10 Effective Methods to Identify Your Potential Customer Base

Creating an impression and providing a quality experience helps your business convert new customers. You must, of course, devote time in researching, investigating, and fully comprehending marketing techniques in order to raise consumer pleasure and eventually spur growth. But how do you accurately identify your potential customer base? Let’s dive into ten effective methods to help you pinpoint your ideal audience.

What is a potential customer base?

A potential customer base consists of individuals or organizations likely to become purchasers or users of your products or services in the future. They show significant interest, needs, or suitability for the products or services you provide compared to other consumers.

Identifying and reaching out to your potential customer base is crucial for business growth, increasing sales revenue, and building long-lasting relationships.

Definitions and methods to identify potential customers

These individuals should receive special attention from businesses, because they may be, in all likelihood, loyal customers in the future. Attracting potential customers is just as crucial as retaining the current clientele.

Distinguish between Potential and Target Customer

Making a clear distinction between target and potential clients facilitates the process of putting the right marketing tactics into practice. A reference table is provided below to give you a broader picture.

Factors	Target Customer	Potential Customer
Demand	Have clearly defined their goals and are looking for the services and products they want.	There is interest in products and services, but there is no intention or need at the present time.
Action	Take actions such as going to the store, ordering online, or contacting staff to place an order.	Only search for and refer to information to update products or services.
Customer journey	At the final stage of the buying process and can make an immediate buying decision.	It takes time to consult and make decisions, which takes a longer period of time.
Conversion capabilities	High likelihood of converting into real customers.	Potential customers must go through an additional stage of persuasion to make a purchase.

The difference between a target customer and a potential customer is quite obvious. On the contrary, prospective customer vs. potential customer still confuses many people.

Potential clients that have shown an interest in your offering. They might have gotten in touch with you through meetings, quotes requests, or product trials. Due of their obvious curiosity and eagerness to buy, these clients are probably going to become actual customers.

They may be potential clients who would benefit from your product or service but have not yet expressed a clear interest in it. Your company must approach, motivate, and persuade these potential customers to express interest in becoming actual clients.

10 Ways to Understand Your Potential Customer Base

Explore the following ten methods from On Digitals to single out potential customers. Refer to these approaches and select those suitable for your business model to find the best solutions for your companies.

Expand your prospect with social media

Social media goes beyond mere connections and interactions, as it is a gold mine of information about potential customers.

Utilize platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, etc. to search, interact, and gather information about individuals likely interested in your products or services.

Reaching to potential customer through social media

To effectively employ social media platforms for customer search, you need to do the following:

• Profile potential customers that your business is aiming for
• Simulate their behaviors on social media to identify actions and habits.

Based on this information, companies can select and filter the pages, groups, or communities that the aforementioned clients frequently visit. To market your goods or services to this clientele in a genuine and friendly way, write introduction blogs.

Participate in or organize events to simply the identification process

Aside from searching for online customers on social networks, you cannot forgo direct marketing methods through offline events like trade shows and exhibitions.

Businesses can set up booths to showcase products/services to attendees, essentially bringing yourself closer to them. 

The main advantage of this approach lies in its immediate nature. Customers can experience products firsthand, services can be demonstrated in person, and so on.

Hosting and participating in events attract potential customers

The vast majority of consumers consider “seeing is believing.” Businesses can leverage this aspect to attract them, either by participating in events or organizing exclusive ones.

Events closely related to the industry or products/services of a company are prime opportunities to make their presence known. Not only can they expand the existing potential customers base but also foster future partner relationships.

Establish a referral system

A referral system functions as a form of word-of-mouth marketing. Businesses can create such a system by organizing seminars or similar events and prompting feedback from existing customers.

If a customer had a positive experience, they are more likely to recommend the company to other customers.

In general, customers are more likely to believe internet reviews found on sites like Google and Facebook fan pages than they are to believe promotional materials from the company.

Therefore, do your best to enhance customer experience, and good words about your products/services will spread.

A referral system can attract prospects effortlessly

An appealing and comprehensive referral system plays a vital role in aiding businesses to effortlessly reach diverse customer segments. Additionally, this contributes to an increased conversion rate from potential customers to actual clients.

While introducing your business on your own website, be sure to compile press reviews and customer feedback to enhance credibility.

Utilize promotional programs

Promotional programs have an undeniable pull, so they can effortlessly attract potential customers. This is because of the sheer influence of discounts on consumer shopping trends.

Therefore, taking advantage of these promotions to intrigue potential customers is a foolproof choice that yields substantial results.

These initiatives will encourage clients to look for goods and services from your company. Therefore, a sale could be the crucial push that convinces a customer to choose your company over rivals.

Promotions affect customer’s behaviors

Despite being as persuasive as they can, not every promotion will appeal to your potential customer base. To devise suitable programs, businesses should closely monitor consumer behaviors to see which products, services, and discounts they favor.

These patterns can grant the business a deeper understanding of customer preferences and shed light on the most impactful promotions.

Exploring through Google AdWords

One efficient way to find new customers is with Google AdWords.

Through deliberate placement of targeted adverts, companies make sure that their ads show up for people who are actively looking for their goods or services.

Businesses can identify specific users who are looking for their items by using this strategy.

Running Google Ads brings you closer to prospective customers

This effectiveness comes at a price, literally, because Google AdWords is a paid payment tool. To save costs, companies need to analyze keywords and develop specific strategies when utilizing this platform.

Exploring through telesales

Despite all the technological advances, telesales remains an effective method for identifying potential customer bases. By directly contacting customers over the phone, you can establish a personalized connection, delving into their needs in detail.

