Best Practices for Brand Building: Focus on Your Core Customer

We are starting a new series of best practices for Brand Building. The series will include best practices and tips on how to make marketing tools work for you: Website, Social Media, Focus on Core Customer, Brand Development, & Sales Strategy.

Today’s focus is on the 40 ways you can better define your core customer.  Knowing who you are talking to is the first step to identifying what message you should develop that will resonate with them. 

Demographics

• Is your core customer a consumer or a business?

Consumer

• Where are they located?
• What is their age range?
• What is their gender?
• What is their income?
• What is their education level?
• Do they own their own home?
• What is their marital status?
• Do they have kids?
• Are they employed?

Business

• How many employees does the company have?
• What are the average annual revenues of the company?
• What is the job title of the key decision maker?
• How many years has the company been in business?
• Who are the other decision makers at the company?
• What associations does the company belong to?
• What conferences does the company attend?
• Which trade publications does the company’s industry subscribe?
• What are the company’s key performance indicators?

Psychographics

• What is their personality profile?
• Where do they hang out?
• What hobbies do they have? 
• What products/services do they use?
• What are they passionate about?
• What are their opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about their world?
• How do they feel about the world around them?
• What values do they hold dear?
• What traditional media do they utilize?
• How tech-savvy are they?
• How do they use social media?
• How many hours per day are they on their computers?

Customer Persona

• Attach a picture of someone that looks like your core customer and give them a fictional name.
• What are their most significant pain points?
• What challenges do they face when overcoming their pain points?
• Describe their typical background – how did they arrive at becoming your core customer?
• When presented with products or services similar to yours, what do they find objectionable?
• What goals are your core customers hoping to achieve?
• How can you make their life better?
• Which marketing tactics will be most effective?

Click here to download a handy dandy checklist to help you identify your Core Customer.

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RUSSO is a strategic branding agency that uses consumer insight to change the conversation; forming emotional connections with the target audience. To learn more, click HERE to learn more about our process, RAZOR BRANDING.