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Who is the Ideal Customer for Your Products?

Hello, everyone. So today we're at lesson for who is the ideal customer for your products? And so today's goal is to identify the ideal customers who are eager to pay the price is that you need to charge to make a living selling what you make, right, we gotta find those perfect people who are, like tailor made for your product or your product is tailor made for them. So in the last lesson, we calculated your hourly rate and looked at how that changed your prices and chances are that may have made you a little bit uncomfortable about your prices, which is why we're coming in today and looking for that ideal customer so that we can really make sure that we're getting you into the right market. So we are in session one set the foundation for your sustainable business, and we're in lesson for who is the ideal customer for your product. So the reality is that the price that you need to charge to make a living selling what you make may be more than your current customers or your friends and ...

family are willing or able to pay, right? How many people have friends and family, you complain already about your prices, yeah, yeah, that's fine. They are not your customer really good chance they may have started as your customer, right? So when we talk about pricing you out of your current market, your current market may have just been your friends and family, but they may not be able to afford your product. So in order to make a living selling what you make, you need to identify who your ideal customers actually, are it's really, really important? If you know your ideal customers are it makes every part of your marketing easier, right? Everything gets easier if you know who you're reaching out to. So creating your ideal customer profile is an exercise in imagination and empathy, followed by research and observation. If your science e, you can think of it as that the hypothesis tests to figure out if the hypothesis is true. I was always more of a party girl in a science girl, so I like imagination and empathy, whichever way you want to look at it, we'll cover all your bases, but the idea is that in the beginning you don't know, right, we're gonna make some educated guesses, then we're going to talk about how to sort of firm up those guesses to make sure we're actually on the right track that's really, what we're doing today is we're going to create three to five ideal customer profiles some of you may have done this exercise or versions of this exercise before some of you may have done it with me before it's okay, we're going come at it from a slightly different angle. We're gonna look at some other options and it's one that can always be refined. You could always get closer and closer to who your ideal customer is, but we're talking about ideal customer. I want you to create specific profile's, not broad demographics. This is the number one mistake that people make when they're thinking about their customer like who's, your customer and they're like women like twenty to eighty who live in the world and buy stuff that tells me nothing, nothing? How do you market? Do you know how much of a budget you need to have to market to women twenty to eighty who live in the world and buy stuff right? A big marketing budget? We don't have that, so we have to get laser specific on who our customer is, so I like to think of it like a bull's eye, right? You're always going to see customers who aren't exactly like those ideal profiles, but we want to hone in on the center of our bull's eye and figure out who those specific people are. And we want to name them and we want to get to know them and we want to think about them we want you to design for them if we're not finding product at least want to design marketing for them should know these people very well till it's all said and done not these people these are my people you should know your people but just to give you an example, I must tell you a little bit about my people see these air some of the ideal customers for my jewelry so profile number one is susan susan is a forty four year old interior designer she lives in a boston suburb she's married to me a couple of teenage kids she is very stylish but doesn't follow every trend she's busy, she wears a lot of jewelry scott long dark hair sprinkle like susan bernice bernice is my hip grandma hello bernice so she is sixty three she lives in the bay area she's got that short white bob and those red glass is the first time I taught here a creative live. I talked about this profile on one of the students in the class came back the next day she's like I saw bernice in a restaurant last night when you know you're on to something when people start telling you that they've seen your ideal customer right that's bernice I'm guessing that at least a few of you watching here might have a bernice is your ideal customer, too, and I have to admit that I didn't I didn't make up the name bernice. I was talking to someone else about his ideal customer for his woodworking and he was like over name's. Bernice hey that's! Mine too. She is red glasses way just had the same customer that I have anne she's, a thirty two year old professional. She lives in d c she's single she you know she works for a company down there that's why bc she's, a thirty seven year old entrepreneurial, lives in chicago, spends a lot of time online mostly in her yoga pants, but then wants to dress up for a conference. So these are the people that I'm targeting right with my product again. Not everyone who buys my work fits in these, but if I know these profiles, it helps me better target in every part of my business. It tells me what websites I should be on it. Tell me what trade shows I should be doing what stores I should be reaching out to every detail my business comes back to how do I reach mohr of the people who are like