Example of Customer Analysis for a Marketing Plan

While writing a Marketing plan for a business you want to start with the Customer Analysis section. This addresses customer needs, current or targeted customers, and market research. The following is an example for a Composite Building Company that has been in business for several years.

Customer Analysis

Customer Needs - Building products consumers are looking for low maintenance, high quality, and long lasting building materials. They want materials that can withstand the weathering of all climates, and fits successfully with several varieties of homes. They are also looking for the product to be readily available and to the people who sell the product to have some education on the material. The need for the material to be a good price, in composite is also key they are not necessarily looking for cheap, but they do want comparable pricing to other composites out in the market. Lastly they also want the material to have a great warranty, because it is man made the expectation on higher on how the product will perform, so a good warranty is always something that is essential to a good product. No matter the market the need for building products is always there due to repairs and replacements related to wear and tear, damage and natural disasters.

Current/Potential Customers - Contractors, Builders, Lumber Yards, and Building Material Distributors. These companies will then in turn affect the homeowners of the United States. I will be trying to appeal to the 128 million homeowners in the US per the U.S Census Bureau.

Will be targeting the 30 and older demographic, with an average to high income because the composite building materials are more expensive and are likely purchased more by individuals that are well established in a career. This group of individuals will have to be a responsible party that appreciates quality enough to pay for it.

Current homeowner customers are individuals with enough money to hire a builder instead of applying the decking or roofing materials themselves. They usually have an above average amount of disposable income to use on paying for labor. We want to continue to make the relationship with the builder stronger, but also want to bring in some of the do it yourself homeowners that will apply their deck themselves.

Other current customers are large building material distributors that only deal with higher scale materials. We would like to break into the market of big box stores like Home Depot and Lowes. These are more well known to the builders and homeowners and will also put the material out in the public eye even more due to the high traffic in these stores. Having the composite shingles and decking in this kind of store will be its own advertisement to the do it yourself homeowners as well.

Market Research - We are going to use a multiple target market approach because with building materials we can reach not only the homeowners that hire builders to do their work for them, we can also reach homeowners that are do it yourselfers and are purchasing the more expensive composite because they value quality. Reaching out not only to domestic markets but also being available and progressive and pushing out products internationally.

We are going to target ages 30 and over, with a college degree, and a median income of 55,000 or more annually. If the household is a family not just a couple or single person than the income will need to be over 75,000.

We are then also going to reach out to people who like to work on their own homes, and value the quality of a long lasting composite material. They need to be ambitious and confident in their own abilities to get these building projects done.

The other lifestyle that really would desire this product would be men and women that believe in having the best of the best, and also has a hands off approach to cleaning or maintenance on their home. They people also need to be people who enjoy showing off their possessions or home.

To reach the most popular lumber yards and distributors the first step will be to do some surveys with homeowners and builders to see what lumber yards they usually work with and what they tend to purchase when it comes to composite building materials and why. Will need to ask if they were looking for ease of install, using a builder, price, look, or strength.

The best way to glean this information will be to start with qualitative research with the homeowners to see where they shop most for their building products, then we can go to the dealers and distributors and work with them to get our product into those stores. Will also want to check with the homeowners on what will make the application of the composite material easiest for them if they wanted to apply it themselves. This can be done by surveying the homeowners or putting target groups together to inquire about all of these different options.

Also can talk with the dealers and distributors to go over what they are selling and what the customers are asking for. Then comparing this with the information given by the homeowner we can tell exactly what they are asking for and what they want that is not out on the market yet.

Lastly some secondary research should be done on the internet looking at dealers websites to see what they advertise and how the composite products we make can fit into their selling strategy.