By Carlee Driscoll

Without customers we wouldn’t have businesses. For most of us in business our customers reigns supreme and we spend our days attracting them, servicing them and trying to keep them. To do this we need to understand exactly who they are. Working with businesses we typically find there are several people to factor in along the rocky road to a buying decision…

• The researcher – often the instigator, these guys are the ones trawling through and comparing the options (or not, if they have already made up their minds!?).

• The influencer – this could be anyone, any trusted person who will offer an opinion, recommendation or other useful (or not so useful) thoughts.

• The purchaser – these guys (actually, let me rephrase as this group is usually female!)… these gals hold the purse strings and enable the actual transaction.

• The user – the ones that actually end up using the product or service.

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These ‘fingers in the pie’ are relevant for both B2B and B2C situations. Take for example a relatively simple business decision. Let’s say an accountant’s office wants to get a coffee machine so they can make professional tasting coffee on premises for their very important clients. Ultimately the bosses who hold the purse strings will make the final call but it’s not the best use of their time to investigate the options, talk to coffee machines reps and compare the relative merits of leasing or purchasing and the ongoing cost of the beans! In this situation the office manager will get involved and no doubt everyone else in the office will have an opinion, as will the lady at the post office next door, the guy that delivers the milk and the friend at a barbecue over the weekend. And who is the user? The office junior, of course, who will be slaving over that coffee machine.

So who do we market to? It may be all of the above of and they may have very different motivations. It will depend on the specific market as to where the best opportunities are to influence the right people. Let’s take another example. Let’s say our client wants to sell iceboxes to blokes heading off up the beach to go fishing. Pretty simple hey… a few images of some bikini babes and a few beers with a robust looking icebox and a big fish and everyone’s a winner! Maybe not. It turns out that men don’t actually ‘buy’ iceboxes… wives buy iceboxes for their darling husbands, as gifts or as practical purchases. And what wife would want to think of hubby away on that fishing trip with notions of bikini babes and beer. Perhaps wives would respond better to marketing with a more family friendly approach. So let’s put food in the icebox, maybe a bottle of Chardy, pop a family size tent in the background, maybe even a happy kid / pet running around in the background… much more wife friendly!

It may require some research and thought to nail the best approach but don’t forget to think about who your customers really are! It makes all the difference in your marketing.

Carlee is the Strategic Marketing Planner for Chilli. If you’d like to see how Carlee and the Chilli team can help you grow your business call 5437 7788.