susan, bernice and annie, right that's we're doing for you so one of things that I want you to do is just think back and start to think about who has bought your products in the past thinking about very specific enthusiastic customers anyone come to mind for anyone right away michelle you're nodding have a specific customer tell us so tell us about her it's actually a hand or him there we're gonna um he is a professional so he's got money to spend and he likes to be different he actually drives ah fifty seven chevy like totally tricked out so I'm starting picture him already yeah he's a very generous person and he wants to give a meaningful gift he won't he wants the gift to be impressive and appreciated so who and he was he buying a gift for family friends pretty much anyone he has daughters and he has a girlfriend awesome perfect great and I think it was very specific person from you monica yeah, I didn't think of kimberly she lives in phoenix she works but really feels guilty about being away from the kids all the time so she like alters her scheduled to be as active as possible with the kids while they're awake and wants to be out in about once to feel put together feel like she always has a handle on things because she spent so much time with work she wants to be like I totally got this with my kids yeah she's probably pretty taipei told yeah awesome great so that's the kind of thing we want to start to think about are these customers now one of the ways that's really easy is if you've been doing crap shows or trade shows or things that get you in front of your customer it starts to get easier but if you're spending a lot of your business time online, that doesn't mean that you can't start to find things that about your ideal customer one of my favorite places to do that is pinterest surprise surprise right? So you can actually use pinterest to research your ideal customer I would like to just state for the record this is not creepy it's research right? I just want to be real clear about that right? So if your products are already on pinterest or already on your website that means that their own website probably argue on pinterest you can actually start by seeing what people are pinning from your sight so you can go to pinterest dot com slash source slash your website dotcom does not work with an etsy shop just for the record there's too many weird things happening in the girl but if you have your own site it works from there if you're set up for pinterest analytics, you can also get this information just by going into your pinterest analytics as well, but what you can see is then who is pinning what from your website now you can see that a lot of them have been pinned by me because I'm a good pinterest marketer and I put myself out there myself but you start to see some other people write that air pinning from my sight as well so I can go in and I can look to see who some of these people are and I can click over to their profile so I can't go to this person and for privacy reasons I blanked them out but I went to a person and I started to look at her what is she like? What is she thinking about? One of the things that you always hear people talk about pinterest's pinterest is where people are planning for the future, right? So what she's thinking about in the future? You know, okay, you're behind this she likes some home design she like shoes I like she was cool, good that's always a good start seas are just see what people are looking at and you start to look for trends. You also look for things like hey living in the bay area that's useful information, right? Whatever little things you can find and then you'll notice she links to her facebook profile, so I did click over her facebook profile depending on her settings I may or may not learn more about her but you can start to do that right so you can start to see the types of people and look for patterns and see who might be interested in your stuff right? And if your products aren't on pinterest or you don't have products yet or you just don't have a lot of web traffic so you're not really sure you can still use pinterest toe look at people's profiles and get this sense so you might run some searches on pinterest for similar products right? I just did this new line of statement rings statement rings search that start to look at the people who are doing it and in this case we're looking for people who might be potential customers I'm not looking for people who are like who I could make this right I want this person my style this person fashion right this person adorn click on those people see you know start to look at their profile start to see what you can learn about them right? Do you know how many marketers would kill to be able to do this much market research that we can do for free? That's amazing right it's amazing and you don't have to spend a ton of time doing this but you can start to play around a little and really get to know your potential people same thing maybe I search bull jewelry I'm looking for people you know seeing who's penning you play around different searches here I searched black and white fashion why no all my stuff is black and white, so if you're just starting out play with some different searches see what's being pinned you know I'm a big believer in not just looking at the type of product the aesthetic match because you cannot deny that right that's a big part of how people decide to buy your products so if I am searching for something like this cartier necklace while it is bull jewelry very far off aesthetically from what I'm doing right it's also very far off price point I am something tells me the person upended is probably not buying a cartier necklace but the same time not the same aesthetic right? So the person you pin that probably not of interest to me the person who's pinning like black and white shoes or that black and white work where they might be of