Do you know who your Core Customer is?

A core customer is an individual person. They are not a population segment or a market segment or even a company. They are a person who will buy products from your business for optimal profit.  

The problem many businesses face as their revenues plateau is that they have lost sight, or in many cases not defined which customers are their core. It is quite possibly 60% of their customers are core customers who are generating profit, the rest actually cost the business more money than they are worth, their lack of profitability could actually be suppressing any growth potential.

In my other blog, The Market Attribution Framework, I wrote about the methodology to identify a market need and to create a differentiated strategic position. A position in that market from which to achieve revenue growth. The identification of the Core Customer is the next step in that process.

The scaling principle is that for the business to scale its primary revenue model needs to move from reacting to a unique customer’s individual need. It must become proactive to the needs of the market.  

To be clear, this is not about throwing away what a business has. It is about being very focussed in identifying the scalable products that:

1. Solve a problem in the market.

2. Can be differentiated from the competition.

3. Meet the needs of the Core Customer.

‍

Core Customer

The core customer within a market is a defined persona. Dependent on your Market Map you may have more than one persona to target. For every persona added you will need to identify:  

1. What are their roles?  

2. What are their core needs?  

3. What are their drivers?

This strategic exercise is important with regard to investment and outreach.  

Investment

The alignment or gap between your products of today and the Core Customer persona needs of tomorrow will give you the insight on the level of investment required to achieve scalable growth. Investing in the gap comes primarily in two forms:

• Emotional - The requirement for business change and the people in your business to want to change. This could mean changing the products within the business and the skills required to deliver these products. These products now need to be focussed on meeting the needs of the new core customer persona.

• Financial - The cost to create or reconfigure existing products. The resource costs to ensure the skills are in the business to deliver products.  The sales and marketing costs to proactively outreach to address the needs of the new core customer persona.

Proactively Outreach

The identification of the Core customer persona sets the rules on who you proactively target in the market. All existing and new products that are to be promoted through marketing and sales outreach need to clearly align to the needs of these personas.  

This product messaging developed for the Core Customer will need to address:

1. What problem the product solves for the Persona.  

2. How the product will be delivered as it relates to each Persona.

3. The outcomes of the product based on the Persona’s key drivers.

Outcome

The outcome of a Core Customer exercise needs to co-exist with the identification of your Market map and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework. The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:

• What customer persona buys your products today and are they the same customer persona to achieve scalable growth.
• The market needs of the customer persona.

• The alignment or gap between the Customer Persona needs and your products.

Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Core Customer identification exercise typically occurs together with the Market Attribution Framework, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.
  
• The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model. How big a business change is this going to be?