Marketing & Brand Growth
“Everyone who needs it” is not a customer. It is the reason marketing feels expensive.
Ask most owners who their customer is and the answer is wide: families, working people, anyone with a budget. Then the message, the price and the channel are all aimed at nobody in particular. This session helps each owner describe the people they serve best, in specific words, using what they already know from their own customers.
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You cannot speak clearly to someone you have not described.
Owners know their customers well in conversation and badly on paper. When it is time to write a message, choose where to advertise or set a price, that knowledge stays in the owner's head and the result is generic: a little for everyone, convincing to no one.
Getting it onto a page is not an academic exercise. It is the cheapest piece of marketing work there is, because it needs no budget, only an honest look at who already buys, why they came, and why they stayed. Everything else in marketing, from the message to the channel, depends on it.
What the session covers
35 topics across 7 areas. Seven parts, from your own records to a customer note you can use.
Who Already Buys From YouStart with evidence, not imagination.5
- Looking back through the last twenty or thirty customers or orders
- Which of them were easy, paid on time and came back
- Which of them took a lot of effort for little return
- What the best ones have in common
- What you do not actually know yet
Your own sales records are the best market research you can get this week, and they cost nothing.
Describing a Customer SpecificallyA person, not a category.5
For a shop, the buyer may be a household. For a business-to-business seller, it may be a company, with a different person using the product and another signing the payment. Both are worth writing down.
- Who they are, in the words you would use with a friend
- Where they live, work or run their business
- What they spend on this and what they compare it with
- How they usually find out about you
- Who else is involved in the decision
The Moment They Start LookingSomething happens first.5
- What event or problem makes someone start searching
- What they have already tried
- What worries them about choosing wrongly
- How urgent it feels to them
- What they type, say or ask a friend
The moment of need is usually a better place to start a message than the product itself.
Why They Chose You, and Why They Did NotBoth answers matter.5
- Asking recent customers why they picked you
- Asking enquiries that did not convert what stopped them
- Price, trust, convenience, speed, language, location
- Listening for their words, not yours
- Separating one comment from a pattern
Who Is Not Your CustomerA sharper message needs a boundary.5
- Customers who cost more than they pay
- Requests you can never serve well
- Whom you will politely send elsewhere
- Why saying no helps the ones you do serve
- Starting narrow and widening later
Talking to Customers Without a SurveyFive honest conversations beat a form nobody fills.5
- Short, open questions that do not lead the answer
- Asking at a natural moment, in person or by phone
- Writing down exact phrases
- Not defending yourself when the answer is uncomfortable
- Thanking people, and not turning the call into a pitch
Respect people's time and privacy: say why you are asking, and keep what they tell you to yourself unless they agree otherwise.
The One-Page Customer NoteSomething you can use and hand over.5
- Who our best customer is
- What they need and when
- What they weigh up before choosing
- Where they look and whom they trust
- What we will not chase
What participants leave with
- A first draft of their customer note
- A short worksheet for going through past customers
- A set of questions to ask customers in conversation
- A simple way to record answers and spot patterns
- A list of one or two customer groups to focus on first
What this session is not
- A formal market research study
- A promise that knowing your customer brings more sales by itself
- A tour of every marketing channel
- Advice on collecting or storing customer data, which has its own rules
How the session runs
Two to three hours, in a small group, with pen and paper or a phone. The practitioner shows how to read your own sales and enquiry records, then each owner works through their customers and writes a first draft of the customer note. Owners pair up and describe their customer to each other; the other person says whether the description could be anyone's, or is specific enough to be only theirs. The session ends with the questions each owner will ask real customers during the week.
What your students leave with
- A written description of their best customers, in plain and specific words
- The situation or problem that makes a customer start looking for them
- A short list of what customers weigh up before choosing
- A view of which customers are worth more effort and which are not
- Five questions they can put to real customers within the week
- A one-page customer note they can hand to anyone who helps with their marketing
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Describe one customer well before trying to reach a thousand.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.