more interest to me even though it's a different product because it's a strong aesthetic so you can look that way as well and start to see who's pinning and what? So what are the similarities, right? What do you see coming through in those profiles and what customer trends are you noticing? Are you getting a sense of certain age group of certain geographic location? Do they have the same sorts of boards, time and time again like oh every person I come too has a board that's about wedding planning or the baby or tech gadgets or whatever it is that you think your customer what might like you can start to find all those things and then as you're looking around for people you do have to start to think about this move from who likes my products too who will likely by my products right because not enough to have someone like them so then you also have to start to think about who is most likely to have the purchasing power and the priority is to buy your product so that's the next point and I always say purchasing power plus priorities because it's not about whether or not your products are affordable it's whether or not they prioritize right the person michelle was talking about he prioritizes giving interesting gifts so doesn't he doesn't have to be a billionaire right? He has to make that a priority okay so what I want to do now is actually do a little bit of hot seating pull help people up here and let's talk about your ideal customer profiles and I'm also while we're doing that I'm going to throw some questions up on the board these aaron your workbook as well I always recommend just kind of going through filling these out getting a couple of profiles flushed out so that you can see and they really start to get to know that customer if this is like math to you and you're way more visual, you can also build pinterest sports based around your ideal customers right? You could get to know them that way too, so if this isn't your style there's plenty of options so we're going to play up first so go ahead and sit down so we talked about one customer who else are you're ideal customers um women who want teo I think it doesn't matter if they're men or women it's just somebody who wants to give something different right? So in your case then remember we're sticking to particular profile so you got one that's really great that you just talked about it so because you know that your customers nineteen men or women you might do for profiles two of each right? Okay, so we are needed one. Okay, what about another one? Who else might buy um for the photo jori I think it would probably be a woman who was um thirty's late thirties not not younger than that. I would thank um she probably makes a decent living. Um what does she d'oh? Um I'm going to say bank executive okay, that's one of my actual customers okay, this is where we start, right? This is the idea we start with who you already know that she's a bank executive and if she mind this product for herself or is a gift a gift okay and who she has a gift for cheese spot gifts for her sisters. Okay and so was it the sister's kids is it just family momentos family momentos okay and so do you find that the people who are buying gifts are they buying gifts for people that live near them or people that live far away from them? Oh, it's usually people who live further away so that's something to kind of think about two is customers who are no longer living where they grew up right? So you want people with food? Why are people who whose other things have moved way same thing of maybe like grand parents who aren't living near the grandchildren's you get a lot of that or less of um I don't think so. Okay, so it's mostly people buying for they're same age group in that kind of thing and then, um okay, so this woman who's the who's the bank exact where does she live? She lives in texas. She lives in texas. Okay, what part of texas texas is a very big state sent a very different man, antonio a lot of different parts of it often. And how many things is she buying from you a year? Um she'll buy a couple things okay, yeah so then are there any other specific customers that you can think of that seem really clear and strong teo um we can also flip this too so do you have people we talked about you not buying for grandparents who's not buying your product sometimes that's justice helpful who's not buying a product I would say it's like well who's not buying this because I also have another right let's talk about so I'm not young I would say they're not under thirty um well that's not true either because I had theo it's someone who has a loved one that they want to give a very special gift too okay and then the loved one has to have a certain a static or personality right? Right because it's sentimental so has the sentimental but I think aesthetically it's not for everyone either, right? No no no. So what what kind of trace do you see in that, um someone who can pull pull off something bold and kind of big yeah sense for the texas and then what? What other kind of patterns are you seeing in your customers and are they specifically at certain times of the year to help one of their buying christmas mother's smith and mother's day okay, so you got a lot of men buying then for mother's day or you think you have a lot of women buying for sisters from others that I have women buying for sisters or women buying for their mother's. Okay, and so when the women are buying for their mothers, what are they putting on? So this is me. Yours is so fascinating because there's so many different people really that you're like it's not fascinating, frustrating, right? But it's really fascinating. So the women who are crying for their mothers what what pictures were they getting their putting the pictures of their their children? So they're sending to the grandmother? Yes. Okay, so they're getting at us, but I also had customers who were bought put kip