How to Find Your Perfect Customer by Answering 13 Simple Questions
Your new idea is outstanding! But who will be interested in it?
You found a problem, you found a solution, everything is set, you are ready to work on your project and give value to the world. There’s only one slight problem. You don’t have the necessary funds to market your product to everybody from the internet.
So how do you know who will be most interested in your product?
How do you market your product exactly to the people that will love your product?
How do you make the best out of the marketing efforts around the launch?
You create a persona profile.
How do you create this kind of profile?
If you think about the basic questions from the previous article, you have the why and what figured out. Now you need to attack the who from the equation.
Here I have a case study for the ideal customer for a product manager.
Ideal customer profile
Name: Brian
1 - General info about Brian (minimum biographic data):
is 35 years old
it’s at his first startup
2 - Who is Brian? Where does he work? Where does he live? What are his hobbies?
Brian is a startup CEO, has 2 developers, 2 designers, and 1 marketing intern.
Brian lives in Western Europe.
Brian is passionate about business development.
Brian is passionate about technology.
3 - Where and how does Brian spend his time (online)?
Brian spends his time on Reddit and Quora.
Brian spends his time on Indie Hackers.
4 - Why does Brian need your services/product?
He wants to spend more time on the business development side than product development.
He wants more free time.
He wants to know that the product is in good hands.
5 - How does Brian feel about his problems?
Brian is stressed because there is too much work to do.
Brian feels that he cannot focus enough on the product.
Brian has lots of operational things to do, salaries, partnerships.
6 - What are the biggest problems/discomforts that you can solve for Brian?
Brian can focus more on business development than on product development.
Brian can give suggestions related to the product without having to ensure that the development team has fully understood the idea.
Brian doesn’t need to work 12 hours per day anymore in order to have a growing business.
7 - What are the biggest dreams/hopes that Brian has related to your services?
Brian wants someone to take over the product in the least time possible, less than 2 weeks.
Brian wants to feel that the product is evolving better than he could ever do by himself.
8 - What are the ideal results?
Brian wants to feel that the product can reach its full potential.
9 - Why is your service important to Brian?
Brian wants to focus on the operational side of the business without having to be stressed about product development.
10 - What objections does Brian have related to your services?
Brian is not sure that I have enough experience for this.
Brian would not risk his new business with an unproven (inexperienced) Product Manager.
11 - What is the relationship between you and Brian?
Something more towards Robin to Batman than Employee to Employer.
We work closely, as I am the extension of his vision.
12 - What does Brian expect from you?
Brian expects me to believe in his product as much as he does
Brian expects his product to be successful.
13 - What do you expect from Brian?
I expect Brian to trust me.
I expect Brian to back up my vision and direction for the product.
I expect Brian to let me do my job with minimum micro-management from his side.
You should keep in mind that if you want to use this profile to create the audience of an ad, it’s not really enough. You need a more specific profile, to include the income and more precise localization.
Where is he online?
Based on the previous article’s basic questions, we are tackling the where now.
While we do have a part of this already covered in the profile (question number 3), simply writing Quora and Reddit is not enough, we need to dig deeper.
We have answered all the questions that we could have related to him. The only thing that’s left now, is to think a little bit more precisely where we could find him.
All social media platforms are good places to search for, but we have to be more precise, as precise as we can get.
For sure, not all platforms are good places to find Brian in particular, but I will cover here most of them since you probably have different needs from mine.
Reddit
Since Brian is an entrepreneur, he could be active in the r/entrepreneur subreddit. There are lots of questions that a new entrepreneur could have, so he could start here. Since he has a startup, it’s also highly likely that we could find him on r/startups.
There are subreddits for pretty much any niche you can think of, just keep in mind that it could be pretty complicated to promote yourself or your product there.
Reddit works like a forum, it has moderators and rules. There are lots of subreddits that have rules against posting links. Be sure to read the rules before posting stuff.
But you always have the chance to just put some content there, to promote your product without mentioning it and when people say they are interested, you can directly DM them. Yeah, this is the manual way to find people on Reddit, but it works if you are willing to invest the time in doing this.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a platform where you can find lots of professionals. The recruiting component of LinkedIn is also very nicely developed.
There is a very high chance that he has a profile there and we could potentially reach him out there.
You can even make the “cold reach” a little warmer by connecting on LinkedIn. There is a big chance that he will click to see your profile when you request the connection. You basically just “warmed” the reach. People are also more unlikely to ignore a chat window than an email, so do reach out to people on LinkedIn.
You could potentially find a job but you don’t want to apply there, on some job posts you can see who posted the job. You can directly reach out to that person.
You might know a company, you can search for the company and you can find out what are the employees that work there. That’s an easy way to get in contact with the CEO or some head of HR.
