Ep 29: How to Find Your Ideal Customer

[00:00:06] Darian: If you think of someone who is going to become your customer, you could look at them as a regular, everyday person. Someone that you hope to become a customer one day. So, if you look at them right from that kind of far-reaching level. What does it look like to get them from disinterested, not knowing about you, to slightly interested, to considering, and then converted to actually purchasing. And then ideally, to the point where they are becoming an advocate. And that's kind of like the textbook, picture perfect customer journey. And ideally, they go on and become an advocate and recruit others to purchase your service or product as well.

[00:00:42] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests from diverse backgrounds, point of views and stories with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. [00:01:00] On each episode I end with key takeaways that you can use on your business journey. Today, we talk about the customer journey. A business can't function without its customers because well - without them your business can’t exist really. So understanding your customer is a crucial part of building your business. But how can you determine who your target market is in the first place? And when you do figure out who your ideal customers are, how do you reach them? Two questions not many ask towards the beginning of their business journey.

Coming up -- I'll be talking to Darian Kovacs, founder of PR, digital ads & SEO company Jelly Digital Marketing, about understanding the customer journey. But first -- I want you to meet Amber Murray, founder of Fidget Stickers, a line of textured stickers that you can find in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. [00:02:00] Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description. Here’s a question that one of our listeners had:

[00:02:16] Voicemail: So my question around starting or more building a business is marketing and visibility. What do companies do to try to be more visible and I guess be more out there in regards to just the internet? What are some out of the box ideas around being visible in our markets?

[00:02:32] HOST: We have some episodes planned this season that will help us answer this question. But actually today’s episode starts answering that question by first asking “what is your customer doing?”, “where are they living?”, “and what’s the best way to reach them?” Things we’ll learn about today. Let’s meet Amber.

[00:02:50] AMBER: Well, I'm a mom and I have two daughters that have autism, and so we've been doing PT, OT, all the therapies for many, many years, [00:03:00] and I realize that they have a lot of sensory issues. One daughter would chew holes in her shirt, another one would just rub almost holes through her jeans even and leave her hands kind of raw. And I thought, man, it would be so great if there was something we could take with us that could be reusable and could stick on anything that was cute and maybe it would help alleviate some of this need to have that sensory stimulation and so I have always loved stickers and make stickers, and I thought, well, maybe I could make some textured stickers for this. And two years of searching out some material that would work and was durable like with Stan kids because kids can be a bit rough on things. Here we are. Fidget stickers was born and happy to be here.

I have a 25-year-old son who comes and helps manufacture all of my stuff for me. I have lupus and it's made it increasingly difficult for me to actually do a lot of the physical labor of things in the business, which is okay. [00:04:00] That's what business is: finding the problem, finding the solution, right? So we just need to delegate to people. So my son is one of the people that does that, and he comes over and he packs the orders, and he looks at what's going on. I still write little, you know, thank you notes on the little order sheets, but. He helps make sure that we're not running low on inventory and tracks more of the day-to-day what's going on in that area as well. He loves being able to work without distractions and do his own thing. He also has autism as well, so it works really well for him to just put things together. It's what he loves to do.

[00:04:38] ANDREA: Fidget Stickers came to be due to something very specific. Now that you’ve been in business for a while, did expectations of your target audience change at all? Who would you say is your target audience now?

[00:04:50] AMBER: Really anybody that was neurodivergent. You know, fidgeters people that were maybe had autism or ADHD or anxiety is a huge one. [00:05:00] That's what I have and panic disorder. And so, for me it was kind of a gift of love of I use these, and I need these to, to function in society as well. So that's where it started. But interestingly enough, like I say, it started picking up with people who weren't neurodivergent, who were more neurotypical, and they just also felt the need for these things. And so that was an interesting surprise to me. And also the number of schools or children's hospitals, community health organizations, areas that I necessarily hadn't really even thought about because initially it was just kids wanted these.

[00:05:38] HOST: Neurodivergent is a nonmedical term that describes people whose brains develop or work differently for some reason. This means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work more typically. While some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or diagnosis hasn’t been identified.

[00:06:00] ANDREA: Amber, can you walk me through the customer journey for fidget stickers?