pictures of them when they were kids for their mother. So it's a perfect so then so it's a lot of you so that you're getting the women who maybe is in our thirties or forties buying for her mother. Okay, probably lives not close to her mother, right? Right. So there's definitely that trend of people who are living further away from looking good. Yeah, I think that's something to kind of focusing on and then you can kind of create those profiles. So and in your case it is that double thing it's who is buying and who are they buying it rewards and you do have to answer both of those make a little an enemy that they're buying from ultimate evil people but you have to answer both of those questions because they think they're important for you in how you target your marketing because if it's you know someone buying something for their sister versus their mother versus you talked about the mail client who's buying for his daughter's girlfriend that's a different marketing angle so I think it's really important to know you know who they are and what what's motivating them right? So if you could do more of you the guy with fifty seven chevy banking second texas thank you just need two more too kind around that okay, but really focusing on kind of why they're buying and who they're buying it for I think will help you and I really think this idea being separated from their families I think a big key point of why people are buying from okay, so you think that I should come up with four customer profiles who are buying and then also right and then a recipient yeah, they're buying okay? Yeah like a couple of those yeah, so and and those don't probably have to be quite a cz in death, but it is kind of helpful like you you knew that you know sarah was buying for her mom bernice and you can kind of picture both of them that starts to be helping well though in your case you know there are some cases like it in my product I get a lot of men buying for women but it usually originates from the woman right she's handing the car she's giving the hit in your case it's the opposite right the recipient doesn't know you exist and that's the joy yeah for the giver I would've seemed right that bigot delighted and discovering this thing that the person didn't ask for but it's going to really love right? So you don't have to spend a ton of time thinking about the recipient because they're not going to say like hey daughter buy this for me right right but you should at least have an idea make it so it's appealing right? So because your recipient is thinking like I want the perfect gift for my mom I want a perfect for my sister that's the trigger so okay kind of understanding who the mom or the sister is a little we'll help you ok awesome so much who else wants to go? Christina okay let's talk about it so good that scrapbooking audience okay, I kind of thought of one person all right let's talk about based on science assuming she is a she yes she's she first of all I strip down so tell us who you are and what you did I'm christine I designed products for paper, crafts and scrapbooking I'm trying to start it start the business for now so I'm just getting started awesome yeah so this is based on someone who's bought some of the stuff that I've been so she is she's a she your name? Her name is julia she's twenty nine she lives in l a she's single um she works and uh she's I'm thinking like a pr professional bank exactly not super creative because she's looking for a creative up perfect okay yeah and that's really key right? Someone whose job doesn't have a ton of creativity who they want to get that at home yeah and so she's kind of dabbling into like craft so she's looking for a scrap booking stuff but feels like the things that are out there don't really match her style because she's more you know, designing right design e I totally picture where you're going yeah typography ryan so what kinds of things do you think is she looking at online? Are you know where is she going to maybe find a product that could eventually lead her to you like she's probably not walking into a michaels because she doesn't expect to find anything that right? Yeah like I imagine her more of like the type who likes to pin a lot of quotes that air written out in pretty typography makes sense he issued by prince online her house yeah and she's always on instagram perfect yeah anything else? Um yeah scrim and also like this part where destry does she have a lot of friends I'm thinking she has a close group of girlfriend like okay let's you know let's try something yeah sternal it's craft right so is she in your case she's not really doing her scrapbook necessarily to preserve memories she's doing it as creative expression when you say we're so yeah I like the more traditional scrapbooking is more of I'm gonna make something for my baby right since she doesn't like ok, this is about me right? Yeah okay perfect and so do you think that's a trend amongst all your customers are really just her do you think you have other word the other ones maybe I think no, not just I mean I would have probably other customers who fall into the traditional like market for scrapbooking stuff like they're more like the document yeah there's stuff but they also have that taste for designing right? Right? So you're going to get, you know someone who might say read design mom like that blood you know who wants that more kind of stronger aesthetic sensibility or you know who is reading like sign for mankind or things like that so that something too on I think the nice thing about this is you know, when you're looking at this person it is more of an underserved market because you're trying to hit a specific aesthetic that indifferent so and that again that's really key for us they might not be looking for scrapbooking stuff that you might be looking for a specific aesthetic and come across your product be like oh great creative outlet you