Do you know your ideal customer?
We are all hear to make money through affiliate marketing. To make money someone has to buy the products or services we are referring.
Have you taken the time to work out who your ideal customer is?
Over the last month, I have been struggling to write content for my blog. Why? I had some great low hanging keywords to use. I have a huge list of topics to write on (last count 60 odd topics and growing). Should have been easy but I couldn't put pen to paper.....
Now I was having no problem writing, if someone on WA asked a question that I knew the answer to or had an opinion on.... Off I would go without a problem. If a client needed some research in my day job, whip them off a report in no time.
Why couldn't I write the content for my site?
I didn't know who I was writing to! Yeah I had my niche, which allowed me to get started get the initial content on my website, but I wasn't writing to someone, I wasn't answering someones problems, I didn't know who my customer was.
So I started thinking about this the way I would in my day job. How would I identify with my ideal customer. I started by answering the following questions
WHO
- Who is my target customer? (demographics, age, gender etc)
- What makes them happy?
- What worries them and keeps them up at night?
- Who is another person in their life whose perspective would be important to them?
- What do they fight about? (or what causes friction in their lives)
- What is their nightmare story?
- What is their dream story?
PROBLEMS
- What are their current problems?
- What are the specific causes of these problems?
- What behaviours are my prospects doing as a result of their problems?
- What future problems will eventuate if they do nothing?
- How will this affect their lives?
- Who are they angry at, or what are they angry about?
- What are they fearful of?
WANTS
- What do they want (immediately)?
- What are their wants and aspirations for the future?
- Why are these things important to them?
- And why is that important to them?
- What do they absolutely NOT WANT right now?
- What do they absolutely NOT WANT in the future?
- What would happen if any of these things happened?
- How would this make them feel?
REALITY CHECK
- What are the top 5 things your potential customers should hear right now?
- What are the top 5 things your potential customers want to hear right now?
- What’s it worth to them to be your customer?
- What are they giving up or missing out on for every day/week/month or year they fail to take action and become your customer?
AN IDEAL WORLD
- What are the quick-fix solutions to solve their current problems?
- What ONE thing can you do for them RIGHT NOW that will have the biggest impact on their current situation?
- What experience do they want that I could give them that would have them jumping to become a client and tell all their friends and family about me?
When I write a blog post on WA or an answer to a question I have an ideal customer in mind. It was easy for me here, that ideal customer was myself. If I had asked that question how would I want a response to be worded, what information would I want to be given etc.
When we are working on our websites, writing our blogs, we need to know who we are talking to. It is easier to write a post if we know what problems we are trying to address, what concerns we are trying to soothe, what would make our customer happy and want to come back again.
The product I am selling to my customers is the blog itself, not the products, not the services. I want them to keep coming back and reading the next post I write. I want them to go away satisfied that I answered a question or problem they had (even if they did not know they had it before reading my post).
While I still have some work to do, I have identified 3 ideal customers that I want to talk to. 3 people at different stages, with different problems and looking for slightly different answers. Each time I sit down to right my blog, I will write the post with one of them in mind.
Do you know who you ideal customer is? Do you write with a single person in mind?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below and thank you for reading.
Brendan
Recent Comments
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My business partner is 28 and she really has some great ideas about what we need in building a website with our target age group is 16 to 40
But that's not to say we are going after the over 40 crowd we are too
But we will be designing specific pages to attract them as well
Gary, it is more than targeting an age group. It is about understanding one customer and then talking to them so that you attract similar customers with the same dreams, problems and issues. Your business partner may be doing this, but it is worth taking the time and getting to know your ideal customer.
Great post, Brendan, we all need to get a fix on our ideal customers get inside their heads and find the pain points and then provide the right solution. Some really good insights and advice thank you.
Alex, it is difficult to talk to a potential customer, it we don't know what makes them tick.
Thank you for reading the post and commenting.
Your going to think this is funny but watch a couple of episodes of mad men. I sold insurance for 30 years in the property and casualty area. Extremely tough. But i knew my customer by asking key questions. I suggest you ask teens or millennial
Do some target marketing on their habits. Do not sell to your age group if your over 60. Lol. Like me
Hi Gary, so true. It is about understanding your customer and how they think, and the era they grew up in will have an impact on that.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my post.
Excellent post Brendan! We need to know who we are talking to, what are their preferences, what is their "hot button", which of their needs need to be satisfied first (in order of priority), and how we can use this information to communicate this to them in the most memorable way.
We need to know our customer, then BE the customer to be able to write our best blogs.
Agree Kaju, we have to get into the head of our customer to be able to talk their language and get their attention.
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Very good this.
John, thank you for reading and commenting on my post.