Am I on Target? - Defining My Customer

It is is time to switch into a higher gear with our Social Media class, and we are starting to think about some marketing strategies for promoting a business online, while using Social Media Tools.  This week we are focusing on the Target Market.  Our assignment is to decide on a business we want to promote (real or fictitious) as we do our ongoing projects for the semester, and to think about whom is going to be the core customer group we are targeting for that business.  

I am sort of in a limbo today for choosing my project business for the class (so my choice will be updated shortly in my next blog once I have more information)  – I have a close friend who is running a Non Profit Foundation called the Sabrina Keller Foundation which supports education and research for the (SADS)  - Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome Organization, as well as offers college scholarships for young women involved with San Diego County Girl Scouts.  Sabrina Keller was a star in the San Diego Girl Scouts Organization, and I invite you to learn a little more about Sabrina's story at the foundations website. 

I am currently waiting to hear back from my friend the director of the organization; to see if she could use my assistance in developing her social media for the foundation. She has a good start with a Website and Facebook page, as well as some other tools, so I will have to get back to you my reading audience when I confirm my ability to help her with her social media needs. 

In the interim I have begun an analysis to discover who might be a good core customer group for the Sabrina Keller Foundation – which I have briefly outlined here:

• Financial Supporters - Money Donors
• Volunteers - Time Donors
• Girl Scouts – customers – volunteers  – beneficiaries
• SADS Organization & other Non-profits

This will be a difficult organization to promote because a nonprofit does not have “customers” in the traditional sense – it will require a different kind of thinking and process for targeting and consumer engagement strategies.  So if this is the project I take on - it will definitely be a challenging learning experience.  

As I don’t know what the dynamics or needs for the Foundation’s director might be at this point. I am going to define my core customer group with my current knowledge from looking at the Foundations website and Facebook Pages.  

The donor and volunteer demographics would be the families or friends- parents and grandparents (ages 12 -85) of adolescent and teenage children – those who might relate to the psychographic thought of potentially losing their child to a sudden illness; or those parents who have already experienced the loss of a child, as well as those who are battling with the potential loss of one currently (living or fighting with heart disease). The girl scouts themselves are also important stakeholders as the recipients of the scholarship rewards, and we would have to reach out to them to inform them of the scholarship opportunities, as well as to become volunteers themselves. They might be especially good targets for using social media, developing social content, and becoming thought leaders online. The SADS organization would most likely be a supplier for educational marketing materials, as well as a customer-consumer, as some of the proceeds from the Sabrina Keller Foundation events likely goes to support their initiatives.  

As we can see there is a lot of demographic and psychographic crossover involved within the foundation’s stakeholders – I think when I have an opportunity to get some further reflection with the foundations director, I will be able to better focus in on a core demographic group or stakeholder. 

My current evaluation for the foundations core target market - would be to target the parents - most likely between the ages of their early-thirties to mid-sixties (32- 65); concentrating on the parents of former and current girl scouts who live in San Diego County. There would have to be a lot of crossover with messages and content reflecting interests for both the parents and their children - girl scout members.  

I would like to develop some kind of campaign that could expand my audience to people beyond the local San Diego Girl Scouts to increase donations, but I think that would be a larger perhaps life time project beyond the scope of my current class. 

I also have another fictitious business in mind (a dream of mine) which I had developed for another class in the past - in case the Sabrina Keller Foundation Social Media project does not turn into a viable option for me. 

I have outlined my other business and target customer group for a Retail Paint & Decorating Store as follows:

Dekor Me Professional will actually be targeting three separate but interconnected segments of the entire San Diego County (and maybe southern Orange County). These three segments will include the professional interior designer, the building and painting contractor, and their most likely upscale homeowner/customers and clientele. Age ranges will vary based on the clientele (contractor, consumer, or designer) but most likely will be between the ages of 25 to 65 years of age (homeowners; working and retired professionals, designers, and contractors). 

This demographic was very wide for my brick and mortar paint store strategy, so I think I will be targeting the home designer as my core target customer for the social media project; focusing on woman and the professional interior designer - women between the ages of 25 and 65. With modest incomes and spending habits that are dictated by their often upscale clientele – homeowners and decision makers who also are generally the women (household decision makers).