No marketing initiative will bring you sales if you don’t know who your customer is

No marketing initiative will bring you sales if you don’t know who your customer is. 

‍

I witnessed this while building Plushkies. 

We tried multiple ideas, convinced that traction and revenue were there.

‍

First experiment - Facebook Ads

We didn't spend a lot of money.

However, our page got thousands of followers.

‍

Surprisingly, some of them turned into orders.

Yet, no correlation between them and sales.

‍

Our main touchpoint according to Facebook:

Brittney Spears fans. 

‍

WTF?

‍

Second experiment - Google Ads

We invested in search terms. 

We targeted the generic "plush toys".

‍

No return.

‍

We invested in long-tail keywords.

We narrowed our audience and lowered the costs.

‍

No return.

‍

I suppose it was absurd to think anyone might

be searching for “plush toys in the shape of countries”.

‍

Third experiment - HubSpot

I was excited about a new methodology.

A new way to attract and engage buyers.

‍

I devoted time on content for inbound and SEO.

I’d spend my weekends writing our first posts.

‍

Yet, no sales generated.

‍

Fourth experiment - External mentor support

I went to SXSW in Austin & met Chase Jarvis.

The founder of CreativeLIve.

‍

I thought he'll help us increase sales.

I was naive.

‍

The problem was elsewhere. 

He addressed a simple question to me:

‍

💡 Ricardo, who is your customer? 💡

That’s the first thing you need to figure out.

‍

Pretty obvious now, but not to me at the time.

‍

I had to take a step back to the basics.

‍

P.S. This is a question I get all the time now, "how do you find your customer?" to which I still don't have a good answer.