The marketing napkin: How to define your ideal customer

 

 

Hello and welcome to the first part of the marketing napkin series. If you want to know why it is called like this head over to this post: I invite you on a marketing date. 

So let’s have a nice glass of red Cabernet Sauvignon and sit down and talk about the first topic: The ideal client.

Knowing your ideal customer is the base for all your marketing strategies. You need to know who he/she is and how he/she behaves to get their attention and interest in your work. If you focus with all marketing strategies on your ideal client you will attract the right client for your business. But if you don’t know who your ideal client is…. how are you deciding how to market and advertise?

So let’s get started – 3 steps to define your ideal customer

1) Define her/his environment, the demographic and social environment he/she lives in and what life does he/she live.

2) Give him/her a name.

3) Ask questions to make the image of him/her clear and defined. The more questions you ask the better it is.

So let’s get started and draw one ideal customer for a wedding photographer. Ella is a wedding photographer who just started. She is a vegetarian herself and her favorite kind of weddings are outside ceremonies. She prefers small intimate weddings over big wedding parties. Ella lives in Berlin. Here is her ideal client:

1) Her ideal bride is a vegan and loves everything natural and organic. She is a school teacher and in her free time she sews her own skirts and hand bags. She lives in a small house from the 50s together with her fiancee. They both renovated the house themselves but kept the old character of the house alive. The house is just outside of Berlin so they can get to work easily.  Their favorite part of their home is their big garden where they spend most of their free time with family and friends (when the weather is nice). Her fiancee is a journalist and they both met each other during college. They both went together abroad after they finished their studies to work and travel in New Zealand. Their big dream is a sabbatical in South America to help in social projects and travel around that continent.

2) Ina and Tom

3) (this is the most fun part of this process)

Will their ceremony take place inside our outside? Their ceremony will be outside in the woods and the reception afterwards will take place in their own garden.

How will Ina’s wedding dress look like? It will be a bohemian long wedding dress, covering the shoulders with semi transparent fabric that floats in the wind.

Heels of flat shoes for Ina? Ina will be most likely bare feet during the ceremony and has some flip flops as a back up pair of shoes.

Tie or bow tie for Tom? Bow tie. / Sea or mountains for the honeymoon? Mountains, with their camper bus to Italy.

Campagne or custom cocktail for the reception? Custom cocktail (vegan with fruits from their garden). 

Do you see where this is going?  The more questions you ask the more defined your image of your perfect client will be. This fictive ideal customer will be the base for all your marketing decisions. Where does Ina shop, Where will she buy her wedding dress? Could this dress designer be a great referral partner? Will Ina buy wedding magazines or search for inspiration online?

Now it is your turn: Take your napkin that the waiter served with your glass of wine and define your ideal client. Tell me about him/her in the comments below.

Do you have any questions, don’t hesitate to use the comments below for that too!

I am looking forward to answer them.