We can talk a lot about targeting your ideal customer.

But there is one target market that is so often overlooked and it’s literally a gold mine. It is acres of diamonds right in your own back yard.

This target market is your past and present customers.

This target market is the only one that clearly fits all of the criteria that we established before.

They can be reached affordably. You have their names, addresses and telephone numbers. You don't have to rent them. You don't have to buy them. You already own this asset.

They are likely to buy because they have had previous satisfactory experiences with you.

They are able to buy. They were able to buy before. They're able to buy again. They already know of you and are likely to trust you.

They represent the perfect target market.

Yet most businesses fail to make the most of it.

Lack of customer data

How many times does an individual buy from you or use your service and you're not able to continue to communicate with them because you do not know how to contact them?

You’d be amazed at the number of business owners I speak with who get that “deer in the headlights” look when I ask them how many names are on their lists.

The real value in any business is in the customer base.

It is 10 times easier to get existing buyers to return
than it is to get new ones.

Plus returning individuals will spend twice as much per visit as new customers.

What would happen to your business if you had to constantly rely on selling new customers instead of existing ones?

So why do so many businesses not collect the necessary information to allow them to continue to market to the most valuable asset – their customers?

It’s not just about the data you hold on your computers. It’s sometimes about asking the right questions.

One printer we worked with had a client who came to him and got all of his letterhead printed there and all his envelopes and his business cards and little flyers and those kinds of jobs. He had been coming to him for several years.

One day that client came in and proudly presented our printer friend with a free copy of his new, beautiful, full-color 48-page catalog for all his products.

He had just had this printed by another printer and had spent a fortune getting it done and just wanted this printer to see it.

So our printer said to him, "Gee, why didn't you come to me to get that done?" The customer said, "But I thought all you did was stationery." All he had ever gotten done there was stationery.

He identified that printer in his mind as the place he goes to get his stationery. The printer had never probed and found out that this guy's business was a mail order business selling health and safety products.

The guy went through huge numbers of catalogs and full-color catalog sheets and product postcards.

Our printer friend was getting maybe $5,000 a year in printing business from this client. The guy was spending a half a million dollars a year on printing.

He never got any of it simply because he never got to know
what that customer's business was all about.

Don’t let that happen to you!

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This is an excerpt from my book, “9 Rules For Business Prosperity in the New Economy”.  The book may be purchased in both printed and Kindle editions at: http://arizonamarketingassociation.org/9-rules-business-prosperity/