Target customer profiling is the process of making up fictional target customer profiles based on real human characteristics. The profiles give critical information about the idealized customers where none existed.
In this example, we shall create a target customer profile for a new type of washing machine that is very efficient in water and electricity consumption. Before proceeding, please make sure to go through the previous post for an explanation of the specific data that will be collected during this process
Section 1 – The Profile
- Demographics: Michelle is a 35 year old single mother of 2 who lives in the suburbs of Nairobi, Kenya. She is a lawyer by profession, and her monthly income is Ksh.70,000 (approx. $700), which comfortable positions her as a middle-class.
- Psychographics: When not at work, Michelle enjoys spending time with her children, cooking, going for a run, and watching TV. She hardly gets to spend much time with her friends due to the family responsibilities.
- Behavior: Michelle’s purchase decisions are often determined by a product’s price relative to its competitors. The cost of living in the city is very high and she has to be price sensitive in her decisions. She prefers functional products that are inexpensive, and will make her life easier, as opposed the luxury products.
Section 2 – Real life situation
- The situation: As a single mother of 2, part of Michelle’s responsibilities include doing laundry for her children, who are still fairly young. She currently doesn’t own a washing machine and prefers to manually wash the clothes – as is common in Nairobi. Due to the traffic in the city, she often has to leave for work very early in the morning, and returns home very late in the evening; and because of this, small tasks like laundry become very difficult. Previously she used to do laundry during the weekend, but her work now requires her to come in on Saturdays, meaning that Sundays are the only days that she gets to rest. The last thing she would want to do is laundry.
- The desired outcome: Michelle simply needs better organization in order to be able to do the family’s laundry at her leisure. Since she arrives home very late from work, she needs a solution because laundry has to be done at least twice a week.
- Introduction of the product: She learns about the new washing machine through a TV advertisement, and goes ahead to make the purchase.
- Economic benefits: With the introduction of the new laundry system, Michelle now doesn’t have to worry about the physical tasks of manually washing clothes – which has been taking a toll on her back. The machine is also very efficient on the usage of water and electricity, meaning that the additional utility bills are lower than they would have been had she chose another washing machine. Now her kids don’t have to reuse dirty clothes, she does not have to worry about the physical tasks of washing, and her water and electricity bills at the end of the month are not that much higher. The benefits of the washing machine exceed the costs associated, and Michelle is happy with the purchase decision.
Section 3 – Processing the information
| Target Customer | Compelling Reason to buy | Advantage over competition | Pricing | Next Customer Acquisition | TOTAL | |
| Michelle | 7 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 38 |
| John | 3 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 28 |
| Elizabeth | 6 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 31 |
*Please go through the previous post for an explanation of how the scores work.
In the above example, Michelle’s overall score is 38 out of a possible 50, which is greater than that of the other profiled customers. In this case, Michelle represents our ideal niche; 30 – 40 year old working-class single mothers who live in the suburbs of Nairobi.
With this establishment, we can now plan all our strategies to acquire that small niche. Although washing machines have a large market, focusing all resources towards owning the small and targeted niche makes the task a lot easier. Only after the successful acquisition of the niche should you begin to focus on another.
If you are not very confident with the target customer profile that emerged victorious, remember that you do not need to select the most optimum niche in order to be successful, what you must do is to win the niche that you selected.
