Content of this unit
Customer profiles
Now you have generated or developed your idea for a circular product or service, you need to evaluate whether it is viable, and here you need to ask yourself the question (and be very honest about the answer) “Who will benefit the most from your circular product or service”. It is not enough to state who you WANT to benefit but you who can find value in what you are offering.
You can select to focus on one area of the market or a customer (i.e. to one segment or several). Whatever you do, go for one segment or for several, bear in mind that:
Check out this video for an introduction to market segmentation:
To be able to define your segment(s) you need to identify and create your customer profiles, as it is your product or service that will cover their need(s) or solve a problem or challenge for them. The profile is a generalisation, it describes most of your customers (or a set of differentiated customers), depending on whether a have a few different types of common customers. At this stage, the aim is to define your customer, in the next phase, where you will detect market needs, you will analyse this profile in much more detail. At this stage, the profiling is used to identify any implications it has in the way you design your product or service and in the way, you bring it to your customers. The idea developed as a first step is to finetune these aspects in line with your customer profiles.
To get an introduction on customer profiles check out this video: Introduction on customer profile:
You can select to focus on one area of the market or a customer (i.e. to one segment or several). Whatever you do, go for one segment or for several, bear in mind that:
- The selected market or customer segment(s) should be big enough to make your initiative or business viable - do not subdivide the market in too small segments.
- The identified customer or market segments are clearly differentiated with respect to other segments.
- For each segment you will need a specific and dedicated marketing plan, channels and messages, so think if the effort is worth it.
- You must of course be able to access all the selected market or customer segments, if there is a segment with extreme high barriers of entry (e.g. due to the extremely high costs of the machinery needed) it might be worthwhile to discard this segment.
Check out this video for an introduction to market segmentation:
To be able to define your segment(s) you need to identify and create your customer profiles, as it is your product or service that will cover their need(s) or solve a problem or challenge for them. The profile is a generalisation, it describes most of your customers (or a set of differentiated customers), depending on whether a have a few different types of common customers. At this stage, the aim is to define your customer, in the next phase, where you will detect market needs, you will analyse this profile in much more detail. At this stage, the profiling is used to identify any implications it has in the way you design your product or service and in the way, you bring it to your customers. The idea developed as a first step is to finetune these aspects in line with your customer profiles.
To get an introduction on customer profiles check out this video: Introduction on customer profile:
