How Well Do You Know Your Customers? by Eric Groves

If you want to truly engage with your customers, it's important to know who they are. Sure, you know the regulars who come through your door every week or who connect with you regularly, but do you know the entire range of customers and prospects and, more importantly, what they mean to your marketing efforts?

There are 5 types of customers:
1. Your most passionate fans: These are the people who know and trust you and don't have to be asked to spread the word to everyone they know. They recommend your business naturally. You covet these people.
2. Your regular customers: These are the people who've shopped or interacted with you in the past, and do so often, but don't have a serious affinity for your brand, products, or services.
3. The prospects: These are people who know someone who knows you (your customers and passionate fans) and have an interest in what you have to offer.
4. The suspects: These are people who have an interest in what you offer, but don't know you exist.
5. The disinterested: These people have no interest in you, so don't spend time or money trying to reach them.

What do these five mean to your marketing efforts? You should be regularly marketing to the passionate fans and customers, through email and social media, by providing engaging content that they can in turn share with their friends and colleagues (i.e., the prospects). This sharing can take place through email forwards, posts to Facebook, retweets of your content, or word of mouth.

For the suspects, you should make sure information about your organization is readily available and accessible in as many locations as possible. For instance, restaurants should make sure their profiles on sites like Yelp and Google Places are accurate so people searching for a place to eat can find you. Your Facebook and Twitter pages should link back to your website, so those stumbling onto your Page or a tweet can get more information about your company. Make it as easy as possible for suspects and prospects to learn more about you and how you can benefit them.

The goal is to turn suspects into prospects, prospects into customers, and ultimately, customers into passionate fans.

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