Understanding target customers helps businesses optimize marketing strategies, improve sales efficiency and build long-term relationships with customers. In this article, 1C Vietnam will provide an overview of the concept of target customers and the importance of analyzing this group of customers.

1. What is the target customer?

Target Customers are the main group of people that a business aims at and invests resources to serve. These are customers who have needs and desires for the business's products and services, and have the financial ability to pay for those products and services.

Customer targeting analytics is the foundation for all marketing activities, including techniques such as forecasting, data visualization, information management, and customer segmentation.

The process of building a target customer profile involves researching and evaluating the potential customers that the business wants to reach, thereby building appropriate marketing and business strategies. This is an essential step in product development, brand building and implementing effective campaigns.

2. Why is it necessary to define target customer portraits?

As a Marketer, it is extremely important to have a clear understanding of your target audience. This information plays a key role in shaping every marketing plan and strategy that your business implements.

2.1 Understanding the buyer

When a business deeply understands its target customer group, managers can put themselves in their shoes and see the problem from the customer's perspective. This helps businesses find optimal solutions and satisfy their potential customer group.

2.2 Create effective marketing messages

By using language, images, and communication methods that are appropriate to the interests, values, and benefits of the target customer group, businesses can build effective messages that are as close to them as possible. This message not only inspires but also builds trust, thereby increasing the ability to interact positively from customers.

2.3 Optimizing resources

By accurately identifying the target customer group, businesses can easily focus their efforts on connecting with this specific customer group. From there, businesses will save costs such as marketing by focusing on the most suitable audiences.

2.4 Build good relationships with customers

Identifying the right target customers allows businesses to design promotions and offers that are tailored to their needs. This not only provides value but also increases their engagement and loyalty to the brand.

2.5 Increase competitive power

Identifying the right target audience also helps businesses collect market information more effectively. By researching and analyzing competitors in the same field, businesses can better understand their approach and customer service methods. From there, talented marketers will identify the strengths and weaknesses of their competitors and find ways to create their own competitive advantage.

3. How to analyze target customers in detail

Analyzing target customer profiles is an important step to help businesses better understand the customer group they need to serve. This process includes collecting, evaluating and using information to determine customer needs, preferences and behaviors. Specifically:

3.1. Target customer segmentation

Target customer analysis helps businesses divide customer groups into smaller units that share common characteristics such as needs, expectations, and consumer behavior. This process provides insights into each customer group, thereby helping to build appropriate marketing and sales strategies. Here are some criteria that businesses can use for segmentation:

• Behavioral segmentation: To analyze customer behavior in detail, businesses need to study the purchase decision process, customer search information, shopping process and influencing factors.
• Psychographic Segmentation: Psychographic segmentation focuses on analyzing factors such as personality, values, beliefs, interests, and lifestyle.
• Demographic segmentation: Identifying demographic factors such as age, gender, income, education level, and family status helps businesses accurately target marketing campaigns and optimize outreach channels.

3.2. Identify valuable customers

The Pareto principle is widely applied in businesses. Specifically, the Pareto principle states that 80% of business activities often come from 20% of customers. It is important to have a clear view of these customers before paying attention to the remaining 80%.

To identify your most valuable customers, you can use key metrics and analyze patterns in your database. Effective ways to measure loyalty include repurchase rate, product usage rate, customer loyalty index (CLI), and number of interactions.

3.3. Chat with customers

Talking to customers is an opportunity for them to share the emotions and motivations behind their purchases, the difficulties they encounter, and their underlying needs.

To achieve this goal, asking the right questions is crucial. The 5W technique (Who, What, When, Where, Why) can be applied to dig deeper into the problem and find its root cause.

Statistics show that 95% of purchasing decisions are based on emotions. Therefore, it is important to create a comfortable and safe environment during the interview where customers can confidently share their true thoughts and feelings. Here are some helpful tips for conducting a successful customer interview:

• Ask open-ended questions: Instead of asking questions that require a simple “yes” or “no” answer, use “Why” and “How” to dig deeper into the customer’s problem and feelings.
• Practice active listening: Listen sincerely and focus on the customer as they share. Show interest and a desire to better understand what they are saying, avoiding interrupting or interrupting.
• Pay attention to body language: A customer's body language provides a lot of important information. Watch their facial expressions, gestures, and the way they move to get a better understanding.

3.4. Collect customer feedback

There are many different methods for gathering opinions from target customers, including online surveys, individual interviews, focus groups, direct interactions via phone or email, and the use of data analytics tools on social media platforms. Choosing the right method should be based on the specific goals and resources available to the business.

Here are some tips when collecting customer feedback:

• Design questions or feedback content that are clear, informative, and avoid misunderstandings.
• Choose a diverse audience for feedback, which may include current customers, potential customers, or people who have experience with similar products/services.
• When implementing a feedback method, make sure it is easy for customers to participate and share.
• After collecting opinions, the process of analyzing and evaluating the information obtained is extremely important.

3.5. Create a personality for your target audience

Based on the collected information and decision factors, it is necessary to determine the features and benefits that the business's products/services bring to the target customers . From there, create messages and provide appropriate values to attract and maintain customer interest.

Finally, businesses need to create a detailed profile of their target customers, based on the information and analysis they have collected. This profile should include information about the characteristics, behaviors, interests, needs, and expectations of their target customers. This profile will help businesses shape their strategies and develop marketing activities aimed at the right target customers.

