Customer segments

Lesson Details:

Video Transcription: Now let's talk about the customer segments part of the business model canvas and this is the first time that we have to connect the dots because we've just gone through the value propositions but the value propositions are not in a vacuum they are for someone or some thing and that someone and something is precisely your customer so now you can think about your customer separately you can think about your value proposition separately but at the end of the day they have to be a fantastic match now let's talk about how to make that match great before we can get into matching the value proposition to customer segments we have to actually think through different customer segments there can be two different ones for example some businesses have multiple types of customer segments for example sites that have buyers and sellers like dating sites which obviously have two types of people coming together content sites like YouTube which has content creators and content consumers service sites like maybe up work or Fiverr and they have service providers and service buyers retail sites like Amazon where people have sellers and you have buyers so you can have two extremely different types of customer segments but you can also have even within a single customer segment let's say for this course students in this course can be extremely different they can be hobbyists or they can be first-time entrepreneurs they can be retirees they can be college-age they can be on their second career there's all kinds of different people and they're gonna have far different interests and very different buying habits so you have to identify the customer who really needs you and is able to pay as well so let's use this course as an example ideally it's for people who are starting a business and actually have time to take a course because a lot of entrepreneurs are stressed out and they feel like they don't have time and they can't learn so it has to be people who actually can take a course and entrepreneurs don't have a lot of money so it has to be people who really understand the value of education and the people who are interested in the course or hobbyists they're okay but the ideal person is first-time entrepreneur passionately working now maybe a little confused and precisely because they are confused they're looking for help and they might have looked for coaches coaches were too expensive maybe something else that was too difficult for whatever else solution they have and so they came for courses courses have a perfect mix of it's easy it's relatively inexpensive it's available anytime and usually they provide good help relatively quickly and I want to leave you with one example and I see my clients running into this issue all the time especially clients in like a service business any kind of freelance or agency business.

What happens is they start reaching out maybe through LinkedIn or email and they start promoting their services let's say they're selling some kind of marketing service they're promoting promoting promoting promoting and they're stabbing people and reaching out and getting into this cumbersome sales processes what's the problem there we don't know how badly these people need the service what's more ideal is if these people find you if you position your business so that your customers who really need you now find you then if you have a course for example or a marketing service than the people who need whatever you're selling they're already looking for what you're selling and the people who come by looking for what you're selling are really ideal very strong leads and a fantastic match for your customer segments so sometimes that is a good way to think about it as well because that's very practical because that immediately starts to shape your marketing channels are you gonna do the outreach through LinkedIn or email well you don't know how many people you're reaching you're spamming versus you can position your business to get discovered through search so only the ideal customer segment comes to you and you don't have to get involved in cumbersome extended sales process and of course to understand your customer once you identify your value proposition the best thing to do and there's no replacement for it is to actually once you theoretically identify who's your target market that ideal type of person go and seek them out physically or online and start to have these conversations and literally ask those questions does my value proposition suit your needs and they'll tell you in that conversation if you have a sample of a few people like this you'll get the answer of whether your assumptions are correct if no you'll be able to adjust those assumptions based on your conversation and if yes that is great you have connected the value proposition to the customer segments so you know what value will reach which ideal group and so that's the nucleus really of your business model.