Last week we talked about the importance of defining our Ideal Customers. Also there was a Venn Diagram. In case you are too lazy to go look, Ideal Customers are people or organizations that have a perfect blend of a compelling need for your product, a deep understanding of value, trade-offs and limitations and the resources to make it all work properly.
This week, I want to look at what we should be doing with this rare bit of our customer base, and why it’s important that we pay them some attention. Our Ideals pose a few challenges because when everything is ticking along just right, they are easy to forget about or take for granted. This is a particular challenge for B2B or large purchase items where transactions may be infrequent enough that we might not notice a change in behaviour right away. After all, we’re serving them well, scratching the itch, solving the problem and all those good things, right? Well not quite, and here’s what I think we need to make sure we’re doing.
Listen to Your Ideal Customers
At some point in time, your offering was the magic bullet for their problem or opportunity. Many companies are formed around a single set of problems they are uniquely able to solve. But problems change and last week’s compelling need can be this week’s nice-to-have and next month’s awkward conversation.
A good example of this is IBM’s mainframe business: for decades big companies have used mainframes to manage their giant applications and data sets and transactions. But the future for mainframes is far from certain and only IBM remains as a serious vendor in this gradually shrinking market. I would hope they are spending tons of time listening to their Ideals in the mainframe space to understand what’s next for them. Done right, they should be able to map when the compelling need for their product will disappear, taking with it the resources and understanding that keep it together. They’ll also have just the thing to solve the new problem.
Even if there is no end in sight for the need for our product, listening to these customer also makes sure we continue to understand their needs, and recognizes that Ideals, for the most part, have a vested interest in our offerings continuing to deliver. Depending on what you do and whom you serve, I’d say focus groups, surveys, lunches, golf games and a good analysis of service calls and issues would be a great place to start. In case you are wondering, Net Promoter Score is a terrible way to listen to Ideal Customers.
Reward and Recognize Ideal Customers
I think a lot of vendors think of Ideal Customers as the ones who just fork over their money and don’t cause any trouble. As nice as this notion is, it’s probably not accurate and even if it is accurate, it means they’re taking these Ideals for granted. We can probably agree that’s a dangerous move. Happily, there are plenty of ways we can get engage these customers without being gross or obsequious. I’d start with simple customer advisory councils, where your senior execs can chat with their senior execs a few times a year to get a sense of what’s moving in the industry.
For the hands-on folks in the F-Word, nothing beats a user conference or some free training or inviting them to speak at an industry event. I’d also look at giving your Ideals exclusive access to some of your subject matter experts, firing a little free content their way now and again and setting up places where they can connect with one another.
Some companies have awards programs for their customers: Corporate Executive Board runs a competition for small business marketers and Ultimate software honours its most innovative customers and HR Heroes with an annual award.
If that’s not your thing, or you’re in B2C, Ideal Customers can be targeted for special discounts, access to new products or sneak peeks at upcoming enhancements. Patagonia has a terrific program that keeps its products out of landfill sites, and a blog where Ideals can share stories and learn to repair their products.
Create Organizational Ideal Customers
Sometimes, your Ideal Customer is an organization and sometimes it turns out to be one raving fan – your champion – who has managed to convince the organization to use your offering. All of which is well and good until your champion moves on, taking with them the organization’s understanding of the product.
In B2B Land this usually looks a lot like an RFP or one of those awkward conversations we talked about earlier. This is why we need to help our champions recruit others in the organization. Ideally we want friends in the P-Cube, the F-Word and the G-Spot, along with some recognition in the C-Suite that we are an essential solution for a compelling need.
The place to start with this one is to take a look at your top Ideals and have an honest conversation with the sales and service teams about whether your support is organizational or individual.
Follow Your Ideal Customer Champions
This seems obvious but let me say it anyway: if your champion moves on to another organization, make damn sure your sales squirrels follow up quickly. The first few months are when this person has the most ability to call into question your competitors’ offerings and to use their demonstrated success with your stuff to make some changes in their new gig.
Help Your Ideal Customers Succeed
Our Ideal Customer needs to have the resources to make the most of our offering: budget, expertise, training and so on. As vendors, there is a lot we can (and should) do to ensure they continue to successfully use our solution to solve their problem better than any other.
This can be ongoing training, access to specialists, technical content, some customization that’s a bit off the grid or helping them come up with the success metrics and measurement tools that will convince their Corporate Overlords they’ve got a winner. If you’re listening properly, you’ll figure it out.
Ideal Customers Make Great Guinea Pigs
If you’ve got a new product idea, concept, beta version or anything like that, call up your Ideals. These are the people most likely to give you honest, actionable feedback. This is also where you want to make sure you are still serving the needs of your most valuable customers and also to test if those needs are shifting at all. Plus they’ll help you understand if you are wandering away from your original purpose, which isn’t necessary a bad thing, but you want to make sure you are consciously deciding to leave these folks behind as you make changes.
Related Posts
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Don’t be Creepy to Your New Customers
BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
Or follow me @bizmkter
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