Every brand needs refreshing now and again

Every brand needs refreshing now and again, but that's especially true when you're on high streets up and down the country with adverts promoting your services nationwide.  It's why Caroline Holland has spend 18 months working with SBA Small Business Accounting.

‘With 52 outlets, SBA is a truly popular home-grown solution to the book-keeping and accounting needs of every imaginable small Kiwi business,’ says Caroline, who is an independent marketing consultant for CH Marketing which provides marketing advice and support for franchisees. ‘Its strategy of placement close to banks and malls has made it very successful and allowed franchisees to capitalise on walk-in trade, but the image was starting to look a little stale and tired. As you can see, we’ve spruced it up so it jumps out even more at potential clients.’

And the brand refresh doesn’t stop with the logo. Inevitably, Google is the first point of enquiry for many people today, so a major part of the SBA marketing campaign has been to drive national enquiries to the SBA website. ‘This has been an on-going process,’ says Caroline, ‘and has involved a detailed study of what people are searching for via the internet. This means we can influence the search results and drive enquiries directly to the new SBA website. 

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How to identify your ideal customer

One of the most common challenges I see when working with businesses is the lack of understanding about their ideal customers.  Most small businesses have small marketing budgets and need to make sure that their advertising spend is focused on the right customers.  Don’t try to target everyone.  Do the research and really try to understand what makes your ideal customer tick.

Once you understand more about your customers you can then segment them based on their needs and preferences and tailor products, messages and advertising. This will ensure it is more relevant and they are more likely to respond to your advertising.

Check out my four simple steps to identifying your ideal customers:

1. Describe your customers:

Define your customers with some of the following criteria:·        

• Demographics – their age, gender, income, race, education
• Psychographics – personality, motives and lifestyle, preference
• Behaviour – their likes and dislikes, sports, hobbies, interests

2. Locate Your Customers

Identify your customers location, whether a physical location or online

• Where do hang out,  region, town, what events do they go to?
• What are they reading, listening to, watching - online and offline?
• What do they search for online, what are they key words or themes they use?

 3. Understand their purchasing behaviour

Identify the needs that will make your customers purchase your product or service.

• First identify their problem or need that your product or service solves? 
• Where do they begin their research and who influences them
• What are the benefits to finding a solution and how does your product fix it?

 4. Connect with your existing customers

Talk to your current and your ideal customers to gain insights into why they chose your business over others. Ask them:

• Why did you originally buy from our company
• What are our strengths and weaknesses
• How can we improve what we do

Once you have worked through these simple steps you should be able to get a clear picture of your customers and the different segments.  This will help with your overall marketing planning and where you spend you money.

If you need help working through your ideal customer profile, give Caroline a call.  It’s what I do every day. Call me on 027 441 8745 or email info@chmarketng.co.nz