Why you should be basing your branding and marketing around your ideal customer.
Whether you’re just starting out, or you already have an established business, you should be catering your brand marketing to your ideal customer. Don’t know what that is? That’s okay! Let’s break it down.
What is an Ideal Customer?
An Ideal Customer Profile is a common branding and marketing tool to help you define who it is you should be marketing your business toward. It can be a periodic or ongoing practice that helps you generate a comprehensive picture of not only who you want to be marketing your business to, but who could benefit from your product or service. (And helps you create content that speaks to the right people.)
There are two terms that you may come across when reading about how to create this: Customer Profiles and Buyer Personas. Customer Profiles simply refer to the people that already access your business-your returning, loyal customers. Buyer Personas refer to the type of customer you want to be using your business. Here's an incredibly detailed breakdown of what an ICP can look like and include, from Crunchbase.
Both are important considerations in creating your Ideal Customer Profile because they will help you develop branding and marketing strategies for customers that already generate your income while increasing your brand visibility in untapped areas of your market. It's a tried and true strategy that will grow your business while keeping your existing customer base engaged.
Why Do I Need It?
Time for some tough love.
I cannot stress this enough: if you don’t know who you’re marketing to, your business will suffer. Worse than that- you’re stagnating your business’s growth potential.
In the words of the great Taylor Swift, “it’s me hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”
If you are trying to promote your offers to an undefined audience, you’re the reason the strategy isn’t working!
You need to generate an Ideal Customer profile because if you don’t, you run the risk of wasting resources and time trying to advertise to everyone. Newsflash: Your brand is not going to be everybody's cup of tea. And that's okay.
You need to know who you’re trying to reach so that you can tailor your brand marketing materials to people who will actually invest money in your business. Otherwise, you’re wasting resources creating marketing materials that aren’t going to engage with a profitable audience. And it's so frustrating wasting your precious minutes when you're an entrepreneur. You need to know exactly how to optimize your time and efforts for the maximum results.
I’ve been there. I’ve spent literal hours filming and editing reels, launching offers, and writing captions that fell absolutely flat. I'm talking literal crickets. Not anymore: I know who I am trying to reach with my advertising: and that's the biggest shift that has allowed me to prioritize my content and business services.
Learn from my mistakes. Don’t waste your time, energy and money on a brand strategy that isn’t connecting you to your Ideal Customer.
So where do you start?
With the basics!
Ask yourself questions from the 4W's:
What do you sell?
Why do you sell it?
Where do you sell it?
Who benefits from you selling it?
I’ll use myself as an example:
What am I selling: comprehensive branding and branding materials to create cohesive and successful branded marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes.
Why do I sell it: because I have a knack for creative problem solving and a broad skillset that I can use to help others.
Where do I sell it: online / for a few select in person clients who require more hands-on support with content creation and consulting.
Who benefits from me selling it: entrepreneurs and business owners struggling to create a consistent visual brand or with promoting themselves effectively.
Going Deeper into Your Audience Data
Once you can summarize your business and the problem you’re solving, it’s time to look at your analytics. If you have an established business, there will be more data available to you than if you’re just starting out.
Look at your social media and website analytics. Who is accessing your profiles most often? Who is currently buying from you? What time of day or night are you getting the most traffic? What are their identifying characteristics, such as:
Age
Geographical Region
Gender Identity
Income Level
Common Interests
Think about their current habits. How are they finding your business? Are they using social media, or using your website? What are their goals? What are they afraid of happening? Do your ideal customers buy things impulsively, or have they taken time to conduct research before making a purchase decision?
Crafting Your Ideal Customer Profile should be an ongoing process.
As your brand grows- so will your audience. There will be new patterns and trends to adapt to- so it's important to check in with your strategy on a regular basis. We recommend creating a schedule for your ICP Reviews: put time aside monthly, quarterly, or biannually to check in with your audience data and ensure your methods are up to date with your current audience needs. There are dozens more prompt questions you can use to define your target audience more clearly. Forbes has a great listicle that goes deeper into identifying key areas of interest when if comes to your audience / past customer behaviour in order to optimize your digital marketing strategy further.
It can seem overwhelming, but this practice is entirely worth the effort if you want to promote brand more efficiently. The key to this marketing strategy’s success is specificity and consistency.
It’s important to realize that as awesome as your business is, it is impossible to solve 100% of the problems in your market or industry. Getting specific about what your business provides and who needs it will help you target those who connect with your offer the most.
Don't fall into the trap of casting too wide a net- you'll just bring in the sharks with the fish and give yourself a whole new set of problems in the process.
Still feeling lost?
That’s totally understandable, and it’s why I’ve created a free template to help you get started. Spend a few minutes going through the prompt questions there- and you'll create a foundation for your Ideal Customer Profile in no time! Once you’ve got that, there’s no stopping you.
And of course, I’m here to get things running seamlessly for you, too. Thinking about taking the plunge into a rebrand, need a new website, or custom content? Book a consult to begin your journey to the next level of success.
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