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Finding your ideal customer opens up tremendous opportunities for your business to flourish. Even services that have widespread appeal are more beneficial to a specific type of client.

By pinpointing these clients and tailoring your message to engage with them, you can maximize your marketing results. Even more importantly, you’ll start to attract the kinds of clients that are your “perfect match” – in other words, you’ll have a consistent stream of clients who are a joy to work with on projects you find interesting and engaging. Relevant buyer personas make it easier to find the types of clients best-suited for the way you do business.

At Bear Creek Web, we’ve discussed buyer personas before and why they’re so useful when it comes to growing your business. In this post, we’ll look at how you can use buyer personas to attract your best clients to date.

By using personas in the qualification phase, you will spend your sales and marketing capital on the people that will have the best experience with your business. Even better, these will be clients that you enjoy working with from start to finish. This experience directly translates into an increase in ROI and greater satisfaction for both you and the client.

Finding your ideal customer

The easiest way to uncover your ideal customer is to follow a four-step process

1. Review your top customers.
2. Analyze their commonalities.
3. Explore their needs.
4. Engage their interest.

Let’s take a look at each of these steps in detail.

REVIEW:

First, look at the customers that you already serve and choose the top 5 to 10% in terms of overall satisfaction. You’re looking for the customers that you most enjoy working with and that have a solid business relationship with you that is mutually beneficial. Once you have a list of these customers, move on to step two.

ANALYZE:

Often, you’ll find there are traits that your best customers have in common. They may all be a particular size, or in a particular industry. They may live in a specific geographic area, or perhaps share specific hobbies or interests. It might even be an observable business trait such as they respond quickly to emails, or don’t procrastinate. Or, they may each have very similar needs in some other way.

Another thing to think about is how much understanding your clients have about your business and the level of support these clients require. If you know you provide the best results for people who have a certain budget or a certain number of support staff, you should factor that into your customer personas and qualifications when it comes to scoring prospects. In the end, you’ll take all of this information and use to build your buyer persona.

Whatever these commonalities are, list them out and take note of how and why your business is a good fit for these types of clients, and why you feel that these clients will be a pleasure to work with. Remember, we’re looking for mutual benefit here—a win-win for you and your clients!

EXPLORE:

Now that you have an idea of who your best customers are and what they have in common, you’ll start to see ways in which your business is the ideal fit for their challenges. Every client or customer on this list probably has a watershed moment where they realized your service is exactly what they need to make the most of their own business.

For Bear Creek Web, I remember one of our best clients coming to us seven years ago after having had very bad experiences with two other Web Design and Development companies. I listened intently to her problem, and then made suggestions that would meet her needs. By the end of the discussion, she was giddy with expectation. I’m happy to report we have since done four websites, countless redesigns, and other projects. So, my goal for Bear Creek Web is to find more clients just like that!

If you can replicate a similar moment for businesses that fit your buyer persona, you’ll have the makings of a continually successful marketing and sales campaign.

ENGAGE:

Engagement is the final step and it is the key to successful outreach to businesses in your target market. Think back to the watershed moment we identified in the previous step. Your job now is to capture the reasons that moment happened, and to communicate that success story to your potential clients and customers. The testimonials and case studies of your successful clients identified in step one will provide powerful social proof that helps to move prospects deeper into the funnel. And because you’ve taken the time to understand your ideal customer on a deeper level, your content will naturally resonate with their needs and help build the trust necessary to close the sale.

Take the next step

Now that you have a better understanding of how buyer personas help you to find and retain your best customers, your next step is to begin the process of identifying your own buyer personas to maximize the impact of your marketing campaigns. Need help? Get in touch and one of our marketing experts will be glad to assist.