[00:06:05] AMBER: So a typical customer journey as it relates to business definitions. There's five steps. There's awareness, consideration, then the decision purchase, retention, and advocacy. So awareness is letting people know these exist, right? Everybody knows stickers exist with water bottles, but they don't know stickers with texture exists. So if they don't know it exists, they don't even know that you're trying to help them with a problem that they're having and solving a problem that they're having.

You're gonna have to let people know that you exist but you can also do things in real life to help with that. Another term for it is brand awareness, right? You want just people to see it. You're not so worried about, oh, I need to get a sale right off of them right now, or anything like that. You're just trying to educate. And then there's the consideration stage, and that's where the customer is thinking, oh, okay, so there's textured stickers. Hmm. I wonder what other textured stickers are out there. Right? [00:07:00] They're gonna compare you to other people and they're gonna check out your price, and they're gonna check out, you know, your materials, they're gonna check out all the different things. So you wanna make sure that you are addressing some of that in the brand awareness and that we're, they're going to look for that information. Maybe if it's, you know, your Amazon listing or your website or wherever that you're actually thinking about those questions they're probably having and making sure that that's in your messaging because they're comparing you now.

Then is the decision and purchase. So they go through the comparing and maybe some of them say, eh, no, uh, that's not for me. Okay, that's fine. Right? It would be great if there's a way to capture why it's not for them, which is a lot easier to do in person if you're selling something at a market or, you know, when you're just starting out a business I highly recommend doing that, getting in front of your customer to get some opinions. But, but let's say they decide, okay, they're gonna buy for you from you. Fantastic. There's so many things that happen at that stage. One of them being the next um, phase is retention. So they bought from you, but we want them to come back to us, so we need to make sure we have our customer service nailed down, right? [00:08:00] We need to make sure that our packaging is fantastic and is like, thank you so much, or some sort of like experience for them to feel connected to the product, to you. Those kind of things. We wanna make sure that when they're thinking about the stickers next time they aren't going through this, they, they don't have to go back to the consideration phase. They're already like, oh, I, I know where I'm going. I'm going to my fidget stickers. I don't need a different brand.

And then the last stage is advocacy. We want to help them be our champions. So a lot of times people really love what you're doing. You have no idea because you're just wherever you are selling whatever you're doing, right? If you're not face to face, you have no idea that they love it. But a lot of times they really, really do and they're out telling their friends about it. We wanna provide opportunities for them to do that. So we wanna make sure we're always, you know, if it's on Amazon sending out for that review, we wanna make sure that if it's on our website, we're sending out for that review to put on our website. We wanna make sure that we're giving them a way to let the world know, hey, this is fantastic. [00:09:00] Another thing that I personally do is right now I fulfill my Amazon orders myself. And I'm able to, when I see an order come through, I always check if they've previously ordered with me, and if they do, I include a little bonus, a little rainbow that says something like, thank you for being amazing. And a little card inside with it that says, oh, I appreciate your support so much. Right? We wanna be wowing them with what we're doing. Like, oh, it's, you actually care that I'm coming to shop with you. This isn't just, I'm picking something up and especially if you do have a product similar to, you know, fidget stickers, where there is that personal connection where you, you're, yes, it's a sticker, but it's also, you know, it really is from my heart, me saying, hey, here's something that came from my needs and my family's needs, and I wanna help you with this too. I want my customer service, that customer journey to always continue that.

[00:10:00] ANDREA: That was a great way of breaking that down and using your business as a case study. Do you recommend that entrepreneurs who are starting out to sit down and write this and put it out all on paper before doing anything?

[00:10:12] AMBER: 100000000%. Yeah. I mean, at any stage of entrepreneurship, you should, because you should always be evaluating all of these stages and thinking, what can I do better? And taking the feedback that you receive from your customers and changing your journey, right? If you're finding, like in the consideration phase that you are losing out because you are not as cheap as somebody else, well, you have some decisions to make there. Do you wanna lower the price? Or what are you gonna do to make it perceived more valuable? Or how are you going to add more value? Right? So any person in the entrepreneur world out there should definitely, definitely be visiting this, you know, every six months. Sit down, write out these stages. These things will make such a huge difference in your business overall.

[00:11:00] ANDREA: Are there any other considerations you think that early-stage entrepreneurs should make when they are laying out that customer journey at the beginning?