3.6. Build customer journey map

In the customer buying journey, they have different behaviors at each stage. Therefore, building a customer journey map plays an important role in linking the contact points and interactions, thereby detecting the difficulties, obstacles or factors that create the best experience for them.

4. Examples of target customers of some major brands

To better understand this topic, let's explore with 1C Vietnam the target customer portraits of some major brands:

1 - Cocoon's target customers: Cocoon is a pure Vietnamese natural cosmetics brand, known for its products that do not contain preservatives, toxic chemicals and are not tested on animals.

Target customers:

• Age group: 18 to 35 years old.
• Gender: Both male and female, but female is the majority.
• Geography: Mainly in big cities and high middle income areas such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Da Nang.
• Lifestyle: Prioritize healthy lifestyle, protect the environment, love natural products.
• Shopping behavior: Regularly shop online, pay attention to reviews and feedback from other users.
• Value: Prioritize product quality, skin safety and health

2 - Biti's Hunter's target customers: Biti's Hunter is a line of sports shoes of the Biti's brand, standing out with its youthful, stylish design and high quality.

Target customers:

• Age group: 15 to 30 years old.
• Gender: Male and female, with a fairly balanced ratio.
• Geography: Concentrated in urban areas with dynamic lifestyles such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
• Lifestyle: Love sports, outdoor activities, fashion and technology.
• Shopping behavior: Shop at official stores, e-commerce channels and participate in discount and promotional events.
• Value: Looking for comfort, style and durability.

3 - L'Oréal's target customers: L'Oréal is one of the largest cosmetics brands in the world, offering a wide range of products from skin care, makeup to hair care.

Target customers:

• Age group: 25 to 50 years old.
• Gender: Mainly female, but also has a men's product line.
• Geography: Major cities and upper middle-income regions around the world.
• Lifestyle: Focus on beauty care, fashion, regularly follow new beauty trends.
• Shopping behavior: Shopping at cosmetic stores, supermarkets, online and through official distribution channels.
• Values: Prioritize product effectiveness, reputable brands and advanced beauty technologies.

4 - Vietnam Airlines' target customers: Vietnam Airlines is the national airline of Vietnam, providing domestic and international flights with high quality service.

Target customers:

• Age group: 25 to 60 years old.
• Gender: Both male and female.
• Geography: Domestic and foreign customers, especially countries with strong economic and tourism relations with Vietnam.
• Lifestyle: Frequent business trips, travel, high demands on service and amenities.
• Shopping behavior: Often book tickets online via website or mobile app, interested in promotions and accumulating air miles.
• Value: Prioritize safety, service quality and flight experience.

5 - Viettel's target customers: Viettel is the largest telecommunications and information technology group in Vietnam, providing telecommunications, internet services and technology solutions.

Target customers:

• Age group: 18 to 50 years old.
• Gender: Both male and female.
• Geography: Nationwide, from urban to rural areas.
• Lifestyle: Use technology every day, love convenience and efficiency.
• Shopping behavior: Regularly update new packages, use Viettel's internet services and technology applications.
• Value: Prioritize service quality, wide coverage and reasonable price.

5. 5 popular target customer groups in the market

Below are 5 common target customer groups in the market and their corresponding customer attraction strategies:

6. Distinguish between target customers and potential customers

Distinguishing between potential customers and target customers is extremely important in building a business strategy for an enterprise:

7. Some effective strategies to attract target customers

Once the target customers are identified, businesses can implement specific strategies to accurately reach their customer base:

• Choose the right outreach channels: Choose channels such as social media, email marketing, online advertising or events and exhibitions that your target customers often use.
• Create Problem-Solving Content: Develop quality, engaging content that solves a problem or provides real value to your customers.
• Use the right target advertising tools: Target the right audience, ensure the advertisement is impressive and creates curiosity, encouraging customers to make a purchase.
• Generate Attention and Demand: Combine compelling PR articles to attract attention and generate demand within your target audience.
• Drive to purchase: Nurture customers to maximize conversion rates, by providing added value and purchase motivation.

8. 1C:ERP - Smart target customer management solution for businesses

With technological innovation and implementation experience in many countries around the world, 1C:ERP has been developed comprehensively, optimizing each experience for businesses. The solution is committed to providing implementation efficiency twice as fast as other global solutions.

1C:ERP is not just an enterprise resource management system but also a powerful CRM platform, supporting businesses in attracting and maintaining customers. A system of tools and utilities to:

• Store partner details and contact customers.
• Track interactions through reminder system.
• Analyze customers and products by business sector.
• Manage and adjust marketing programs and events.
• Track customer engagement cycles and manage sales pipelines.
• Analyze sales, revenue, customer retention, and support time.
• Flexible contract storage, special documents and discount management.
• Monitor and analyze customer complaints based on product orders.
• Send announcements and newsletters to your audience.
• Perform BCG matrix analysis based on ABC classification.

1C:ERP also supports businesses in creating marketing funnels as well as storing information about competitors and their pricing policies. This is a comprehensive solution that helps businesses optimize resource management and expand the market effectively.

The process of analyzing target customer portraits not only helps businesses optimize their marketing strategies but is also a key factor in building long-term, sustainable relationships. To effectively access and exploit data from target customers, businesses should apply the 1C:ERP solution for comprehensive business management, featuring a CRM subsystem to help manage customers effectively. For more details and receive personalized advice, contact 1C Vietnam today.