Cut through the noise: How to identify best-fit customers

Follow this framework to view the customer journey through their perspective, which is always a good foundation to build on.

A few years ago, I was head of marketing for a B2B video learning platform. Of course, when I say head of marketing, what I really meant was I looked after marketing, sales, product, growth… We were early-stage and a very lean team.

We had a handful of customers and after getting to a point where we were kind of happy, retention was going in the right direction, it was time to focus on attracting more good-fit customers.

But there was so much advice available; much of which was aimed at organisations with a growing large customer base. There wasn’t anything suited to early-stage start-ups, those that lacked hundreds if not thousands of lines of data and thousands if not millions of website visits.

Jobs to be Done framework

It was during this time that I came across the Jobs to be Done framework, developed by Clayton Christensen and Bob Moesta of The Re-Wired Group.

The framework posits that people don’t buy things at random. We hire and fire products to make progress in life. And the root of this is in the struggling moment, where someone realises they need to make a change.

There are many applications of this framework, but for us, as a scrappy start-up, it helped us to get deep into why customers bought. Today, I use elements of it at my consultancy, Oh Blimey, when working with B2B start-ups looking to scale and grow.

Here are the steps I followed to attract and convert more users to our start-up. Note that this isn't just for start-ups, it's also for established businesses looking to drive growth or enter a new market.

1. Segment your users to identify your best-fit, ideal client profile

We had a subscription tool that let us overlay the financial metrics with engagement data. For us, we had B2B and B2B2C audiences to consider – both of which had their own set of data and versions of what good looked like.

At this point, we took a read of our metrics, subscription rates, paid conversion, trial by segment and features used. We needed a base of what looked good and what didn’t.

2. Interview your customers to map out what progress they are trying to make with your product

We spent one month talking with our best-fit customers and a further month talking to people who used our competitor.

During that first month, we used elements of jobs to be done to understand the customer's buying process. Note this was under the umbrella of audience discovery and customer development – it was never from a sales perspective.

We learnt key details, such as:

• What progress they were trying to make when signing up to our product

• What channels they used to research and buy our product

• What anxieties were holding them back from signing up

Watch this webinar to find out how to use digital tools to boost your customer and client conversions:

3. Map out the customer's buying process and timeline to create content and decide what features should go in your paid-for offering

We then looked at their buying process to identify gaps in both content and features that may be holding people back from committing.

We had our sights on offering a more developed self-serve subscription offering and this intel helped us identify core steps we were missing, such as clear positioning messages and which features should be included within our free and paid-for offering.

4. Review the channel marketing strategy

We then reviewed the marketing channels our ideal clients were using to research and buy the product. Specifically, what we took from this was to collect the language they were using at each stage as they engaged with indirect and direct marketing.

5. And finally, implement

Over three months, we reflected these findings in the website messaging, site structure, call-to-actions and content creation.

Results

For our start-up, which has now been acquired, we reported results including:

• We sped up the sales cycle from three months to six weeks. That’s because we knew who we were positioning ourselves against

• We grew our audience year-on-year by identifying the workflows our products sit in and marketing to complementary audiences

• We overhauled our website messaging from feature-led descriptions to the desired outcomes our clients wanted. Our retention rate doubled

But it’s not just in this company, I’ve seen the application of Jobs to be Done and its results. In my consultancy, we work with organisations to go to market and build repeatable marketing processes.

Here are some other examples:

Client: The Re-Wired Group

• Channel strategy supported with a strategic messaging strategy

We created an SEO and social strategy aligned to the buying process, optimising for key terms. This involved capturing demand and building the audience.

Result: New unique users up 123%

• New website copy with conversion copy aligned to the voice of the customer

We worked with an awesome copywriter to take the words of customers and turn them into language our prospects needed at the relevant stage of the buying process.

Result: Click-through rate up 53%

Final thoughts

Many consultants will often tell you to talk to your customers. While that is true, knowing what to ask and how to apply it can more often than not add a level of complexity to something straightforward.

Applying a framework like Jobs to be Done to your growth strategy requires a holistic approach. It forces you to consider how your product, market, channels and customers all interlink. It also allows you to view the customer journey through their perspective, which will always be a good foundation to build on.

Relevant resources

• Lunch and Learn: How to win more customers without any extra costs

• How to attract new customers to your small business

• Buyer personas: A guide to reaching your target customers