LinkedIn is also a very good platform to search for B2B contracts.
Facebook Groups
There are lots of groups for entrepreneurs where we could find him. Some of them are localized, some of them are international.
Depending on your business, you can find where people discuss the problem that you solve.
Usually, groups with fewer members give you better engagement (10-50k users). There is also a gambling potential that you can have in big groups (500k). If your post gets viral then you get exposure to an incredible amount of people. But also keep in mind that not everybody that’s in a group regularly checks its activity and it’s so easy to go by unnoticed.
Online forums/Communities
There are different forums online that are dedicated to people that have certain interests. Forums are communities and they could have different forms.
Here is a list of some communities that I found highly useful:
For sure you can find a popular forum for pretty much any niche, if not, it’s your chance to create one and get people in one place.
If you are the creator of a community, people will gladly want to try your product/service.
Instagram
Now, our Brian might not be interested in businesses on Instagram, as he might like to see pictures with cats and dogs. But that doesn’t stop you if you have something else to offer.
If you have a physical product for sale, then for sure you must be present on Instagram. Mood pictures with your product are very important. What do I mean by mood pictures? I mean pictures with the product in action, people using it, people enjoying their life with your product.
It’s very important to show what a beautiful life your product can make. Just think about the Coca-Cola commercials.
TikTok
You probably did not expect TikTok to appear on this list. But most of the things from Instagram apply here as well. Instagram and TikTok have a very young audience.
If you want to market your product to a young audience, you should not skip Instagram and TikTok.
But keep in mind that not only young people are on TikTok, it’s fairly popular and you can use the same strategy as on Instagram, just show your product in action.
You can also use TikTok to show you daily life on the job, packaging products before shipping, all that.
Show that there are people behind your business, that if they buy your product, they directly help you and your employees.
Google Maps
You can find a local business using Google Maps. You can call and say what you offer, what you do, and request to discuss with someone that has the power to make decisions.
You might not always get to the boss, but you need to keep digging. Keep searching and create an excel or something where you can track the numbers, the name of the manager, and some other details.
Don’t directly abandon if they tell you that they will call you back after some time, you should call them and ask again. If they don’t tell you not to call again, then just do it.
For sure, this is not really applicable for our example, but it’s important nonetheless. If you create websites for dentists, then start searching on Google Maps all the dentists that you can find, analyze their website and start calling with an offer in hand.
Where is he in real life?
People with similar interests gather in some physical places. Sure, now we are in a global pandemic, but this will eventually pass and people will gather again.
Think about events like CES or ComicCon. There are similar gatherings for basically all the niches you can think of.
You can easily search for this kind of event on Google or Facebook. Go there and actually meet the people, meet your potential customers. Tell them what you do, how you can help them, and listen to their feedback.
Now let’s try and figure out where would Brian go.
Since he is an entrepreneur and has a startup in tech, he could be present at hackathons.
In this day and age, it’s also highly probable you could find him in a cowork space. Some people like to work with other people, you get inspiration and you extend your network.
Where should you be?
You should be everywhere.
Sure, our time is limited and we need to make the best out of our limited time. That means that we should initially focus on the platforms that have the best return on investment.
Yeah, you might find dentists on TikTok, but it’s much easier to find them on Google Maps.
Yeah, you might find moms interested in your new education book for kids on LinkedIn, but it’s much easier to just go to a Facebook Group dedicated to moms.
But in the end, you should not skip any platform or community.
Keep in mind that on these platforms you need to provide value, actual value. You don’t go around pasting your product’s link, people will just hate you for spam.
Guide people to your product, try to be humble about it, educate your audience.
That’s how the world should work, you educate your audience. If you are lucky, you get an educated customer. If you are unlucky, your competition gets an educated customer. Or the niche gets an educated competitor, who knows?
In the end, everybody wins, so, invest in sharing, invest in making your community a better place.
Practice:
Now it’s your turn to find your “Brian”!
Do you do it in a different way? Show me how you do it!
I made it easier for you so you don’t need to scroll all the way up, here are the questions with the placeholders:
Name: <name>
1 - General info about <name> (minimum biographic data):
2 - Who is <name>? Where does he work? Where does he live? What are his hobbies?
3 - Where and how does <name> spend his time (online)?
4 - Why does <name> need your services/product?
5 - How does <name> feel about his problems?
6 - What are the biggest problems/discomforts that you can solve for <name>?
7 - What are the biggest dreams/hopes that <name> has related to your services?
8 - What are the ideal results?
9 - Why is this important to <name>?
10 - What objections does <name> have related to your services?
11 - What is the relationship between you and <name>?
12 - What does <name> expect from you?
13 - What do you expect from <name>?
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