Are those really your customers?

As a business owner or manager, an essential part of your marketing efforts is to know who your customers are. Depending on the type of store you might have, you will encounter different types of customers. Knowing your buyer, however, can give you an advantage when making important decisions and can even be a determining factor between a successful or failed business. 

A vital part of this process is being able to segment your audience in order to determine which is your base clientele. To do this, you must first analyze any and all factors that determine who these people are. For example, geographics plays an important role in determining who visits your store. How far is your potential client and how far are they willing to travel in order to get there? Socio-economics is also an influential factor; are your products or services affordable, or are you considering quality over price? In addition, demographics are something you might consider; if you own an ice cream parlor, you might encounter a younger crowd. Even psychographics is a determining factor. For example, if your store sells organic fruit smoothies you will most likely have a more “fit” customer base, and if you sell burgers you might expect the opposite. For more information, check out this article (Links to an external site.) by Laura Lake as she dives deeper into market segmentation for small businesses.

Whatever the determining factors they might be, once you have found out who your customers are, your marketing efforts become much clearer. This way, you might want to focus your advertising efforts on the right crowd rather than spending away dollars and never reap the benefits of your campaigns.

Nicolas Carozza

Marketing expert specialized in small business food services.