One of the best ways to lose a lot of money on marketing is to put your sites on the prospects of evil. And in doing so is easier than you think. Fortunately, it is also easy to avoid. Marketing prospects right off after the wrong has to do with perception and reality. Individuals or companies that we believe our prospects may not be ideal. Before you start any marketing program, you must be sure that you target the right target.
Your best customers show your best prospects.
Your current customer holds a wealth of information about who is doing a good target prospect. If you are not launching a range of completely new products in a whole new market unrelated to your existing business, you learn a lot by taking a careful consideration to your current customers. In fact, even if you are introducing a completely new product in a whole new market, this year is more than worth the time you spend.
The objective is to identify a group of customers who are more profitable and easier to work with and to know what they have in common. If possible, you want to do that with real data not only with quantifiable anecdotal evidence of your sales or account management teams.
Really. Take time to draw and analyze data.
If you're lucky, all you have to do is get a report from your accounting department. But you'll probably have to do a little of your own sorting.
It may not be what you think.
If you've never actually done this exercise before, you may in for a surprise. I have had clients tell me their customer base is primarily Fortune 1000 pharmaceutical companies or oil and gas find that when the numbers were run that most of their business was from insurance companies regional. And customers who believe that their place is sweet companies with more than 5,000 employees, while in reality their best customers from 500 to 2,500 employees. And customers who think that companies provide the bulk of their activity when academic institutions actually do. And so on.
My clients are not lying to me. They just have not taken a real close, objective look at the basis of recent guests. Things change, and when you're involved in this present day changes are often not so remarkable.
Thus, it is important to look at the numbers, identify your most profitable customers and what they have in common in the industry, annual revenue, number of employees, geographic location, the number of orders they wrote one month everything is appropriate to your product or service.
Businesses do not buy people.
Now you have a good clear idea of what types of business to take your best customers and you've taken the first step toward the description of your ideal prospect. You've probably also found some good places to target a marketing effort.
But do not stop there. Now that you know the types of companies that make up your ideal customer pool, let's take a look at who you are selling.
Again, what they have in common with each other? Here's a quick list of things to consider:
Job Title Age Sex Education Number of years of experience and achievements of associations of primary resistance to the language of risk decision-making style challenges Professional Values objectives
Roll it all together to create a profile of your ideal client. It's a pretty good place to begin to describe your ideal prospect. Is not it just make sense to go after more people you are most successful today?
This information is very valuable. Share it with everyone who develops marketing programs and materials to you.
Now you know you're hunting for good people.
Tatum Marketing 2007
About the author: Susan Tatum, co-founder of TatumMarketing, is a recognized expert in marketing business-to-business. She has been helping companies achieve results more marketing for over two decades. She regularly publishes B2B marketing strategies and actionable advice on his blog www.SusanTatum.com. For a limited time you can get a free copy of his latest report of management strategies, 5 core B2B marketing.