Who's your best customer?

In my line of work I hear (and talk) a lot about target audiences.

The target audience is king. It's who we're talking to when we're doing the marketing talk. It's who we want to motivate to walk when we're doing the marketing walk.

I developed a successful TV/radio campaign last year. Customer numbers (it's a service industry) went up 5% which, when you extrapolate over the market I was in, equalled a lot of people. The client was happy. I was not.

They were the wrong type of people. They were small potatoes. Quantity, not quality. They weren't the people who were going to make the company the most amount of money from the fewest transactions.

Sounds cold, I know, but this is the business I'm in.

I want bums on seats, clicks on mice, eyeballs on screens. I want people to hear/see/read the message and take action but I don't want everybody to do that, just the people who are going to be the most profitable.

It's the very basic tenet of marketing: return on investment (ROI).

So, who is your best customer? Not the most loyal, or the most regular and certainly not the one who bends your ear for 20 minutes only to leave after buying from the bargain bin; or (in my industry) the one who demands full artistic control and myriad changes on a small, one-off job..

Your best customer is the one who represents the highest value for the lowest effort.

While you can make your money with lots of small sales; regular, high value sales are the ones will keep you busy and make you money.

Your best customer who repeatedly buys high value goods/services, is low maintenance and recommends you to their friends!

Define your best customer, write down this definition, draw a picture of that customer and make sure their framed portrait is at your side when you're doing your marketing plan.

After all, you love that person and they mean the world to you and your business.