Finding Your Ideal Customers

(Transcript auto-generated, please excuse errors. Some light editing may have been done for clarity.)

Hello everybody today,we were talking about ideal customers who they are, what it means,how to find them, all that kind of good stuff.

The computer said some weird like reload thing. So hopefully that was picked up.

Please come. And if you are here and also comment, if you’re watching the replay,if you have any questions as always throw them in the chat comments, whatever,and I will answer them as best I can. But anyway, I’ve been running around crazy today. Tonight, we’re talking about ideal customers.

A lot of people don’t know what that is.Every business should have at least one, you might have multiple,which is perfectly fine.

And then once you figure out who they are, then what so, and I know customer is exactly what it sounds like.It’s the perfect customer for your business. The people you want to work with,they’re the people who will support everything you do.They want everything you do. They love everything you do.Working with them as a breeze.They tell their friends and family about you.They’re kind of like your own personal cheerleader kind of thing.

Once you find them,everything will start to fall into place. Not everything will be easy, but things will get easier.

What this matters with in regards to marketing, once you know exactly who you’re talking to, you can talk directly to them.If you apply, if you’re trying to get everyone to like you and buy your stuff, you’re kind of appealing to nobody.So the riches are in the niches as a popular marketing term, the more specific, you know, the better your marketing will be the better your sales will be.That kind of stuff. I like to frame it as think of it.As you’re talking to a single person, you were ICA.Imagine whoever they are, give them a name. If you want, every time you’re writing something, whether it’s your website or an email or a blog post,or an Instagram post, anything on social media, right.

As if you were talking to them.Not that you’re just talking to everybody that you’re specifically talking tothat one person, what that will do will help them notice you they’ll feel aconnection and people like connection. People connect with people, not things.

And I kind of frame it as you could work withsomeone who understands marketing.Sure. But wouldn’t,you rather work with someone who understands marketing and running a creativebusiness like that, right? There is a shift toward my ideal customer.

And that just makes more for me.I know how to run a creative business. I know marketing that kind of stuff.And then when, if, if I put out there like,are you a creative person with a business and you need marketing help, that’s going to speak to people a lot more than just do you need marketing help?

Does that make any sense?

I did post in the group earlier today that if someone were to look through yourprevious customers from the last year,whether they’re looking at photos of them or like their profiles or pictures oftheir homes or whatever applies to what you were creative business is,would that person be able to find any connecting fiber from one to the next?And if they could,then you’re on a very good track of finding your ideal customer.

I know for me personally, with my flowers,I go for what I call modern and alternativecouples. So for me, that looks likea lot of my couples have tattoos or they weardresses that aren’t white, or they don’t wear dresses at all.Or they have a mixed gender wedding party, that kind of stuff.That’s not for everybody. And you know, that’s okay.I’m not gonna turn away someone who is in a heteronormativecouple with the white dress and the black tux.Like I’m not going to turn them away. But if they’re looking through my stuff,they might not feel as directly spoken to as someonewho is wearing a black dress, something like that.

I think you’re getting my point, but this can apply to everything.And you can have more than one ICA and sorry,that’s a ideal customer avatar. Or some people call it a profileICP sometimes for profile, you know, whatever you call them, they’re your people.I also call them your target or your target audience.That also is what they’re called when you’re making an ad is like,who’s your target audience? So like, whatever you call it, you need to know who you’re talking to.

Dee said, “yes.” I’m glad I’m making sense. Cause you know, sometimes I don’t.

I did just mention that you could have multiple ICS.So if you have a business like mine, where you do, I do like would flowers for weddings and events, but also home decor.My home decor person might be completely different than my wedding.Couple that I’m looking to work with. I know personally, a lot of my decor items are bought by people who are noticeably older thanthe couples that are getting married and using me for their wedding right there.That’s an obvious difference. So on my Facebook page,I typically go for more of the decor type posts and my Facebook group.I talk more about de because Facebook tends to lean for theolder audience, older side of my audience. I’ll put it that way.

And the younger side of the audience, which are the ones getting married,they’re more on Instagram and Tech-Talk. So for there, I focus on my wedding stuff. I mean, it just, it makes sense. I do cross post.I do post about both things in each spot,but I try to keep it a littleseparated.

There are any questions, please let me know. Okay.

Kind of just doing like a quick overview.Ideal customers are so interesting to me. They’re like my favorite thing.So I’m trying to like, not go on too many tangents here.So if you have a specific question, let me know and I will try to answer itanother way that I know customers are really helpful, especially on social media and especially then on Instagram,if you’re on Instagram, if your ideal customer is on Instagram is with the hashtags.So you can try to use hashtags that they would be using I’min my own business. So I know that, but with wood flowers, if you’re posting things and you’re only using things like what flowers wouldroses would florists would from are flowers, floral, like forever florals,that kind of stuff.

Most likely the people searching those.Some very specific ones are other wood florists who are not your customer.

So you want to be finding what the people you are trying to find it to buy fromyou. What they’re searching, what their hashtags would be.

Excuse me, Jennifer said, “so if you do get to know them, people say research, but like, how would I research me?”

I’m not sure what you mean. Like, once you figure out who they might be, how do you get to know them?

