Who is your best customer? Your ideal customer?
Seriously—reflect on that for a moment.
A particular person should come to mind, someone who truly likes what you do for them.
Jot down what it’s like to work with them and your list may look something like this:
- Easy to work with, flexible, unfussy
- Ask good questions but trust and accept your advice
- Refer their friends and neighbors to your shop
- Appreciate the work you do
- Pay on time
What would your business be like if you had 10 or 50 or 100 more customers just like them?
When you have a clear idea about who you want to serve, you can tailor your message and offerings to attract your ideal customers.
How do you get that clarity? By creating an ideal customer profile. Sometimes called a customer avatar or buyer persona, your ideal customer profile reminds you of the customer you most want to reach in your market.
Your ideal customer, your market, and your message
In your shop’s marketing plan, you define your market, message, and media.
Your ideal customer should be in your market—the pool of customers you serve. It’s important to understand your market because that influences your message and the services you offer.
For example, your best customer could be a mom who lives in the suburbs and drives her Honda CR-V to take kids to school and soccer practice. Plus, she has a teenage daughter whose Toyota Camry also needs service.
Or your best customer could be a farm owner who uses his Ford F-150 to haul supplies from town.
Those are two very different types of customers with very different vehicles and very different needs.
Naturally, the messages you send them and the services you offer them will need to be different.
Can’t I just serve everybody?
Some shop owners resist the idea of defining an ideal customer because it sounds like they’ll be excluding potential customers and turning away business.
Want to know a not-so-secret? You’re already turning away some customers.
If you’re a diesel shop, you may not work on gasoline engines.
If you’re not a diesel-specific shop, you might not service diesel engines.
If you’re a European shop, you may not service American or Asian vehicles.
Even if you say “We fix everything for everyone,” there’s probably some work you don’t do. Maybe it’s collision repair or transmissions or tires or some other specialty.
Here’s the point: getting clear on the work you want to do and the customers who need that work gives you more room to say “yes” to better jobs.
And—bonus—both you and your customers will be happier when you’re doing the work you want to do.
Creating your ideal customer profile
Identifying your ideal customer isn’t hard. Again, you probably have a current customer in mind already. But what if you don’t? Then think about the kind of customer you’d like to have.
You can go through this exercise in less than an hour. You may want to gather your team to get their input as well.
Grab a pen and paper (or a marker and white board) and note some basic details:
- Age and gender
- Employment/profession
- Education level
- Income
- Location (neighborhood)
- Number of drivers at home
- Vehicles they drive
Now you’ll dig a little deeper to get inside their head:
- What’s the one thing that’s most important or valuable to your ideal client?
- What common values or beliefs do you share with your ideal client?
- What is your ideal client afraid of losing? (money, respect, admiration, love, time, prestige…)
- What’s the external “face value” problem your ideal client wants you to solve?
- How does your business solve his problem?
- How does he feel about his inability to solve his problem?
- How does your ideal client see herself after visiting your shop? What change takes place for her?
- Why would your ideal client be reluctant to buy your product/service/offering? (for example, value for the money, afraid their vehicle won’t be repaired properly, not sure you can deliver on your promise, something else?)
- Why is your ideal client contacting you (instead of a competitor) to solve her problem? Specifically, what makes you different from the other businesses who do what you do?
With your answers to those questions, you can now create an ideal client profile. Here’s an example:
“Jane” is a 50-year-old woman who lives in Your Town, STATE. She works as a staff department director at the local university. Jane and her husband live in an upscale neighborhood in a 30-year-old home. She has two teenage daughters, one of whom drives a 2005 Honda Accord. Jane drives a 2019 Escalade, and her husband drives a 2018 Lexus ES 350.
Jane has high standards, believes in personal development, and has a booming social life outside her job at the university. She’s worked hard to get where she is, but also cares deeply about family relationships and tries to balance that well. She is efficient at her job and daily life and would never want someone to question her integrity.
When it comes to shopping and spending, Jane is a value buyer and willing to pay for convenience. She wants to keep her vehicles clean and well maintained. She especially doesn’t want to worry about the safety or reliability of her teenage daughter’s car.
How to use your ideal customer profile
A social post, email, ad, or promotion is more effective when you write it with one person in mind. Now that you have your ideal customer profile in place, you know who you’re writing to.
For example, if someone like “Jane” is your ideal customer, you know she’s motivated more by value than price. You can take that into account when you’re creating your offers. If your ideal customer has a lower income and less disposable income, though, you’ll know price will be more of a concern.
Find more of your ideal customers with Turnkey Marketing
Need more customers for your auto repair shop? Turnkey Marketing helps busy shop owners like you get more customers and get your time back so you can spend more time doing what only you can do.
Schedule a call today and we’ll help you get more customers to know, like, and trust your shop.
