How to identify your Target Customer in your Homemade Skincare Business

Hi everyone! Today’s blog post is a very simple way to find your target customer. Without this, trust me it will be very very difficult to run a business and achieve the sales you want. Not to say everyone cannot use your product, it is to ensure that your marketing reaches the correct audience. 

1) You are just beginning to build your business. You must really understand what needs your product serves and who it helps, then target your marketing towards the group of people you have selected.

Imagine a person that would be your perfect customer. What age, gender, occupation, income range, skin condition, special requirements. 

For example, in a handmade soap business which sells natural products it could be: 

• Mothers who want the best for their children and families, around age 30 with the money to invest in good quality skincare.

• Women who have sensitive skin condition, frequent internet user who always reads the labels on product before buying, very conscious about what they put on their skin, around age 25-45 and are working. 

Those two are only samples. Your target could be men, could be vegans, anything as long as you are very clear with it. 

2) If you already are selling your product and not sure if you are marketing correctly? How will you know where is the market that is attracted to your product? 

Take a look at your customer base. This is why it is very important to collect information on those who purchase from you. 

For example, you notice that young women from age 20-35 are the ones mostly buying your products, and they usually buy your sensitive skin range. You might also notice another market where there are men aged 20-30 buying a certain type of product. 

So what will you do with this information? First understand that this should be your target market, as you know WHO they are, and WHAT they buy. We call this the “Who buys What” database. This way, you can advertise to the same group of people (Who) that are most likely to be interested in your product (What). 

3) Another example is location based targeting. If you are mainly based in KL in the beginning focus on building locally first. 

This way you can test the market and know what your customers like. Once you have data on “Who buys What” plus a good logistic partner, you can expand to similar customer profiles who enjoy your product around the country. 

With the local customers, you can get very valuable testimonials that will sell your brand for you! Of course imagine if you are the customer. You would rather trust your friends and other users of a product more than the person selling it right?

4) You can also find out your customer profile by paying attention to your competitors. Find the need that your competitors are not serving and create your own area of expertise to sell your brand. If you look around and see that none of your competitors are currently making soaps with organic materials or products suitable for babies, you can also create your customer profile based on this. 

So, this is the summary of methods on how to do targeting: 

• Create a ideal customer profile your product will serve and do marketing for that target customer.
• Find out from your existing database of customers and identify “Who buys What” and focus your marketing efforts accordingly. 
• Location based targeting where you market first to where you are based, so that you can gather more information on “Who buys What” before growing your business.
• Look at your competitors and create your own target customer profile that is different from what the rest are doing. 

What is important is that you create a “customer profile” of all this customers who buy your products and what their preferences are so that you can really customise your marketing and services to suit them. 

You will then be able to communicate your brand and product in a way that makes them like and want to buy from your brand. 

For example, marketing targeted towards local Malaysians are definitely different from marketing targeted to people living in China. If you are a Malaysian seeing a FB ad or video, you might watch it but you won’t feel like the ad was made especially for you…and also you most likely won’t be purchasing from that brand. And that is why targeting is very important.