Every time I approach a business owner or manager and I ask what type of clients they serve, the answer is always similar: they mention where they are from, their age and whether they are “luxury” or “middle-class” or some similar characteristics. Some other times they mention their client is “anyone”, which is even worse than knowing just demographic details about them.

This type of segmentation (customer classification for those who never heard the term segmentation) is very poor to say the least. One of the only things that will come out of it would be the selection of languages in which your information will be offered and very little more than that.

Nowadays, it is important to know as much about our customers as possible. People are looking for personalized products and experiences. We want to feel special and different from everybody else. We want to feel identified with the message that a company is sending. We want to tell ourselves “that is me” when we see an ad. This can only be accomplished if we know our customers extremely well and adequate our offer to them.

When customers feel you are directly talking to them, they will feel you are overdelivering. This is how you do it: you know your customers. When you know someone it is very easy to tailor the product to what they want, need or desire.

Besides the very basic information about your customers’ demographics, it is clear that you should also find out much more, then.

The ideal thing would be to create a sort of “avatar” or profile of your ideal customer, and the best you can describe them, the better. Things that you could (and should) include about them are for example their hobbies and interests, values, goals, ambitions, and so on.

The level of detail you want to define obviously depends on what type of product you are selling. The more involved your customers need to be in the purchase of your product the more information you need to gather about your avatar. If your product has a high price or it is of great importance in your customer’s life, they will be more involved in the purchase, therefore you need to put much more effort in knowing what they are like and what they are looking for in a product like yours.

What specific traits you need to identify? You can start by giving your avatar a name. Then, define the job they do, what is a day like in their life, what they do after work, what they do during the weekends, after work, during their holidays, etc. Picture what their house looks like, who they live with, how they dress, what they eat and how they shop.

These are examples of characteristics that make your ideal customer, you don’t have to use all of them at the same time, but only what could be relevant to your company and product that you sell. And of course, you can define different avatars for your different types of clients, or for your clients during different seasons if you run a seasonal business, etc.

So now, describe your customer(s), give them a name and find a picture that represents them. Have all that handy, maybe even stapled on a board in your office, and anytime you have to make a decision that concerns your customer, look up and think about those one you have on the board.

This will help you making decisions that are closer to your customers instead of just taking them from your only point of view. The more you know your clients, the better you will customize your products and services to them.