Customers are People Too – Know Their Demographics

I know, it should obvious. Are your customers people or are they businesses? What differentiates one company from another is a mix of services, product availability, prize, credit, ease of doing business and yes, possibly relationships. But relationships are personal.

As companies we classify our customers by what type of business that they are in and we market to them based upon business needs and applications.

Now, I’m not saying this is 100% wrong but how many times have you lamented over the past few years that the relationship aspect of the business is not as appreciated as it once was?  And we can show that the role of relationship with outside salespeople has declined based upon the results of the customer satisfaction surveys we have conducted for clients.  In fact, one of the reasons contractor-oriented distributors conduct group incentive travel programs is to strengthen customer relationships (and generate incremental sales).  And yes, it works (and a form of it can work for industrial and commercial facilities, but we’ll discuss that another day.)

Understanding customer demographics can help you market better

A couple of weeks ago, after the College Bowl Semi-Final games and the NFL Wild Card games I happened to go to www.si.com.  I presume I wasn’t the only one as many probably wanted to see post-game analysis.  Lo and behold, guess who was advertising on www.si.com?

Yes, Grainger. (and I apologize for the quality of the screen capture.)

Do you think they know the demographics of their customers? (whom a number are also your customers.)

The question then becomes, do you know, and capture, the demographics, and interests, of your customers be they contractors, industrial accounts, or your institutional, commercial MRO accounts or government accounts

We’re not talking “customer type”, we’re talking about customers as people.  What are their interests? If you know that, you can communicate about what interests them as well as reach them through those venues.

Grainger knows many of its customers are sports-oriented … hence they market on www.si.com, on sports radio, in stadiums, and more. Consider, if you run a promotion or a frequent buyer program, are you targeting the right rewards to your customer demographics? If you hold a training seminar, where is the venue?

If your area is known for competitive college sports (think ACC basketball, SEC football, etc) and you knew key customers’ favorite teams, could you structure friendly competitive promotions or provide awards tied to favorite schools? Years ago I ran promotions for a national distributor where we gave train sets and stuffed animals to contractors …. for their kids!

The point is the more you know about your customer the better you can tailor marketing, promotion and customer relationship initiatives.  In an age that is becoming more transactional, asking some questions (and retaining the information) can help you reach customers … if you treat them like people.