Identify Who Is The Core Customer.

　　 core The importance of customers is self-evident. It determines how the resources of an enterprise should be allocated so as to achieve maximum efficiency, in other words, to spend money on whom. For this problem, the general view of enterprises is that the so-called core customers are in line with the 20/80 principle. That is, the largest sales volume or the most profitable type of customers. Such customers should be the focus of the company's attention because they are important sources of revenue for the company. The core customers identified in this way are correct under certain circumstances, but in general, they are completely wrong, and even bring fatal blow to enterprises.

"Original" is "important".

McDonald's customer base, if Age It can be divided into 5-14 categories: customers aged 15-20, 20-30, 30-45, and over 45. If the core customers can be 20-30 years old according to their spending power, they will find that McDonald's core customers are between 5-14 years old. Why? This is the time when McDonald's just entered China more than ten years ago.

When McDonald's just entered China, it opened a two storey independent restaurant at the crossroads of Wangfujing in Beijing. At that time, McDonald's was a novelty for most Chinese consumers. Most of the consumers who could make the most of their efforts were concentrated on 30 years old people with a certain spending power. But after they had tasted McDonald's, they seldom came back. According to the survey, most people think that McDonald's tastes are bad. Compared with the old Beijing fried noodles, they think the latter is more delicious. Because of the problem of Chinese catering culture, McDonald's can not establish its own consumer groups in the existing potential consumer groups. If we want to reverse this situation, we must start with changing the eating habits of consumers.

And changing eating habits must start with children, especially children aged 5 or so. After medical research, children generally form a taste habit at around 5 years old, that is, so-called sour, sweet or spicy. If these children can be allowed to grow their eating habits from McDonald's, they will become loyal consumers when they grow up, and their children will inherit their parents' habit and become a regular customer of McDonald's. There is no doubt that children are the core customers of McDonald's. Therefore, McDonald's marketing strategy must focus on such a core customer base.

Children are core customers, but children lack self-awareness. How to attract children is the key to the problem. McDonald's found that children play and play more often than eating. Playing by increasing their attractiveness to children has become an excellent marketing strategy. Therefore, McDonald's decorations to the overall layout of the restaurant reflect the characteristics of children rather than the characteristics of adults. All McDonald's have children's playground, and at the same time provide free time for students to study. The service students lead the children to do radio calisthenics, celebrate their birthdays and present birthday gifts for their children. Many children are said to have received gifts, and over a dozen days have passed in one year. The above activities show the good intentions of McDonald's on the children's customers. These are all because children are the core customers of McDonald's. Now we see the strong consumer groups around 20-30 years old, all of which are the result of McDonald's training more than ten years ago. Therefore, children are the source of McDonald's customers and the core customers in the true sense.

"The earliest" is "important".

Core customers are likely to come from customers who first recognized or applied products. Baby milk powder is a very obvious For example, the main consumers of infant formula are mothers who are nursing babies, but the real core customers are not those who already have children, but those who are pregnant. The baby's mother usually chooses the milk powder before the baby is born, and if the baby uses one kind of milk powder, it will not change the milk powder of another brand casually, because changing the powdered milk will cause the infant diarrhea, therefore the baby will insist on eating one kind of powdered milk in most cases.

According to this situation, most enterprises will sell milk powder to their mothers before they are born, and introduce product publicity on one to one. Because of the popularity of China's family planning system, it is not a very difficult task to get such a list. Therefore, telemarketing and direct investment services have become an important marketing tool. All manufacturers are trying to compete for a high-density assault in their mothers during pregnancy. They even try to win customers by giving away gifts. But once a child is born, the publicity work of the factory will gradually calm down. At this time, we find that the real core customers are those who first recognized or used the product.

The same is true in the mobile phone industry. Sometimes the real core customers are not those who are rich, but those who pursue fashion and are willing to try new things. They are the core force to drive the development of other markets. Automobile industry, daily chemical industry and tourism industry have similar problems.

"The most critical" is "the most important".

The core customers of many industries are the most fastidious and driven customers. As far as cosmetics are concerned, core customers may be the consumers who have a driving role in the early stage of market entry. The author once contacted a lady and asked why she chose a brand product. She replied that because her neighbor's elder sister also used this brand of cosmetics, because the elder sister looked very much like Maggie Cheung, so the cosmetics she used were connected with Maggie Cheung and played a direct role.

The construction industry and IT system integration often appear to drive core customers. For example, if a construction enterprise wants to develop to which area, the most important thing is to have influential benchmarking projects in the area. These benchmarking projects should have some influence on the locals and play a great exemplary effect. In such a project, enterprises may often be unprofitable, but for the future market development, enterprises still need to actively operate. Otherwise, even if they have done 100 projects, if the project is not done, it will likely affect long-term development. These demonstrative customer groups exist both in fast selling products and in industrial products, and their identification is critical.

In short, core customers are not only the 20/80 principle, but one of them is more important, and more core customers will have different characteristics with the different products, the maturity of the market and the different ways of customers purchasing. Therefore, the effective definition of core customers is crucial to enterprises. It will tell us:

How did our customer base develop?

Which brick should we lift from the market?

What is our most effective selling mode and why?

Who should we spend our money on and how to spend it?