[00:11:10] AMBER: A couple of things come to mind. People get really attached to their idea and they think that it's the best thing ever. And then they have friends and family tell them, you're a genius. This is fantastic. This is the best thing ever. And then it's not selling, and they aren't sure why it's not selling, right? Or they don't have repeat customers and they can't figure out why they don't have repeat customers or, what seems to be the problem? Step one is being open to the fact that you don't know everything. That just because your product or your service is your baby, and like I say, they all come from your heart, doesn't mean that everybody else's heart is ready for what you've got. And it could be that you have the wrong customer lineup. So being open to the fact that you don't know everything, taking a good hard look at who your customer is [00:12:00] before you start all of this customer journey is so important cuz you could be making customer journey to the wrong person. Right. If you were ordering say auto parts and then your repeat customer, and you get like a sticker that says You're amazing at it. Thank you for supporting my thing. You're gonna be going, uh, this does not resonate with me. I'm just buying, you know, auto parts. So the customer journey wouldn't make any sense. Understanding that customer at the very beginning, then you can tweak the things they like and how to communicate effectively with them along the journey.

[00:12:38] ANDREA: Okay, so the two things you mentioned right now are: One. Don't get too attached to your idea and don't just rely on your family and immediate circle to be honest about your product because they'll probably tell you that you're doing great no matter what. And two. You might not be targeting the right customer for your product. You might launch a product [00:13:00] then realize that the target audience wasn't the right fit for your product. With that being said, I'm wondering if you can find out who your right customer is before the product or business launches.

[00:13:12] AMBER: You can look at market demand, you can look at competitors and things like that but the most important thing in, here's another like fancy schmanzy term for you. It's called proof of concept. And in the proof of concept, you're really gonna figure out who that customer is because you're gonna actually put it in front of people. I liken being an entrepreneur to playing a video game. I grew up, you know, with the very first Nintendo, I think I was like 11 or 12 when it came out, when original Mario Brothers, and you had to do a jump over and over and over again, right?

So somehow inside of me, I have that tenacity built in, and you need a sprinkle of that. Because you're gonna need to take whatever it is you're doing and put it in front of people over and over and over again. Whether that's surveys, whether that's you're selling locally, you know, in front of somebody, [00:14:00] whether that's your, talking to maybe, the organizations or businesses who would be buying your stuff that's going to give you that feedback and you need honest feedback from them. So maybe you're saying, I'll give you a percentage off of this, or here's stuff for free. I need honest feedback on what you think. You're gonna find out really quickly whether people like what you're doing or they don't like what you're doing. You might get your feelings a little bruised and hurt in the whole process. But there is no sort of magic bullet at the beginning, and that's where I see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle. I'm also a business advisor for a nonprofit here in Utah. I read business plans and cashflow projections all day long and so forth and an area that I see people struggle is in that they don't realize that, again, just because you think it's great, you have to go out and prove that the demographic you think wants, if I only focused on kids and moms like me for their kids, [00:15:00] I would miss out on all of these other demographics that hadn't even occurred to me. I mean, a special victims unit purchased a whole bunch of packs, and I'm thinking I hadn't even thought about that, but if I didn't put it out there and, and start paying attention to what's going on so that I could go, oh, well, if one special victims unit wanted to buy a whole bunch, then that means all the other special victims units would wanna buy a whole bunch. You're just not the smartest person. And some things, you just really have to play that video game and do that jump over and over and over again to see.

[00:15:34] HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Amber Murray, founder of Fidget Stickers. You can find out more about Fidget Stickers in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

I loved how Amber broke down the customer journey into 5 steps: awareness, consideration, decision purchase, retention, and advocacy. But as we found out, it takes a lot of work to make sure your customer goes through [00:16:00] all 5 steps and turns into a loyal customer. You've got to make sure that you give them the best experience possible, so they come back. And that you're putting effort into reaching your target market.

Like Fidget Stickers, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we’ve talked a lot about the customer journey and now we’ll dig into how to find and reach your ideal customer with my next guest: [00:17:00] Darian Kovacs, founder of Jelly Digital Marketing, a PR, digital ads & SEO company. Here’s Darian.

[00:17:08] Darian: So we started a company called Jelly Marketing officially ten years ago. So I started mostly because I was excited about giving away little jelly jars as a business card. But we took the idea of how do businesses use social media, digital ads and public relations, and SEO to really grow their business and kind of get their name out there in the market.

