How To Identify Your Ideal Customer? | Workshop Recap

How well do I know my customer? That’s one question every business owner should answer and understand before venturing into marketing in order to maximize returns. This was the opening question and statement from Jumoke Adekunle, GM Tommy Hilfiger Nigeria as she led our Saturday afternoon workshop.

The most important part of starting any marketing campaign is to define your ideal consumer and Jumoke couldn’t have hit this message home hard enough to our budding entrepreneurs and fashion founders. Jumoke’s marketing and branding experience with brands such as Nike proved very useful as shared her knowledge pool with our members in an interactive and very engaging way on the 4th March ’17.Jumoke Adekunle, The AssemblyJumoke Adekunle, The Assembly

So here are some of the key takeaways:

How to Define your Customer:
Demographics: This is the base of any consumer identification process. Demographics include: gender, age, income etc… identifying these would help you narrow down who your marketing should target.Psychographics: Their personality type, preferences etc; has a huge effect on who your marketing should appeal to and also how to go about it. Behaviour: Their likes and dislikes, sports, hobbies, etc; this would assist in targeting your ideal customers in groups, as this would influence where you’re likely to find them and also where they converge/hang out.

How to Locate your Customer:
Once you’ve defined your customers, it’s important to identify the ideal mode of communication and focus on where they’re going to be, whether it’s on or offline. When it comes to finding your customers online, a brand’s customer base may not necessarily be on the popular channels, such as instagram or snapchat. It’s important to know where your customers are and be willing to meet and interactive with them where they are.

Purchasing Power:
Jumoke also explained the importance of understanding your customer’s purchasing power and be in a position to satisfy your customers need in order to justify the cost of your product/service.

Brand Strategy
When targeting your customers, having a solid brand strategy is just as important. Your brand is your stamp of ownership and has the ability to take your customers to new places, evoke quality and sense of belonging. Your brand is either functional or intentional or both. You have to be consistent with building your brand in a way that it evokes the kind of emotion you want it to. Flexibility is also very important as you need to know when to move on (pivot) when something isn’t working. Train your employees because they are also part of your brand, learn to reward returning customers and always be aware of your competition. Jumoke also stressed the importance of brand creation through storytelling and the importance of producing content for your audience and not yourself.

Don’t miss the oppourtunity to breath life into your brand

Brand Mission Statement
It’s essential as a brand to have a mission statement that explains what it is you’re trying to achieve.

Jumoke Adekunle, The Assembly Jumoke Adekunle, The Assembly

Photo Credit: Leke Alabi-Isama for The Assembly 

Further Reading:
A Guide to Creating Personas

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Feel free to share your thoughts below and if you have any further questions about this topic