You find someone who fits the profile as close as possible. You might also be able to find a customer that you’ve worked with already, who is, or as close to your ideal customer,reach back out to them say, Hey, would you be willing to sit down with me for,you know, 20 minutes? And I can pick your brain and you know,send them like a $5 Starbucks gift card or send them agift card for your business or something small from your business,the insights that they will give you will be worth it.I can pretty much promise you that.

So once you find someone like that, you can, like I said, you could interview them, talk to them. It can be over a video call.You can go find them, go meet them up at, meet up at Starbucks,buy them a Starbucks or something like that. You can alsoget into Facebook groups and find things that people have in commonor find an Instagram profile. And just like,if you go to an Instagram profile and it’s somebody named, I don’t know, Lucy, you’re scrolling her profile.And you really like the feel of it. You really like her posts.You really like what she, her message is or what she’s talking about.You find that you have aligned values, maybe that kind of thing, make her your ideal customer.

And from then on, imagine that you’re speaking to Hulu. See, whenever you write a Facebook post or an Instagram post or a blog post,et cetera. And once you have someone in mind, you’ll be able to get more personable. You’re not just like, Hey everyone, here am. I would flower. You’re saying,are you looking for an alternative for your modern wedding?That is XYZ.And the people who are out there searching for an alternative for their weddingor consider themselves alternative, they’ll see that they’ll perk up.They’ll pay attention. And then you can go from there.

And for the hashtags, I know that like hashtags are huge on Instagram.There they work on Facebook. They’re not nearly as effective.So it might not be worth your time, but spend some time on Instagram and the hashtags.I also view them as keywords so they can apply just in a differentway for everything else.So if you have a customer andyour ideal customer loves the farmhouse look, and you find them on Instagram and they’re using the hashtags farmhousefresh. I have no idea. They’re not my people. I don’t know.But if they’re using like farmhouse fresh, you can then put that into your Facebook posts and say likefarm house, fresh de Corps, work that into your post, stuff like that.

It’s also a good thing too. If you’re on Pinterest, the hashtags don’t work on Pinterest, but you can use them as keywords or as tags. So it’s once you figure it out, like you can use it everywhere.

Jennifer, I hope I answered your question there. Any other questions?Let me know. Do you said she found the same, that Facebook is more decor? Yeah, I found that. I, I think it’s just because like, that’s the older generation, not the older generation, but they tend to be older users.

And I did mention that you can have multiple.So if you have wedding versus decor versus, you know, whatever else you may be doing,you can also change them just because today your ideal customer as Lucy doesn’tmean in three months, that that’s still going to be what you want to do.As you move through your business, as you do it for longer, you’re going to figure out your style and what you want to do.

And that will help change direction.If you need to that kind of thing. Like none of this is set in stone,just because you have appeal to this certain ICA rightnow, if in three months you decide, you know, I’m never going to touch farmhouse again. That’s okay.Like start a new ICA ICP, whatever you want to call them.

Awesome. Jennifer said, I did answer her question.

Let me know if you have any other ones.

I did post on national floral design day, which was last month or something Iforget earlier this month.

And you can look through those pictures that I posted. And you can tell, like, there’s a, there is definitely a connection between the couples that I’m talking about.Like they’re all tattooed, they’re all in, you know, different dresses. Like a couple of them are in white dresses.One of them is in a black dress. One of them has got like pink hair,stuff like that. So like, you can tell that, like I have an ideal customer and we have found each other.

So look at that, like, when,if you do weddings or if you do like events or expos or shows or markets, that kind of thing, take a note of who’s walking into your booths,take note of who’s buying your stuff. You don’t have to be asking them like, oh,you bought this. Like, why did you buy it? How old are you?What books do you read? Like that kind of thing. But like,you can write down like, oh, like 10 guys bought this thing,but like 20 women bought that one and they all seem to be over 30.They all seem to be in their twenties. Like that kind of thing.Just take as much information as you can and whittle it down.

There is somebody in this group. I don’t think she’s on right now.Her name is Lauren. She does crocheted items and I never do it.Justice explaining it. But she goes for like the fantasy D and D type stuff.And she does like dice bags and things like that.Like that is a very specific person that she is selling to.And she doesn’t just say, you know, I crochet that.Doesn’t tell anybody anything, but knowing that her audience will want these type of things.That’s what she makes. And that’s what she talks about.

We are pretty much at nine 15. So if there aren’t any other questions, I will probably be up. You can always drop more questions.If you’re watching the replay, feel free to drop a question in on this video, in the comments or in the group, wherever is easiest for you guys.And I will get to it as quickly and as well as possible.I do have a open house this weekend that I’m doing.So from now until Monday, I’ll probably be pretty quiet.But as soon as I’m back, I’ll answer all of your questions.

I have not seen any other questions come through.So I think I’m gonna wrap it up.

Like I said, leave any questions that you guys might have, and I will get to them as soon as I can, as well as I can. Do you know who your ideal customer is? Do you think, you know, you might think, you know, your specific hashtags that you like to use or keywords that you like to use to talk to them. I would love to hear it.

My pleasure, everybody. Thanks for joining me. Hopefully, I gave you something that will be helpful.

I know I got kind of like rambling for a little bit. That’s okay.

I will talk to all of you next week. Have a great night, everybody.