Know Your Customer - The Customer Avatar

Inspired by DigitalDeepak Internship Program 2 - Session 2

https://digitaldeepak.com/

Nobody have ever learnt swimming by just reading books… leave alone being a trainer. One of the important learning from this internship session is that we need to do it after we learn and then we can teach and lead.

"I recollect one activity when I started my sales career about a decade earlier, then I was based out of Kolkata. I was a Department manager of a Consumer durable department of a hyper retail store in one of the very successful company. After receiving the target for a big campaign of 4 days, we were jittery and it seemed as if being asked to climb Mount Everest.

It was 3 days for the campaign to start. Recollecting all my positive energies, with my team of 5 people we set some SMART steps to approach and conquer our goal."

• Affirm and pen down that we are going to beat the target of 1.45 Cr. by achieving 1.75 Cr.every morning after we got out of our bed from the next day till the campaign ends.
• A team of two people to revisit the catchment and understand the demographics, psycho-graphics of the customers and also take note of products being used by them. Further dig into their aspirations about products.
• Plan the Inventory based on the insights so that we have enough to achieve the numbers. Order it and get it before the campaign starts.
• Keep on measuring and pepping up the team at equal intervals.
• Plans for great after sales service... Installation, accessories supply and replacement if any.

Now what was the result???

• Day 01: Washed out because of incessant Rain due to Cyclone in Bay of Bengal
• Day 02: Washed out because of incessant Rain due to Cyclone in Bay of Bengal
• Day 03: We were at 0.57 Crores.
• Day 04 by 5 PM: Target achieved and we closed 1.76 Cr. +

What worked?

All the strategies and tactics helped in a big way… the affirmation, I guess in holding the rains after 2 days, the inventory projection helped in preventing any stock opportunity loss, the motivational pep talks helped in keeping the hope and energy of the team intact.

However, I would say the biggest factor was the survey, customer profiling and finding the right customer Avatar. We knew what to talk and offer to customers. What mattered to them the most…? They even contacted us during rains and ordered on calls/SMS as we had spoken about their need for two days while the catchment survey activity.

KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER - Your Customer Avatar!

WHY?

An important task for a marketer is to understand and personify the real customer for his Brand. Selling products or services without visualizing your ideal customer is like driving with your eyes closed. We might have great budgets and best of the media vehicle/forms available but it becomes a guess work if we don’t put our best effort to decide the right customer.

It is important to talk to the ideal customer so that we understand the need and can be responsive via the right marketing medium. Class 2 of the Digital Deepak Internship class was to understand the importance of having the right Customer Avatar and how to identify them

HOW?

This is not about creating but discovering it… the needs of a customer is dynamic and hence to understand the customer Avatar and build customer persona one needs to study a set of prospects and discover the right customer.

To define our Right Target Customers we need to delve into the Demographic and Psychographic segmentation of the market. These segments are further micro segmented to understand the market in detail and target sharply.

Demographic Segmentation divides the market into smaller categories based on demographic factors, such as age, gender, education, ethnicity, religion, occupation and income.

Psychographic Segmentation is dividing your market based upon consumer personality traits, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.

Marketing is initially good conversation one to one and then to one to many. The objective is to have one single customer persona and write to one customer persona at a time, this gives a FOCUS to the communication and makes it more effective. Though there is a big audience but everyone can be targeted separately on their device by email or messaging. It’s always suggested to address people by their first name and converse like a friend.

WHO?

While visualizing our customer while creating the communication, it becomes interesting when we name him/her. I am associated with a QSR Chain, here we keep three customer personas in focus. They are our target consumer group while deciding any marketing campaign. The targeted customer avatar depends on the offerings, occasions and time-part. 

Vibrant Paritosh – Teenager, student, loves hanging out with friends.

Quick Sandy – She is a young professional, with extremely busy schedule, 21-25 years of age, unmarried.

Joyous Amit – Young family-man - 25-30 years of Age with one kid, love to spend time with his Family…

Let us elaborate the Customer Avatar of Vibrant Paritosh, this is based on the customer interaction at the store, conducting focused group activity and surveys done at the store.

Vibrant PARITOSH:

Vibrant Paritosh is a student of 18 years, he is an avid YouTube and Instagram user. He loves to hang out with his friends, in a month he visits our store 3-4 times with his friends who have reasons like – Birthday, Exam success, New Bike, New mobile… to celebrate. He like sharing the amount as well as meals with his friends.

CUSTOMER AVATAR

Conclusion

In this wide-spread market, the challenge is getting it right while discovering your customer avatar and sharing authentic communication to them personally on their device.