Making Friends and Finding Customers: Using the Same Process to Find Both

Friends take care of friends...even business friends take care of each other

Young children tend to be relatively indiscriminate when it comes to making friends. As long as the other child is remotely interested in playing the game at hand, they tend to quickly run off together at a playground. As people grow up, however, they tend to become a little more selective when it comes to choosing friends. As we age, we look for people who share interests with us and possess a similar life outlook. When we find people who share these particular qualities, we begin to form relationships and bond with them.

Why we care about finding friends with similar interests

We seek friends who share our interests because these common touch points make it easy to find things to discuss with them. Friends who share our interests can anticipate our needs, answer our questions, and engage us in a way that people with whom we have nothing in common cannot.

Of course, these similarities don't have to revolve around particular activities. Sometimes, personality traits or beliefs will draw us to our closest friends. But in all cases, there's something we find engaging and significant in the other person when we begin to form a friendship.

Relationships with companies

For your company to be successful, you must build relationships with your potential customers. Understanding the dynamics of friendship can make this easier. Similar to the process of meeting new friends, your company must seek out potential customers who have particular characteristics that align with your buyer personas.

Just as a person seeks new friends by participating in activities they enjoy, you, must look for new potential customers in areas where those prospects tend to congregate. This might mean going to Twitter if you're trying to reach the college-age crowd or to the daily commuter newspaper to reach middle-aged commuters on the metro. Knowing where to go to meet potential customers will make an enormous difference in the success of your marketing campaign.

Once a new customer has been introduced to your company, the relationship will need to be nurtured, so it can grow. There are a number of techniques you can use here. For example, providing a regular stream of content that offers value to customers will help them grow to trust your company to answer their questions and provide them with the services they require. Compelling content will also keep bringing customers back to your website or physical place of business. The more they return and are exposed to the company brand, the more willing they will be to do business with you.

You can also build relationships with customers by encouraging camaraderie among them. When customers feel like part of an exclusive group, they tend to have greater feelings of customer loyalty and are more likely to become repeat customers.

Building friendships typically involves finding people who share particular traits in common. You naturally use those traits to build a relationship you come to rely upon and trust. Similar techniques need to be used when building a customer base. Seek people with particular characteristics that match your identified consumer personas, then work to nurture those relationships and encourage people to return time and again. If you think of finding customers like finding friends, you should have great success building a marketing campaign.

Do you know your target market? Could you know them better?

Are you preaching to the wrong choir?

While every business owner or marketing department head certainly has heard that basic rule of advertising -- know your target audience -- when was the last time you stopped to ask, "How well do I REALLY know my target audience?"

Say, for instance, you run a landscaping business. You know your target audience includes homeowners in your town. But if you take it a few steps further, you may just discover that your true target audience includes homeowners between the ages of 55 and 65 who live within a two-mile radius of the center of town and who have an annual income over $85,000. Moreover, if they are close to where you already have crews working, you can be more profitable. Sounds pretty specific, right?

The old adage "you can't please all the people all the time" certainly applies to your marketing efforts. Too many businesses try to be all things to all people, focusing on too broad a demographic. Narrowing your focus can result in a more effective use of your marketing dollars.

If you haven't taken this particular commandment to heart, it's likely affecting your marketing for the worse. Here's how to identify your true target audience.

Playing Detective

It's time to play Sherlock Holmes. Identifying your target audience involves a bit of research into demographics. Start by compiling a list of customer characteristics, including age, gender, location, income, education, occupation, ethnicity, martial status, and number of children. Now think about the last few purchases you made. How many of these factors influenced that purchase?

Narrow your focus down to the two most significant factors -- we'll call these your core factors -- and then choose up to two "secondary factors" to round out your market. You'll want to focus your research on these core and secondary factors to really get to know your target audience. Find out where they shop, what's important to them, which businesses they frequent (both online and off), and what problems they experience that your product or service can solve.

With those answers in place, it's time to delve deep into your audience and compile the data and information that make them tick. Resources for your research may include:

• U.S. Census Bureau


• Google Analytics


• Facebook Insights (analytics available if your business page has at least 30 "likes")


• Customer review sites (What other businesses are your customers patronizing on Yelp? What appeals to them?)


• Your competitors' sites and reviews


• Surveys or interviews with your current and past customers


• Hosting small focus groups

Keep in mind that you're also looking for psychographic information, such as hobbies, interests, lifestyle, attitudes, and beliefs. While demographic information tells you who is most likely to buy your product or service, psychographic data tells you why they're interested.

When you're compiling the data, look for common threads that run among your customers. Do they work in similar industries or have similar hobbies? Does your product or service appeal to families with two kids or single professionals? Seeking out similarities makes it easier to target relevant customers.

Develop a Profile

Now that you've gathered your research, develop a "typical customer" profile. The goal? To create an in-depth picture of who your customer is. Your profile should contain both demographic information -- age, location, marital status, etc. -- and psychographic information -- values, attitudes, political leanings, hobbies, and the like.

Your profile will help you determine where, exactly, to find your target audience. Do they tend to live in a certain neighborhoods -- or certain streets in certain neighborhoods? Do they patronize certain businesses because those places reinforce their values? The better you understand your target customer, the more easily you can tailor your marketing materials to appeal to them.

Remember, your customer profile and your target audience aren't static. They'll evolve and change over time, and so should your approach. Determining your target audience isn't a once-and-done proposition; rather, it's an ongoing task that grows along with your business.

Plum Grove can help with a Look-Alike Analysis

The big companies have big data -- and you can tap into big data tools for not a lot of money. If you have your client list in an Excel format we can confidentially upload that client list into the data file of one of the largest list firms in the US. You get an amazing report that shows you all about your customers -- and how many other customers are out there that Look Alike to your customer. Powerful stuff.

To see a sample of what this Look-Alike report looks like contact your sales representative at Plum Grove -- or drop me an email at PeterL@plumgroveprinters.com.