The advantage of this approach is that businesses can reach a substantial number of potential customers in a short period.

However, before implementing this method, businesses should take note of the following:

• To ensure a smooth execution, it is advisable to filter customer data to save time.
• There will be instances when customers feel bothered, placing the sales representatives in challenging situations. These are virtually inevitable so building a professional telesales team is absolutely necessary if you choose to follow this approach.

Establish contact with a large number of potential customers with telesales

Enlist the help of KOLs to reach your potential customer base

Booking KOLs is becoming more and more common, in addition to traditional media outlets like print and television. However, because the expenditures are determined by the power and outreach of these KOLs, this approach necessitates a sizable budget.

How to approach customers with KOLs

Each field will have its corresponding KOLs that can influence the shopping behavior of their followers.

The essential task for businesses is to identify suitable KOLs and strategize the promotional campaign with these influencers.

What to note before working with KOLs:

• KOLs can generate either positive or negative influence, and it will affect both the influencers and the business to varying degrees. Therefore, businesses should always have contingency plans for worst-case scenarios.
• Pay close attention to the budget for hiring KOLs, as they do not have a tangible value. Their followers across platforms are only part of the equation, but the lasting impact they have on the community is even more important. This is why businesses need to meticulously select KOLs for their products/services.

Acquire customers with website SEO campaigns

Website SEO can yield favorable conversion rates when users search for information on Google. SEO and Google Ads are polar opposites, as they both concern search engines.

However, clicks generated from ads means additional costs while organic clicks are completely free.

Google statistics have highlighted that the click-through rate for organic search results constitutes 70% of total clicks. Consequently, enterprises may still bring their products/services closer to their potential customer base without losing a good chunk of their budget.

SEO website helps business save their budget

Developing an SEO strategy for a website requires both time and monetary investment on website optimization. Nevertheless, once a website attains a top position on search result rankings, the task of locating potential customers becomes considerably more straightforward.

Has your business attempted website SEO without yielding favorable results? Are you currently seeking a Digital Agency capable of assisting you in this aspect of your enterprise? On Digitals stands as an outstanding option worthy of your consideration. With years of experience in SEO for businesses of varying sizes, we are happy to lend a helping hand with our expertise.

Share valuable content with customers

In specialized industries, businesses commonly take quite some time to establish a presence in the market.

To accelerate this process, businesses can engage with various community groups on social media, introducing their products or services to the appropriate customer base within those communities.

The content will spark curiosity among potential customers, leading them to explore the field further. This tip is not limited to social media, as it also plays an instrumental role in other aspects of marketing.

The main idea is by providing information and solutions for the problems of your potential customers, you encourage them to choose your products over others.

Implement automated chatbot

Automated chatbots on a website can assist companies in engaging with their potential customer base, similar to 24/7 live chat features. These automatically generated responses can simplify mundane tasks such as exchanging contact information between businesses and customers.

Another perk of chatbot is improving user experience. They can be programmed to greet customers while they are on the website. 

These greetings may seem trivial at first, but their timely assistance can be just the thing you need to retain visitors on your website. Which is why it is important to prepare multiple responses for the chatbot to use in different scenarios.

Automated chatbots can interact with customers at anytime

How to find a potential customer base efficiently

In today’s business landscape, identifying potential customers is crucial for the development and expansion of enterprises. This is the effective process to identify your potential customer base, aiding businesses in seeing and reaching profitable opportunities.

Understanding the customer profile

The initial step is to have a firm grasp on the profile of your target customers. This phase involves recognizing the age, gender, preferences, needs, and even the social environment with which they frequently engage. Comprehensive knowledge of customers empowers enterprises to craft suitable marketing messages and strategies.

Market research and competitive analysis

After acquiring your target, you need to learn about your competition. Market research and competitive analysis are indispensable stages. Trend insights, unsatisfied needs, and emerging opportunities are invaluable aspects. Simultaneously, dissecting the competitive landscape provides much-needed context for their success, failures, and everything in between.

Laying out the marketing plan

Based on the aforementioned insights, businesses should be able devise a detailed strategy. This includes determining engagement channels, marketing content, advertising campaigns, and other promotional activities. This plan should remain adaptable to market changes and customer feedback.

Executing the promotional strategy

All the preparation in three previous steps will lead here, implementing your campaigns according to the outlined plan. Leverage channels such as social media, email, websites, and direct advertising to reach the target customers. Remember, it is imperative that the business’s messaging reflects the value and benefits it brings to its customers.

Collecting data and evaluating the campaign

Upon completion, your business will enter the final stage of the cycle: data collection and assessment. Monitor reach, interactions, conversion rates, and customer responses with analytics tools. Using this data, you can refine your marketing strategy for better performance. Then, reinstate the campaign and see how your new adjustments fare in the current market situation.

As a matter of fact, this step does not necessarily come in when everything is said and done. Monitoring is a constant effort, since it allows you to come up with a suitable response when your campaign appears to fall behind. Additionally, when a significant change happens in your business or on the market, you will need to make changes timely.

The potential customer base is a critical factor for any business. Accurate identification of these individuals offers sustainable development opportunities. To expand this catalog of names, businesses should employ diverse and suitable approaches that align with their business model.

Read more: The go-to payment methods in Vietnam showcase the preferences of consumers in Vietnam.

Final thoughts

Is your business struggling with finding potential customers? Are you facing challenges in this aspect of your business? On Digitals takes pride in being a capable partner to assist you in this department.

With years of experience and a track record of aiding businesses with specific market entry challenges, we offer a diverse range of digital marketing services. Reach out to us for consultation on how to find potential customers or a collaboration with your business.