Your customer

Sandy Paluzzi
The Bead Peddler

Like me, you probably want the biggest return possible on your marketing efforts.  You want your time and money to bring you many repeat customers.  I find the more narrowly I define my customer, the better I am able to target them. 

Let's use a fairly easy example of how to define a customer.  If you make formal jewelry, your target customer would be engaged women or prom attendees.  Your customer would be a single women between the ages of 16 to 26.   She is feeling romantic and optimistic at this point in her life.  Therefore, your message is going to be soft and romantic with a promise of hope and the future.  These women have several things in common.  For example, they all need a gown.  Therefore, you'd do well to network with small bridal boutiques.   They'll be paying a visit to a florist so there's  another marketing venue.  You'll want to network with wedding planners, hair stylists, and manicurists.  You can get some print advertising at a relatively inexpensive price by placing an ad in your local high school's play program or yearbook.  If your local paper prints engagements, place an ad on the same page as the wedding announcements.   Or send the future bride a congratulatory letter with the offer of your services.   She may be looking for the perfect color jewelry to match her gowns.  And you can always sweeten the pot by offering her free jewelry if she buys 6 bridesmaid's sets.  This example can use refining.  It is a starting point for a marketing plan.  But it all revolves around defining your customer narrowly.  By focusing  on two specific groups of women - prom goers and brides - we were able to effectively use our time and money to reach some strong potential customers.  This doesn't mean we can't make other jewelry or sell to other people.

I have found that by trying to be all things to all people, I tend to use a shot gun approach.  I'm tripping over every other generalist out there.  The only way to compete in that type of market is by price.  But by narrowing my marketplace to a specialized subsection, I stand out from the crowd.  I am able to compete by virtue of knowing my audience and being able to meet their specific needs.  On my bead peddler website, I made a crucial decision to phase out semi precious beads as they were saturated on the web.  In their place, I brought in a line of big holed beads.  I advertise specifically for people who want beads with large holes and this line is doing extremely well.  I still have plenty of beads with normal sized bead holes, but I am also putting time and effort into marketing my big hole beads. 

In my jewelry making ventures, I like to work with semi precious and unusual glass.  My jewelry is meant to appeal to a young single career woman with a lot of disposable income.  I find this customer at local reggae festivals and wine tastings.  I also find her at gyms and in office buildings.  I don't often find her at school fairs so I stay away from them.  But a friend does a lot of low end elastic fire polish bracelets.  She blows them out at Christmas school craft fairs as the kids want inexpensive gifts for their friends and parents. 

We're always going to do some hit or miss advertising.  Not all our efforts are going to bring in big dividends.  But by narrowing our target, we're more likely to hit it.

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