Identification of Customers/Consumers

The Customer May Not Be the Consumer

In the practical business world, your customer is the person who pays you. Your customer may be far removed from your consumer. Indeed, you may have little to do with the people who ultimately use or buy your wares.

The first task is to identify who will be the most likely customer for your new enterprise. While the markets for consumer and industrial goods are distinctly different, in many respects their analysis is much the same.

Fortunate is the firm that will sell to only one type of customer - for it only has to do research on that one buyer. And Pity the poor soul who sells to dozens of different types of customers, each of whom buys a sifnificant portion of the firm's output.

The Whos of Marketing

Who is the most likely customer for your concept? That question alone can be broken down into the four seperate areas:

1. The User
2. The Decision Maker
3. The Buyer
4. The Influencers

1. The User

The concept must be designed promiarly for the user. Diapers must fit the baby, not the mother. However, the decision-maker's (mother) wishes cannot be ignored. The baby doesn't really care whether the diapers are cloth or if they have pink teddies bears on them, but maybe the mother does.

Many products ahve fialed when they did not take into consideration the user's needs and preferences. If a computer fails to please the user it won't work right regardless of the decision-maker's evalution of it.

Far too little attention has been given to this aspect of product design. For example: in the menswear industry, experience proved that the firms that gave attention to how their garments fit their target market stayed around while those that did not pay attention to fit, did not last as long. To make a well-fitting garment, the manufacturer has to study closely the dimensions of the inteded customer. Old men are built differently than young men and need different products.

Study carefully how users use your product to point out the ways you can make it more convenient.

2. The Decision Maker

Marketers have placed great emphasis uponi studying the cecision maker for the obvious reason that unless the firm can get a favorable buying decision from that person, no sale will be made. In many situations, the decision making power is shared so, several parties must be contacted. Much motivational work is directed as trying to find out why the decision maker behaves in the manner that they do. Marketing probably spends more effort on the decision maker than any of the other parties in the transaction.

3. The Buyer

Who will make the actual purchase? Often the decsion maker and the buyer are one in the same. Channels of distribution are laregely determined by the buyer's desires. Where does the buyer wnat to go to buy your product/service? Find out and be there. It's that simple.

4. The Influencers

INfluencers are many and can be devious. The boss may be strongly influenced by what some professional athlete or celebrity says about a particular product. Maybe the next-door neighbor's opinion will count for something. It's often called word-of-mouth advertising and it's effective. If you are selling smoke detectors, try to get the fire chief to recommend yours!