5 Key Questions Your Marketing Plan Has to Answer, Part Two: Your Ideal Client

This is Part Two in our series focused on creating your marketing plan. In Part One, I explained why it’s so important that you create a WRITTEN plan, and I tackled the first “key question” that your marketing plan needs to answer. Today, we move on to the second key question. 

In the last installment of this series, you set a monthly revenue goal for your business. (If you haven’t done that yet, click here and complete the exercise!)

In our hypothetical scenario, we set a goal of $23,000 per month in revenue.

So the question becomes, how many customers do you need to hit that goal?

This requires calculating your average monthly revenue per client. For simplicities’ sake, let’s assume that number is $1,000.

$23,000 / $1,000 = 23

So our marketing plan needs to provide 23 clients per month in order to hit your goals. Later in this series, we’ll continue working with these numbers. For now, write down YOUR number – how many clients do you need per month to hit your goals? That’s the number we’ll build your plan around!

Now, we turn our attention to WHO those clients and customers are going to be.

It’s important that you define your ideal client as precisely as possible. A clear understanding of your target market allows us to accomplish these two critical goals:

  • Create the most effective possible messaging
  • Figure out where and how to reach your target clients

So let’s talk about who your ideal clients are.

I use the word *ideal* on purpose. Think about your business – and think about the current customers and clients you have right now. You probably like a lot of them. But you probably DON’T LIKE at least a handful of them.

If you’re being honest, the only reason you’re doing business with some of your clients is because you need the money.

Well, we’re building a marketing plan designed to attract customers and clients that you actually LIKE serving. So think about THOSE customers, and think through the following questions.

First, demographics.

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Geographic location
  • Housing status
  • Household income
  • Religion
  • Marital status
  • Family size
  • Ethnicity
  • Language
  • Education

Now, some of the traits above may not matter for your business. For example, you may not care about the gender of your customers. Leave it blank if that’s the case!

If you’re selling business to business, you’ll also need to consider the following:

  • Industry
  • Title/role within the business
  • Revenue
  • Years in operation
  • Employee count

At this point, a profile is beginning to emerge. For example, your profile could look like this:

  • Men
  • Ages 35-50
  • Homeowner
  • Huntersville, Cornelius, and Davidson, NC.
  • $200,000+ Household income
  • College degree & higher

But that’s still a partial picture. Now let’s talk about psychographics, interests, and values. This information is especially important as we begin to work on your messaging.

Consider the following:

  • Political views
  • Hobbies
  • Values
  • Media consumed
  • Locations frequented (church, the gym, coffee shops, etc)
  • Goals and challenges (losing weight, finding a spouse)

Again, any of these factors may or may not matter to you, and if that’s the case, leave it blank.

At this point, you’ve got a very detailed profile built-out. Here’s our hypothetical example fleshed out:

  • Men
  • Ages 35-50
  • Homeowner
  • Huntersville, Cornelius, and Davidson, NC.
  • $200,000+ Household income
  • College degree & higher
  • Politically conservative
  • Reads the Charlotte Observer, The Herald Weekly, and frequents FOXNews.com.
  • Goes to church most Sundays

If you want help organizing all of this in one place, click here to download my ideal client checklist.

Now that we know WHO you’re targeting and HOW MANY clients you need, in the next article in this series we’ll talk about how to create messaging that is “irresistibly attractive” to your target clients.

Stay tuned!

 

 

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Danny Decker

I work with business owners to create real, practical marketing plans – and create systems to make sure the plan actually gets executed. I’ll help you put a strategy in place to create predictably positive cash-flow, to generate new leads consistently, to create more referrals and word-of-mouth marketing, and much more.

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