know in your case I think the other nice thing about this profile and I would still encourage you to do no may be two more but the really great thing about this profile is this is a big market right women in their twenties who are single and I have a job and are looking for creative outlet like that's a pretty big market even when you throw in that like you know needs to be designing that's a very big market so even without one profile you khun target that very specifically and hit a lot of people so that's really awesome yeah, I have a question yeah so I was thinking about this and I was like do you target people who like with mine people already scrapbook or is it people who like that aesthetic and then I tell them hey, you know there's this creative thing like you could start scrapbooking that's a great question and I think in your case the answer is both because it's always easier to sell to a customer that you don't have to educate yeah that education piece takes a long time so your easiest sell is people who are already scrapbooking and looking for that mohr design aesthetic that's your first cell but then you can start to listen to your customers and this is something we're gonna talk about the camp goes on and talk more about product development but as you'll see new customers you might realize hey, you know what? There is this whole group who wants to get into something more creative but they don't know and they don't know where to start and that group probably needs a more complete you know they're not buying one ofthe things they want something that really gets them started, but the great thing about that group is it may take a little longer to educate them in make a sale, but you're selling ah higher dollar product to them because they want like the whole kit and caboodle to get started, so I would say you're going to have to do both and market to both in slightly different ways, but I think there's good opportunities for both of those so and it's not so desperate with your marketing that you can't make it work. So okay, also three questions thanks. All right. So I want you guys to take some time and really start to flush out these profiles spend sometime really thinking about who your customer is and remember that your customer profiles start out as this kind of vague guesswork and then they get refined over time you know so don't sweat it if you're not totally clear or perfect right away right it's better to be close and try and be like well I don't know my customer is so I guess I'm just giving up right? We want to try and we want to kind of test that theory so a couple places that you contest your ideal customer profiles for me in person at craft shows and trade shows are still the best way hands down to test a customer profile and part of it is just by who is not looking at your booth and not looking at your product I remember when I first started customer profiling I was like yeah can hit those like twenty something fashionistas and then I watched him walk by my boots and walked by my booth and walked by my booth and not even in the time of day and I was like, whoa, that didn't work at all. Now I can spot a susan from down the aisle and die I bet she stopping most of the time she does so you start to kind of recognize who it's going to be you can also do this online and like it or not facebook is one of the best places to do this it's because more than any network facebook lets you target so specifically by all of these questions that we're talking about right all these things were identifying they spoke lets you target by all of them, right? So this could be a really good way if you're not doing a craft show if you're not doing a trade show, if you don't have something where you're face to face with your customer, you can actually use facebook to sort of test profiles, and I'd actually put together a bonus lesson for anyone who purchases the course on using facebook advertising to test your ideal customer and like it or not, you know, this is a really great strategy and we're going to do it without spending a ton of money don't worry you don't have to give millions of dollars to facebook to test your customer profiles, but it's a great way to really quickly figure out if what you do you think is your customer is actually your customer real quick, you don't wait for next trade show your next show to figure it out so that's something you guys can check out that bonus lesson. Now in the next lesson, we're going to use your customer profiles to discover the conversations your customers air having online and find out what they're willing to spend on your products because that's the other key right, we want to make sure that we found these idle customers and we're pricing in a way that matches both what we need to make a living and what they're willing to pay and when we get to that excellence and we've got a super special guests, tara gentilly, who was an amazing creative live instructor, is going to be joining us here in the studio to talk a little bit more about this idea of markets. But before we go let's, talk about your lesson for homework, so I want you guys to create three to five ideal customer profiles ideal not idea ideal customer profiles, and I want you to share them in our private facebook groups when you guys are cv for this class unit. The link to join the private facebook group it's a great place to go in test your customer profiles you may even find that customer profile you have matches up with someone someone else has, right that's a perfect thing for collaboration. Oh, you saw the bernice to let's talk about that, right? So that's, really great piece and then for extra credit, create a pinterest board for each of your ideal customer profiles and then if you want to share those, put him on twitter with the hashtag make love cell so we can see what you guys are working on that seat and I'll see you guys in the next lesson.