How To Define Your Ideal Buyer

If you do not have a firm, company-wide understanding of your ideal buyer, then you are not setting yourself up to achieve your highest level of success. This is the pattern I often see with small businesses:

1. Create an ideal buyer
2. Make exceptions to accommodate other buyers because they show interest now
3. Fumble to effectively manage a catalog of products or services that is simply too broad or messaging that is not consistent

If this sounds like your business, then keep reading to understand what you can do to show greater value and facilitate long-term revenue growth.

3 Methods To Determine Your Ideal Buyer

Your ideal buyer is a well defined description of the person or people who are best suited to glean the most value from your solution.  This description combines both demographic and psychographic information to paint a complete picture of the person. The best marketing and sales teams know everything they can about their ideal buyers which allows them to converse on a more personal level at every stage in the buying process.

1. 1:1 Customer Interviews

The most effective way to determine your ideal buyer is to go to the source. Think about who your current buyers are and you may start having specific client names pop into your head. They will probably fall into one of two categories:

1. The customers you LOVE to work with
2. The customers you DREAD to work with

Both are great sources for information and can help you gain a detailed understanding of the buyers you want to attract to your solution.

In your interviews you want to focus on your customers’ “why,” starting at why they chose your solution and work your way backward to get to the root cause of their decision. We are big fans of asking why 5 times because it truly does help you delve into the real reason why your customers choose you to solve their problems. We also recommend to ask open ended questions and try not to lead. You don’t want their answers to confirm your image of the ideal buyer but rather you want them to tell their story so you can later compare all of their stories together to determine who your ideal buyer truly is. Additionally, it is beneficial to spend some time gaining more personal information about your buyers such as their passions, hobbies, values, etc. This will allow you to create a more holistic view of your buyer and offer valuable targeting information to use in later marketing efforts.

When conducting a 1:1 interview, it is vital to listen more than you talk and to document everything you can about the interview. It is best if you can record the interview, this is especially easy if it is over video conference, but in the event you can’t, make sure to record as much information as possible, including verbal and non-verbal language. Here are some examples of behavior to note and what it may indicate:

• Your customer leans forward in their seat, their voice is louder, they are talking faster and they are smiling. These are all signs of excitement and enthusiasm and whatever they are talking about in that moment is causing it. Take note of the topic they are discussing and also the emotion. If this same topic results in a similar emotion consistently among your buyers this could be a sign of a key product feature that you should focus more on promoting.
• Your customer leans back and folds their arms and answers in short non-descriptive sentences. This is a sign of irritation at either the question or no desire to go into details but these may be details you need to hear. Tread lightly but try to push through the barrier and get to the source of the behavior by reframing your question. This could be provide light into an area that you need to improve to provide a better buying experience.

Once you have conducted several interviews, start to compare the notes and look for similarities in the problems you solve for, the responses (positive or negative) you received on certain product features, your buyers’ hobbies or any other commonalities you see between the interviews.

2. Gather Data From Your Current Customer List

This step is incredibly helpful in gathering demographic and sales data about your buyers and their purchasing journey. Create a list of your ideal customers in your CRM and then look for similarities in:

• The products they purchase
• The length of their buying journey
• The number of touchpoints in their journey
• The content they consume during their journey
• The questions they ask during the sales process

This information will allow you to paint a common picture of the buying journey for your ideal customers and what support they need from your team during the process.

Next, take that same list and breakdown similarities in:

• The industries they work in
• Job titles or descriptions
• Company size and location
• Average salary (Take your ideal buyer’s job title and location to generate a salary estimate using glassdoor)
• Years of experience in the field (You can manually calculate based on LinkedIn work history)
• Education (Again you can gather this from LinkedIn)

All of this information will help you develop a deeper understanding of your buyer and provide you with data that you can use to better target and qualify new leads to your business.

3. Brainstorm Your Customers’ Journey

If you are launching a new business or new product line, you don’t have access to customer data but you can still map out an ideal buyer profile. To do so, gather a few folks from your company and hunker down for a brainstorming session. Similar to asking why in your customer interview, you want to start with why you think someone would use your solution and work backward from there to get to the root problem they are solving for. Really try to put yourself into your customers’ shoes and think about why your solution would be a value to them and what information they may need to help them make a decision. Then try to determine what types of people would face these problems and you want to narrow your group as much as possible. Here are some examples:

• CEO at a small cybersecurity firm
• Business Developer at a B2G training company
• Marketing Manager for an AI organization

Once you have a general idea of the title and organization type, search LinkedIn to find people in the area you are targeting that meets these qualifications. You can gather information related to their years of experience, gender, age range, education, etc. to help paint your picture of your ideal buyer.

After you have a list of characteristics, test to see the size of your market using ad audiences on Facebook or AdWords. This will help you determine if it is large enough to sustain your business or new product. If the size is too small, you may need to add additional ideal buyers to your mix or rethink how you are targeting your buyers.

While this process will help you focus your content and messaging as you launch your solution, it is important to be flexible with your approach as you gain information from actual customers. Create a process to check in with each new customer as to why they chose you so that you can gain that valuable firsthand data and make adjustments to your marketing and sales efforts as needed.