Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off

CHAPTER 24

DRAW YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS IF YOU WANT TO MEET THEM

It took me a long time to realize who my most typical customer really is. I could have learned it a whole lot sooner and earned a lot more money had I conducted a simple survey among some of my most loyal customers. I didn't, however, and as a result I missed out on several early opportunities as my business grew.

While I won't share with you here exactly what my target prospect looks like, I can tell you that it is a very worthwhile exercise for you to draw your ideal target client or prospect on paper and then identify as many possible characteristics as possible. This will help you determine what content is needed to attract the members of our target audience.

I'm not forcing you to assume that your business only appeals to one type of person, but there almost certainly is an ideal customer that brings you most of your profits for the least amount of effort. These are the customers that just get it with you and you find them easy to please. They might even be the clients you take for granted. It's the sort of customer that you find yourself wishing you had more of, and not the sort of customer you find yourself wishing you had less of. It's the Pareto principle, or the “80/20 rule” at work. In this case 80 percent of your profits come from 20 percent of your customers.

Once you know the basic demographic information, preferences, age, income, education, and possibly gender or other differentiating qualities of your ...