize testimonials to build trust and strengthen your company’s credibility

• Create, curate and publish content that is relevant to your audience and will be of value and helpful in your customer’s business

• Speak to your audience through your website content, blog posts, white papers, articles, your social media

• Reach out to your customers through content marketing, email marketing, social media, online advertising, printed materials, trade show displays, industry publications, in-person events, networking and other promotion

• Assess your competition and differentiate your company in a way that will persuade customers to buy from you

• Remain brand-consistent, visually and verbally, across all channels

• Fulfill your brand promise— deliver what you’ve pledged

• Once you’ve made the sale, support your buyers with superior customer service

Direct your marketing to your one ideal customer. The rest will follow. Selling to one satisfied customer translates into selling to many. Make that first sale count.

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