Knowing Your Customers, as a Small or Medium Business

By Mason Frederick

In Introduction of marketing a small business, marketing was defined as the process through which you create — and keep — customers; emphasising the importance of customers to a business. Customers are indispensable, without them, businesses won’t exist. Henry Ford said something witty about customers, “It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” So it is important for you as an entrepreneur or business owner to build your business around your customer, and not your product. First, you should determine who your target market is, then develop your products or services to meet the needs of your target customer. You’ll also need proper market segmentation. This is a marketing strategy that breaks down customers into groups with a distinctive identity. Let’s take an example, Tolu, a caterer, with a cake shop, she may segment her customers by

• Geographics: Tolu may focus on a particular region, city or state. Assuming she focuses on customers in Victoria Island (VI), she must direct her marketing efforts to reach the residents of VI. This includes creating distribution channels in VI, packaging her products to suit her customer’s tastes and lifestyle.
• Demographics: Does Tolu want to focus on mostly female customers, between ages 18 and 29? Or does she want to focus on adults with 2 – 4 children. Segmenting by demography involves grouping your customers based on age, gender, religion, education, marital status, income, and household size.
• Psychographics: Tolu may base her segmentation on attributes such as beliefs, attitudes, behaviours and values.

So the first step is to determine who your customer is, then learn as much about them as you can. One way to do so is talk to them. Ross Perot said “Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.”