IN THIS LESSON

To begin attracting potential buyers to your Moja storefront...

…you’ll need to pinpoint your target customer. Understanding how and why your target customer makes a purchase will help you make informed decisions as you set up and scale your business.

To begin attracting potential buyers to your Moja store, you’ll need to pinpoint the person who is most likely to purchase from your store. But that person will first need to download the Moja app from the Google Play store or Apple’s App Store and set up their profile in order to make purchases from your store. This is your target customer—the person you should always have in mind as you design and market your product line. Understanding how and why your target customer makes a purchase will help you make informed decisions as you set up and scale your business, and ultimately will be key to determining which marketing tactics will deliver the most sales.

Focus on core demographics

If you’ve just recently launched your business or even if you’re launching your first online store, it can be helpful to create a rough profile of your potential audience. Picture the person who will use your product or service. Is she a baker? Is he someone in agriculture? As you’re creating item descriptions, consider the defining characteristics of your core demographic. Factors such as age, income level, local climate, cultural traditions, shipping considerations, and personal tastes will all have an impact on their purchasing patterns.

Track your figures

As your store’s traffic and sales increase, those statistics will begin to tell a story about who your buyers are. In the free version of the Moja app, which is the version that will be beta tested in Ghana through the Hopeline Institute, you’ll have to track your own figures. But, in subsequent versions of the app, Moja will offer different subscription packages with varying levels of analytic tracking capability. With these subscription packages you’ll be able to learn valuable information about the shopping patterns, the location, and the preferences of your customers. What are your customers searching for? What brought them to your store? If certain search terms keep reappearing, consider those a key indicator of your target audience’s lifestyle, business needs, and interests. What they search for will also give you clues about who your customers shop for. If, for example, the term “millet” is popular among your buyers, consider adding it to the titles and tags of your relevant item descriptions.

Tap into your Trusted Network

As you accumulate views and inquiries on your Moja store item listings, pay close attention to what resonates with your customers. If you feel like doing some digging, do a global search for similar products and services on Moja. This will help you to see how other sellers photograph, describe, price, and market their products. It may also give you some ideas of what you might want to consider doing differently on your site.

Similarly, your social feeds can offer invaluable insights about your customers. Whether you are using Moja Connect, Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, or another social channel to engage with your audience, each new follower’s interests, activities, and taste preferences will help paint a collective picture of your target customer. Set aside time to click into their profiles and learn more about their lives and activities. And don’t be hesitant to interact.

Participate in relevant communities and forums

Learn more about your target market by participating in the communities both in your area as well as online where your customers already interact. Join the conversation and ask lots of questions; you might discover common themes and pain points that will help you improve your product offering. For example, if a recurring frustration among those who purchase millet is that sand content is too high, you can add a quality assurance guarantee in the item description that your millet has been sifted twice and quality tested. This signals that such a quality assurance would be an important feature to highlight when selecting your marketing keywords.

Test your product’s keywords and tags

Experimenting with demographic-specific tags can be a great way to gather tangible insights about what resonates with your buyers and what does not. For instance, if you tag your product with “essential for every kitchen” or “finest maize in Ghana” and see a jump in traffic, you might also think about bundling other staple ingredients every kitchen uses and offer special shipping discounts for bulk purchases. Keywords that emulate themes, patterns, colors, and the general spirit of your item will work wonders. Get comfortable with the language your audience is most likely to use and replicate those terms in your titles, descriptions, and tags.

Market to your customer

The ultimate goal of your research is to define an identity for your target customers, utilizing realistic details to bring them to life. Take the time to really get to know these imagined buyers. Give them a name and educational background, an occupation, and a family history. Keep their needs and desires in mind as you fine-tune your product line and formulate your marketing strategy. Ask yourself, what sort of communication will resonate best? A WhatsApp group text? A Facebook advertisement? Now that you have identified who your target customers are, you can determine where, when, and how to engage with them most effectively throughout their buyer journey.