What is a target customer?
No, I’m not talking about people who shop at target – although I love the “Bullseye’s Playground & Dollar Spot”
(I guess you could say I’m Target’s target customer…)
A target customer is the people you expect to purchase your product or service. You find them, you talk to them, you exceed their expectations, and they’ll be happy and you’ll be happy!
How do we identify them?
We look at past trends and future growth! In the case of Salon Phoenix we were able to look at information about the people who live in his area, think about similar “groupings” of customers that come to him, and think about the services he offers and how he wants to grow:
- Area: Hertford, Edenton, North Eastern North Carolina
- Customer Groups: Monthly customers, service specific customers (dye jobs, updos, etc.), first time customers, 50+ women, families
- Growth: I’d love to grow in the family category, so they become more like my monthly/repeat customers.
What do we do with them?
All this amazing work, let’s put it to good use! The next step is to empathize with them – we have to put ourselves in their shoes! We think about this target customers’ needs, their current experience with your business, their current experience with your brand or site…In this client’s case:
Discovering The Salon:
Clients find the salon by word of mouth and a quick google search. The company doesn’t appear very high on google.
Understanding the Services:
The best way to understand what the salon does is to go to their social media, which can be inaccessible for some and also might not be an obvious place to look. A quick look at his website left clients feeling confused since it’s a bit disorganized.
Booking Appointments:
Sometimes people call directly, sometimes they book right after their current appointment, sometimes they just walk in, and sometimes they message on social media.
Coming in for Appointments:
People just drive into the shop and get their haircut, pretty self-explanatory. If they’re a walk-in sometimes they have to wait or come back while other clients are being finished.
After Appointments:
People say thank you and leave. They sometimes post about their experience on social media. Sometimes they book their next appointment right away.
Now it's time to improve
We’re still not done, now that we’ve identified the people and thought about how they feel, we get to improve those experiences. It’s time to optimize! The client did a lot of the legwork here in asking his clients what they want so he can serve them better. Dote also did some social media scouting on the client’s behalf – noting comments, post types, and how his users interact.
We learned the following:
- More product recommendations!
- Online booking!
- More Salon Phoenix!
We also learned that they feel this way:
- Happy with service
- Trusted the salon
- They love coming back
- They want to share their experience
Let's Dig Deep
After spending a few days digging deep and learning all about the salon and their clients – it was time to get to work building a brand strategy and website!
But, wait…why couldn’t we just make the site and be done?
Because, if you don’t know your consumer, you’re not going to know what they want. If we didn’t ask these questions to current clients, we wouldn’t know what they want. Dote and the salon were both shocked that they wanted “more Salon Phoenix”. We drilled deep into this question and learned that his clients find him the hairdressers fun and love working with them. Knowing this, giving recommendations from the staff and recording videos of them would bring his clients more joy!
If your clients feel seen and feel joy they will come back and bring their friends – and your business will grow!!
Knowing all this we developed the following solutions:
Want Dote to Help You With Something Like This?
Let’s set up a chat and get started on your target audience assessment, brand strategy, brand/re-brand, and web project!
