Whether Microsoft Partners are looking to expand current offerings or dive deeper into specialized practices, being clear on where to focus your unique skills and capabilities, and realise the impact of sales and marketing efforts is key to your business growth and profitability.
But, you’ve probably tried this already, and it wasn’t worth the time spent, right?
Well, instead of talking to everyone about everything, and winning the same customers over and over, you need to create a customer niche that care about what you have to say.
You can keep your current customers and build a niche at the same time
It's important to remember that you are able to build your ideal client without needing to flip your current customer base on its head. In fact, you need your current customers to help design who you want to have your ideal perfect future with, so they need to stick around.
Defining your target market
Ultimately, this process is about building a list of the most appropriate people to market to. This is a list of companies and their decision-makers – the people most likely to be interested in your specific product, service offering or Microsoft go-to-market. Creating this list ensures you’re spending your resources, time and money on reaching the right people, rather than the wrong ones, and your marketing messages falling on deaf ears.
To do this, you will need to consider each of the following five factors.
- Geographic
- Demographic
- Psychographic
- Accessibility
- Behavioral / Lifestyle
Considering all these factors may seem intimidating, but there’s an easy way to get started. You will already have a number of existing customers. If these customers have any attributes in common, this is a good place to begin defining what your target market should look like.
Now, time to build your ideal customer
Now that you’ve identified the boundaries of your target market, who should you approach first?
The SalesPlay On-Ramp™ program formalizes this process, and guides you through the ideal client worksheet to find decision-makers at your target accounts, who aren’t just within your target market but are at the apex of it.
How do we do that? By working through;
- Size
- Industry
- Location
- Persona Type
- Worries
- Problems
- Value
Although you might never find a company that “exactly” matches your ideal customer, if any company ticks more than just a few of the boxes above, they should be your priority.
Remember…
- You don’t have to spend money to get started today
- Defining your ideal client will mean you don’t spend money chasing the wrong people
- You can keep loving your existing clients, too.
What's next?
Since you’ve made it this far you might be interested to know more about our SalesPlay On-Ramp™ Program? If we're right, shoot us an email and we'll send through all the details.
