This document provides guidance on defining a business's target customers. It recommends identifying who will buy the product, their characteristics, buying habits, and preferred purchasing locations and times. The document also suggests creating an "ideal customer profile" with demographic and lifestyle details. Additionally, it advises conducting market research through desk research of competitors' websites and field research like customer surveys to understand perceptions of the business's product and pricing compared to competitors. Businesses are asked to draft a customer sketch and research their competition, products, pricing, and customers' views for discussion at the next session.

1. Enterprise
Customers

2. Introduction
revisiting the proposal
• Read out you elevator pitch to your group.
• Questions.
• What actually is your business?
• What do you sell?
• Refine it and make it clear exactly what is it
that people will give you money for.

3. Clarity
core business and periphery aspects
• Can your business aim be clarified?
• IE what will you do that makes you money?
• How is this done? -
• What does you business do that does not make
you direct money BUT is essential to getting
people to your product – this might be your usp
or innovation, it might be your brand it might be
a component of your business that is essential
but has no revenue stream but needs to happen.

4. Customers
• Who is it that will buy your product?
• Who is your niche?
• Six questions:
– Who buys? What are the characteristics of consumers that are likely to buy
from you? Who is your customer?
– Why do consumers buy? Why will they buy the products or services on offer?
– What do they buy? Which products or services do they typically choose?
What brands do they prefer? Who is your competition?
– How do they buy? What are their buying habits? Do they buy because it is
convenient or do they buy because it is easily accessible? Do they pay cash, or
do they use credit cards?
– Where do they buy? Do customers prefer to buy from mail order, retail stores,
the internet or from door-to-door? How far are they prepared to travel to
buy?
– When do they buy? Season, time day of week etc…
• You will not have the answers yet but keep asking these questions.

5. Segmenting the market and identifying
ideal customers
• It is good to have an ideal
customer in mind.
• This is known as segmenting the
market and can be done in
different ways.
• Perhaps you are your own ideal
market.
– You will have more information
but it may be more difficult to
work out actually!
• Lots of criteria we can use to
define our target customers some
of these criteria are important and
some are not.
• Are there any that really make a
difference?
• Fill in the customer profile form.
• Age range;
• Gender;
• Sexuality:
• Educational level:
• Political affiliation:
• Marital status:
• Relationship status:
• Employment status:
• Occupation:
• Home ownership:
• Urban / rural:
• Hobbies / interests
• Chooser versus user

6. Also think in terms of money and time:
• money rich but time poor,
• money rich and time rich,
• money poor but time rich’
• money poor and time poor

7. Customer sketch
• Can you think of a short customer
description?
• Give an idea of the lifestyle and interest of the
person.
• Allow the brand to align with the customer.

8. Mrs Rich but critical
• “High income, house proud, time rich and
money rich, early to mid 50s, astute, grown up
children, knows what she wants and is
prepared to spend for quality goods for her
home,”.

9. Competitive Christine
• “mid 20s, employed professional, successful in
work, tries to beat others in everything she
does, driven by results, sees sport as a way to
show her superiority, likes to look good and
enjoys attention, lives with friends, socialises”

10. Thoughtful Tom,
• “ late 20s to early 30s likes reading and quiet,
happy to be alone or with friends, not
ambitious but is reasonably successful,
educated and cultured, has an alignment with
anti-corporate and environmentalism, likes
different music, has travelled”

11. Draft your own ideal customer sketch

12. Research
• You will continue to find things out all the time and you should revise your
business plan accordingly.
• But some basic aspects need to be done early.
• You need to find information out about:
– Products – who are your competitors and the exact details of their products –
their usp.
– Pricing how much do competitor products cost
– Customers – what are their views of your product? Would they choose it over
a competitor?
– Promotion – what media will reach them?
• These can be done through:
– Desk research
– Field research
• You will need to choose the method to suite your business type and
product.

13. Desk research
• Start by using google to identify who or what
is your competition.
• Visit their websites, identify the precise
products that you may be competing with.
• Take note of branding – could you understand
their ideal customer?
• How is this different from your own?
• Is pricing available?

14. Field research
• Two types:
– Investigating the product.
• Sample the product – observe and record information about
your experience.
– Investigating the customer.
• Do a short survey or focus group of potential customers.
– You will need to be sure you can reach them - hence it is good to
be of a group who will buy your own product.
– What do they think of your product?
– Would they buy it?
– What do they think of your price point?
– How could it be improved?

15. For next session…
• For the next session please conduct some
research to determine:
– Some basics about the physical location of your
business.
– your competition - their products, their pricing their
USP AND how customers may react to yours.
• This can be done through desk research and field research -
you determine which method is most useful.
• Please send this to me by Friday 17th February
and we will discuss your results the following
week on the 24th February.