Author name: Simona

Pathways2market & customer identification •Overview How many slides? How long to read and listen? What is the benefit? 22 slides in total 30 minutes (not including exploring the links provided within slides) See expected learning in following slide •Unit Aim ~In this unit, we will learn how to identify potential customers to fulfil their needs and improve sales~ •Expected Learning Outcomes At the end of this module you will be able to:1. Identify costumers to improve sales2. Know how to focus on your most valuable costumers3. You can you chack your knowledge? •Costumers identification Costumers identification helps you to sell more. The more you know about them and their needs, the easier it is to identify opportunities to sell them new products and target them with appropriate offers. Profiling existing customers also makes it easier to find new ones. You can look for similar prospects, and sell to them in a similar way. You can use the information you have on customers to improve efficiency. Keeping a central recors of customer details and sales reduces errors and speeds up transactions. You can also improve customer service. Better access to information helps you deal with customers more quickly. You can tailor product offering and provide personalised treatment. The right information makes it easier to identify and resolve any problems. Finally, costumers identification helps your planning. You can predict what they will buy, and estimate how much stock you need. Linking customer management to purchasing can dramatically improve profitability. The right information will let you build up a useful profile of your customers. This typically includes the following: who they are – the age and gender of individual consumers, or industry and business size for corporate customers what they think and believe, what are their interests and opinions their purchasing behaviour – which products do they buy? Where do they buy them? When? And how do they pay? Profiling your customers in this way helps you group them into different segments, each of which can be approached separately. For example, you might produce customised products or services for different segments. You can also focus the way you market to different groups of customers. Drawing a Picture. On a piece of paper, draw a person. It can be a stick figure if art isn’t your thing. Now, with your ideal customer in mind, begin to fill in details. Is this person male or female? Old or young? Write in details on the side of your drawing about income, education, where this person lives, what this person likes to do. You may not know the answers to many of these questions. That’s the point of the exercise: to see what you don’t know about your customers. Now it’s time to fill in the holes. Analyse your customers. To understand your customers, you need to clearly identify what type of customer you are targeting, and what are their trends. Be sure to include figures and predictions for future. Who are your current customers, and why do they buy from you? Look for common characteristics and interests. Which ones bring in the most business? There are two primary aspects to any customer analysis, a demographic profile and a psychographic or behavioural analysis. Demographic profiles break down customers into age, income, geographic and other easily identifiable categories. A psychographic analysis in its simplest form identifies the reasons why customers choose to buy a certain product, their interests and buying habits. Generally, there are three main ways to understand your customers better. One is to put yourself in their shoes and try and look at your business from their point of view. The second way is to collect and analyse secondary data to define your customers and their buying behaviour. You may be able to find information in publications, which may track demographics, sales information, trends in your industry, and other useful consumer information. The third way, suitable for already established businesses, is simply to ask your customers what they think. Define specific demographics of your target. Figure out not only who has a need for your product or service, but also who is most likely to buy it. Think about the following factors: Age, Location, Gender, Income level, Education level, Marital or family status, Occupation, Ethnic background Consider the psychographics of your target. Psychographics are the more personal characteristics of a person, including: Personality, Attitudes, Values, Interests/hobbies, Lifestyles, Behaviour. Those characteristics can define where you want to focus your marketing efforts. For example, if you find that the characteristics that define your customer include an interest in fine arts, you can place advertisements in local arts venues and program brochures. Determine how your product or service will fit into your target’s lifestyle. How and when will your target use the product? What features are most appealing to your target? What media does your target turn to for information? Does your target read the newspaper, search online, or attend events? Find out where your customers hang out and their lifestyle trends. If you have a social media presence, look at the profile pages of your fans. Assess where your customers are spending their time, and then make sure that your business is visible in those places. After you understand basic demographic and psychographic attributes of your customers, you can better target your marketing plans and be sure that your products meet the needs of your intended audience. Analysing your customers allows you to identify those who best fit your business priorities. By conducting a market analysis, you will be able to gather valuable data that will help you get to know your customers, determine appropriate pricing, and figure out your competitors’ vulnerabilities. Analyse your product/service with respect to customer identification. After you have identified your costumer main characteristics write out a list of each feature of your product or service. Next to each feature, list the benefits it provides (and the benefits of those benefits). Once you have your benefits listed link them to a list of