We talk about needing Ideal clients in your business. It’s mentioned that these are the people who want, need and will like who you are and what you’re offering them. It’s also well recognized that these folks are different for each business. The question I feel like no one is really asking or answering is “What is an Ideal Client anyways?”
An ideal client is made up of two parts their demographics and their psychographics.
Demographics are statistics about the physical groups a person is part of and includes:
-Age
-Gender
-Marital Status
-Neighborhood they live in
-Income level
-Educational level
-Ethnicity
-Race
-Type of Job
These statistics allow a business to determine who would buy their product or service.
Psychographics determine how people think and feel about different things. This includes, but isn’t limited to a persons
-attitudes
-behavoir
-interests
-core values
Statistics about these things determine why and how a person buys something.
In order to determine an ideal client a business needs information from both Demographic or “Who” category and the psychographic or “Why and How” category.
Each business’ perfect “who, why and how” are going to be different because each business has different product or service list, a different way of doing things, a different price point, and a different value system.
That’s why it’s so important for businesses to determine what their values are and what their ideals are because that is going to help determine their ideal client.
Let me explain this a bit more with a quick example
Let’s we’ve got two designers that both do Stationery Design
Designer A designs invites for weddings. They love intricate stationery designs with luxury materials. They price their work to cover these luxury materials and they believe cheap prices = low quality.
Designer B also designs invites for weddings, but they love hand drawn stationery designs. They price their work to be middle tier and they believe quality can be affordable.
Even though both designers create stationery products and both make invites for weddings, they have vastly different ideals and philosophies on how to do things. This means that Designer A is most likely going to determine they want high end brides around 30+ who make at least $80,000/year that regularly buy luxury products and are planning to splurge on every detail of their wedding. Meanwhile, Designer B is likely to choose brides who are 25+ making about $50,000/year who enjoy unique items and have a healthy, but limited budget for their wedding.
Because each designer’s values are different, their chosen client is different. How they relate to and communicate with these clients is different.
To me, that is the whole point in having an ideal client, it gives a business a ready made audience who already wants what they have offer.
Now that you know what makes up an ideal client, take some time to figure out who is your business’ ideal client and if you need a little help with that, check out my freebie “The Ideal Customer Assessment Worksheet”