[00:17:28] ANDREA: I love that the name came out of the idea of wanting to sell jelly jars. That’s so unique. So Darian, when I first started working in marketing agencies, one tool I was taught was the think, feel, do model and making sure that you consider everything that you would ideally want your customer to think, feel, and do when working on the marketing for your brand. What are your thoughts on that model, and do you have any other models that you would recommend when it comes to the customer journey?

[00:18:00] Darian: I think what I like about that, what you're saying is the memorable factor. Some people use the idea, especially when you're in event marketing, is when people walk into your event, you think of all the senses. What do they see? What do they hear? What do they smell? What do they taste? So you think about, you know, what's the coffee you have, or what's the, uh, tea that's available, or the snack. What smell is in the lobby, or what smell is the stuff they pick up, the booklet that they get? What are they hearing? Is it music, or is it quiet? Is it exciting music? And what are they seeing? Is it the, you know, agenda for the day, or is it really clear markings? And so when you think of that online, you know, it's very hard to get smell and taste online. We're not there yet. But until then, what does that user experience flow look like? Is it fun?

[00:18:45] ANDREA: What are some tools you think that a small business owner can use to learn more about their customer and their journey pertaining to their business?

[00:18:52] Darian: There is some amazing websites right now, and I wish I had these when I was starting off my business where you can actually test your product or service before you launch it. [00:19:00] So people can sponsor it, pre purchase it, and actually advocate for that business or that concept or that idea. A lot of people do that with board games or businesses. And I've actually seen the opposite, where someone puts out a product in one of these websites where you can actually get people to pre purchase it or, you know, sponsor this idea. And it doesn't take off. It doesn't do well. So in a lot of ways, they walked away and said, wow, I just saved myself a huge headache. And from there, the other piece being is back in the day, you used to be able to find it very difficult to get published in like the newspaper, or in a magazine, or getting on TV, but nowadays we have, you know, this incredibly powerful tool at our fingertips that everyone's a publisher, everyone is a videographer, and our ability to put something up on YouTube, put something out on the internet has democratized the ability to amplify a message and things can go as viral as a Wall Street Journal article or as viral as something goes up on a well-known TV station in your country. [00:20:00] So taking advantage of that algorithm right now is pretty amazing.

[00:20:06] ANDREA: So to recap, you mentioned that nowadays it’s easy to test your product or service before launching and doing that allows you to see what the reception is before you go all into your business idea. So, you learn a lot about your customer journey through seeing who's responding to your product and how they're responding to it. And you also mentioned that businesses should leverage the internet and social media sites to promote their business and attract their ideal customers.

[00:20:36] Darian: So the definition of social media is any sort of media you can socialize with. And so when we think about that, I highly encourage any entrepreneur startup business owner, your newsletter is often the forgotten social media channel because it's a form of media people can interact with. They can reply, they can forward, they can click on, they can engage. And it really, sadly, today is one of the only social channels you actually own. [00:21:00] All the rest, you're on leased land. You don't own your TikTok followers. You don't own your Facebook followers. Every time Facebook makes an algorithm update, when you do a post, maybe it used to be 5% of your followers would see it. Maybe now it's 2%. Maybe it's going to be 0. 5%. So, your e-newsletter, I'd say, is the number one thing to be concerned about and nurturing and growing. If you have a bricks and mortar store, you have a location-based business, Google My Business, which is now on Google Maps. would be the number one thing to be thinking about and concerned about and developing.

In some cases, I'll give you an example. We worked with a brand that sold knitting equipment. So it was like the needles and the wool and all the things for making quilting and really cool crochet stuff. And they were the sweetest couple out of Manitoba in their 60s and they were saying, hey, our daughter had us set up on Pinterest and we're doing some stuff on Instagram. But it's, you know, it's doing okay. So we told them about this site called Reddit. And within Reddit there's what's called Subreddit. So again, a social media channel they hadn't considered. And I remember the daughter actually phoned me a week later and was like, You put my parents on Reddit? What were you thinking? [00:22:00] But then was like, thank you so much because they saw an 80% increase in sales when they started going into these subreddits, which were these online bulletin board communities that were all about knitting and crocheting and quilting and they started just being the sweetest couple and just being like hey everyone just want to let you know what we have some new products we got in or hey I'll let you know about some ways that people are using our product. Here's a little video tour of our warehouse. And all these people in, in America, they were mostly doing sales in Canada. In America we're learning about them, in the UK, in Australia, and they just took off. And they became essentially the grandma and grandpa of this subreddit. And because of that they have stopped putting so much energy and time into Instagram and Pinterest and realize their world, their community, their customers were on Reddit.

[00:22:45] ANDREA: What I'm hearing is you basically have to try it all out at the beginning and see where you get this high level of engagement slash positive response, and then lean into that. So, it’s a lot of test and learn.

[00:23:00] Darian: Totally, and it's one of those also just energy levels and time levels that you have as an entrepreneur. It might be like, you know what? I really only have time for two channels. And so I'm going to sit with maybe someone really smart or, or, you know, maybe more experienced and be like, hey man, can you just give me 20 minutes, let me tell you about my business and tell me which channel I should be on, you know, someone who maybe knows social media. So one of the benefits of agencies or experienced marketing folks is, you know, use them for their brains and not necessarily their brawn. Have them kind of assess and test to be like, where is the best place for you to be? And maybe it's Twitch. Maybe that's where you need to be. Maybe it's Quora. And it's being able to say, okay, what if I did one channel really, really, really well and double down on there? The other thing to be considering is maybe it's none of the channels except for your e newsletter.

[00:23:42] ANDREA: Darian, are there any other tools you think could help in understanding a customer journey?

[00:23:48] Darian: I'll just close with this, you gotta understand Google to help your business grow. The first thing Google is doing is, looking at what content is on your site. What are you writing about? Are you writing about cat sweaters? Uh, you know, is there cat sweaters on your sweatshirt? [00:24:00] Is the way your website is coded, is it all about cat sweaters? So as you kind of think about coding your site and how it's written, the blog content that's on your site, the address that's on your site, are you all about cat sweaters in Alaska, because that's your target audience?

That's what you want Google to know you as, as an authority on. But because back in the day, people could be really good coders but not have a relevant site, Google's like, well that's not going to be our only way we judge sites. And so about the other 50% of SEO, and this is explaining and breaking down SEO, is as your website walks in the hallway, Google's watching to see who talks to your website in the hallway, and what are they talking to you about. So again, you walk down the

hallway, no one's talking to you, you're probably not an authority on a subject. If you walked in the hallway and two or three people asked you about cat sweaters, and maybe one asked you about Alaska, you're probably an authority on that subject in Alaska. And again, if you can get really high domain authority sites, so again, you can get an article or a backlink in like a newspaper or a website that's been around a while that has a good reputation. That's kind of like the cool kids in the school. [00:25:00] But think about how do I build up people and how do I find friends or family or get the press or media interested in my story so I can get those really great backlinks so I can alert Google that I know all things cat sweaters in Alaska.

[00:25:15] Host: That was Darian Kovacs, founder of Jelly Digital Marketing. Thank you for listening today. As always, let’s end the episode with some of our key takeaways on understanding the customer journey:

• One. Amber gave us five steps to a typical customer journey. One is awareness. That’s where you try to get people to notice your product and brand. Two is consideration. That's when the customer starts comparing your product with other similar products for them to decide which one to buy. Three is decision purchase. That’s when the customer hopefully decides to buy your product. Four is retention. Once the customer decides to buy your product, you want them to come back to your store. You could do that by giving them a good experience when they're shopping with you. [00:26:00] Maybe you could have cute, personalized packaging like Amber, or great customer service which by the way we’ll be talking about on another episode coming up. You just really don't want that customer to go back to the consideration, keep them onboard and in love. And five is advocacy. And that's when your customer becomes a loyal customer to your products and even starts recommending your product to other people.
• Two. Don't get too attached to your product. Try to get people that aren't your family and friends to give you their honest opinion on your product and service. And you can do that risk-free using sites that allow you to put your product out there and see who might be interested in pre-ordering it before you invest your all into your business.
• Three. There's gonna be a lot of trial and error. You could have customers that you didn't even think could be interested in your product like Amber did with the special victims unit. And as Darian mentioned, you'll also need to try out different social media sites in order to see where you can best reach your customers. [00:27:00] And eventually you’ll find the perfect place to speak to them because you’ll understand their customer journey more.

I'm curious – What’s your customer’s journey? How did you determine your target audience? And how are you reaching your customers? I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:28:00] That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:28:30]