Become Your Customer: How to Market Your Small Business Efficiently

You had a vision. You built it. Now all you have to do is find customers.

Easier said than done.

When do you start marketing your business? Where do you start? How much should you spend to build and grow your customer base?

Those are just a few of the many questions that come to mind. The best place to start unraveling these questions is by examining some of your own consumer behavior.

What led YOU to try a new restaurant or bar? What promotions caught YOUR eye that led you to make a purchase? What factors made YOU turn right and enter a mom-and-pop coffee shop instead of turning left into the Starbucks drive thru?

Answering these questions may lead you to some insights into how to attract a customer segment that’s like you to visit your business, but you will need to explore all the customer segments your business is serving to come up with a marketing plan that will increase sales without hurting your margins (25% off coupons will only take you so far).

Who are your customers?

Your customers will span the gambit when it comes to rituals, habits, and awareness. It is important, though, to narrow down your customer base into a few very broad segments to identify and prioritize marketing channels to reach them. If you could melt down your customer into two or three different people, what would they look like?

Let’s start with an example. Let’s say you are a microbrewery in Denver, Colorado. You curated an experience that deeply resonates with the outdoor community, specifically with the fly fishing and back country skiing/split board community (if this place exists already, please let me know; I’ll be working out of there from now on).  You sit down with your bartenders and servers and together paint a picture of one of your typical customers:

A person between the ages of 30-40 years old who works in the Denver metro area who works some white-collar job fully remote. They make the drive once a week to Decker’s to fish in the spring, summer and fall, and slowly crawls on I-25 once every other weekend in winter to go to the mountains and ski/snowboard. They are active on Instagram, uploading pictures of the fish they caught, or the scenery at the top of the mountains they climb. They are always looking for new friends to fish, belay them while climbing, or share the cost of travelling to the mountains during winter. They probably own a dog and go out roughly twice a week: once during the week to plan their next adventure, and once during the weekend immediately following their adventure.

Let’s call this customer segment the Millennial Mountain Adventurer.

How can I generate marketing insights from a customer segment?

Now that we have a rough idea of what one of our customer segments look like, it’s time to think about how they make decisions. 

Let’s put ourselves in our customer’s shoes (or waders). They wake up early, around 6AM, to go for a run before starting their day. They make coffee and a light breakfast while perusing reddit to see what’s going on in Denver and check their social media accounts.  They boot up their computer in their apartment at 8:30AM to begin work. They have Spotify playing throughout the day interchanging between music (bands who had their heyday in the late-2000’s/early-2010’s to be specific) and podcasts about back country adventures. At 11:55AM they take an hour lunch break where they make a sandwich, scroll through their socials again, check the weather forecast for the weekend, and begin thinking about what options they have when it comes to outdoor activities this weekend. They go back to work and sign out around 4:45PM. Depending on the night of the week, they may head out to one of several breweries or bars around them. Ultimately, the choice comes down to two things: 1. Taste preference, and 2. What specials/events are happening that night. They go to bed around 10PM at night, checking their social media accounts one last time before hitting the lights.   

I know; kind of specific day in the life for a broad customer segment right? Let’s just pull out some of the info that can apply to a larger group.

Perusing Reddit: our Millennial Mountain Adventurer segment likes to be in the know of what’s going on in their area. They do not want to miss out on a unique memorable experience, and they utilize the Denver subreddit to stay aware.

Checking Socials:  Our customer segment spends a decent amount of time on social media every day (a survey from late 2021 estimated millennials spent an average of 2 hours and 15 minutes a day on social media). They check first thing in the morning, at lunch, and right before they go to sleep.

Specials/Events: The Millennial Mountain Adventurer is looking for something more than food and beverage. They may be searching for some entertainment in the form of trivia, music bingo, live music…anything that gives them an excuse to meet like minded people who can become future adventure buddies.

How can I turn customer insights into effective marketing?

Each insight you identify will help you formulate strategies to attract customers of a particular segment.  Let’s continue with our Millennial Mountain Adventurer segment.

Perusing Reddit: We know our target customers use reddit to find out what’s going on in Denver. You can use reddit, for free, to advertise your business. Obviously, there will be rules and stipulations; you cannot spam your business everyday in the subreddit. But you can advertise big events, or work with reddit users/moderators who aggregate event information to have your events listed (Trivia Night Tuesday, Music Bingo Thursday, etc.).  

Checking Socials: Millennial Mountain Adventurer’s are on social media 2 hours and 15 minutes a day. You could advertise on social media to get a message in front of the potential customers which can be costly, or you can use current customers to help you advertise on social media for free. You can give a discount or some other promotion to customers who follow you across social media platforms, and an even bigger promotion or discount for making a post about you on social media. When you post as a business, yourself, time your post when the millennials are checking: first thing in the morning, around lunch, or late evening.

Specials/Events: This customer segment is looking for something more than Wing Wednesday or Big Pour Thursday; they are looking for an experience. Hosting unique events on typically uneventful days in the community can differentiate your establishment and attract new customers. Maybe it’s a Monday Fly Swap, where customers can meet other fly fishers and exchange flies and fishing information, as well as enjoy your incredible trout dip jalapeno poppers at a discount (again if anyone is doing this, please let me know…I will be there!).

Does this work?

Yes. Marketing teams across industries create “muses” or personas for their target customers to guide their marketing strategy. They want to ensure their messaging resonates with the customer segment they are trying to attract. Marketing teams know that without having some kind of idea of who their customer is their messaging may be overly broad (leading to an ineffective strategy), miss the mark (alienating their target customer), or communicated in the wrong channel (resulting in the message not reaching the intended target). 

Identifying your target customer segments, putting yourself in their shoes, and exploring their needs and wants will help you craft an effective marketing strategy and reduce the amount of money you have to spend trying to spread awareness of what your business has to offer. 

It can be hard to distill your customer base into a couple segments at first, but have no fear; Claritas, through their product called PRIZM, breaks down the US population into 68 customer segments. You can use their customer segments as a starting place top guide your marketing strategy (you can explore them here).

Also, feel free to reach out to us at DropIn. We always have time to talk to business owners!

Can you give me some other examples of other actionable insights?

Here are two more examples of taking an insight and transforming it into a solution:

1.       Say one of your customer segments is an out-of-towner; a tourist passing through for a brief stay. Many out-of-towners utilized google or apple maps to discover coffee shops, restaurants, bars, gyms, entertainment venues and recreation facilities. When this segment uses google or apple maps, they are looking for highly rated and reviewed businesses. In order to attract this segment, you can use current customers to help market your business. Provide a discount or some kind of promotion if a customer reviews you on google or Yelp!

2.       One of your segments is hyper-local and community focused; they rather be caught dead than eating at a large chain. They subscribe to e-newsletters like “Visit Denver” to stay in the know of what’s going on and build lasting relationships with both businesses and residents in their community. To attract this customer, you can partner with non-profits focused on helping local small businesses grow like “Visit Denver”. Hosting community-building events will also attract this segment. Game Train USA and Enchanted Grounds (both in Highlands Ranch, CO) are perfect examples of businesses who established a loyal hyper-local community by becoming a meeting ground for tabletop gamers and other community groups.    

What is the future of small business marketing?

 DropIn is the future (why else would I be writing this blog?).

There is a vast amount of information available to every consumer, but it is scattered across multiple channels. DropIn is here to fix that.

DropIn aggregates all small business information in one place, allowing consumers to quickly make decisions, earn rewards for supporting local businesses, and enjoy more of what their community has to offer.

Reach out to us to learn more about the future of small business marketing and how we can help you grow to your full potential!