Assemble a portrait of your customer
Published: July 26, 2004
By Keeran Sewsunker for The Daily News
Before your research is over, your ideas about your target customers may change several times.
Add explanations and qualifiers under each category as they occur to you; these will document your thought processes and remind you of how you got to the final concept.
The following is a prelim-inary customer profile for an entrepreneur’s actual business idea. He wanted to offer designer paint effects, but was not sure if there was enough of a market in his area for him to do this for a living. The following is a customer profile he came up with:
Gender: Both, since many clients will be couples.
Age: Late 20’s to 40’s – let’s say 29 to 45. Very young people usually cannot afford this, and the older generation might be too conservative.
Location: The greater Durban area. Since projects usually require at least a few days to complete, it is not practical to drive long distances everyday.
Income: R120 000 upwards for the combined household. Since the cost per job ranges from R2 000 upwards, people who make less are unlikely to be able to afford this.
Occupation: Probably white collar.
Other factors: Owns a home; many landlords will not let renters paint, especially when it comes to daring effects like this.
Married, because couples have a greater pooled income and are more likely to be homeowners. No young children – because parents are not as likely to invest in fancy paint effects and might also be worried about the safety of kids around chemicals during the process.
When creating a customer profile, you will want to use secondary research to answer questions such as:
How many people in the Durban area are between 29 and 45 years old?
How many of these are married?
How many couples have young children?
How many have a combined household income of R120 000 or more?
What percentage of them own their own homes?
Are numbers of home-owners and relatively high-income families in my area increasing or decreasing?
How many decorative painters work in my area? Who are they?
How many were there five years ago, three years ago and last year? Are there more of them now than before?
How many clients hired them last year?
How much did they make on average?
Pasted from http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=500&fArticleId=2163710
On Target
By Isabella Trebond for Entrepreneur.Com
Before your research is over, your ideas about your target customer may change several times. Add explanations and qualifiers under each category as they occur to you; these will document your thought processes and remind you of how you got to the final concept.
This is a preliminary customer profile for an entrepreneur’s actual business idea. He wanted to offer faux paint effects, but wasn’t sure if there was enough of a market in his area for him to do this for a living. Going only on his own knowledge, this is the customer profile we came up with (comments, qualifiers and all):
Gender: Both, since many clients will be couples
Age: Late 20s to 40s-let’s say 29 to 45. Very young people usually can’t afford this, and the older generation might be too conservative.
Location: The Denver area. Since projects usually require at least a few days to complete, it’s not practical to drive long distances every day.
Income: $60,000 upwards for the household combined. Since the cost per job ranges between $500 and up, people who make less than that aren’t likely to be able to afford this.
Occupation: Probably white-collar
Other factors: Owns a home-many landlords won’t let renters paint, especially when it comes to daring effects like this. Married-because couples have a greater pooled income and are more likely to be homeowners. No young children-because parents aren’t as likely to invest in fancy paint effects and might also be worried about the safety of kids around chemicals during the process.
When creating a customer profile, you’ll want to use secondary research to answer questions like the following:
How many people in the Denver area are between 29 and 45 years old?
How many of these are married?
How many couples have young children (under age 10)?
How many have a combined household income of $60,000 or more?
What percentage of them own their own homes?
Are the numbers of homeowners and relatively high-income families in my area increasing or decreasing?
How many decorative painters and faux finishers work in my area? Who are they?
How many were there five years ago, three years ago and last year? Are there more of them now than before?
How many clients hired them last year?
How much did they make on average?
Where are they located? Are there more of them in certain areas than others?
Pasted from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,316421-2,00.html