Describe Your Customers
Develop a market profile using primary and secondary sources to identify the key information.
Example: Profile of Customers
The following table shows the various customer groups:
Action
If you have set up a working copy of your business plan using the Shell™, this information will be entered under section 3 “Marketing” under the heading 3.3 “Profile of the Customers.”In this step you will be revising the draft description of your customers you created in Step 19 and reworked in Step 20, Step 28 and again in Step 29. In this Step you will be be finalizing your customer profile.
Revisit your “Profile of the Customer” and fine-tune your description of your customers, with attention to the following questions:
- Who influences the buying decisions?
- How much will customers pay for your products and services?
- What will your average sale be?
- How are the key competitors positioned in the mind of the customers?
- How sensitive are the buyers to pricing differences?
- What motivates customers to buy your products and services?
To complete this Element, you will need to:
- Gather information from your primary and secondary sources.
- Identify your customers’ demographic profile, including their age, gender, marital status, household location, family size and description, earnings, disposable income, education level, occupation, cultural background, etc.
- Identify your customers’ psychographic profile, including their lifestyle, their needs, their interests, and their purchasing habits.
- Determine and list your customers’ principal buying motives.
- Identify who influences the buying decisions.
- From your research, state what the customer will pay for your products and services.
- Decide and communicate what the average sale will be.
- Describe how customers perceive the key competitors.
- Determine how sensitive buyers are to pricing differences.