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1 | Use this worksheet to specify the detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria and triggers that define your bullseye customer. For instructions, see "Chapter 3: Define your bullseye customer" of Learn More Faster at LearnMoreFaster.com. | |||||
2 | Who is your bullseye customer? Your bullseye customer is the very specific subset of your target market who is initially most likely to adopt your new product or service. Homing in on your bullseye customer—and setting aside other potential customers for now—will streamline your progress toward finding your unique value proposition. Answer the questions below with specific, unambiguous, measurable criteria you can use to recruit your bullseye customers for interviews. (We use this worksheet with a huge variety of businesses, so just ignore any questions that don't apply to yours.) | |||||
3 | Customer attributes | Questions | Work space Write your answers here. (To help you get started, read the examples to the right.) | Example 1 Current customers of an organic grocery delivery service. | Example 2 Seniors for a new telehealth concept for Medicare plan | Example 3 Enterprise customers for a web security product |
4 | Basic profile of target customer | Describe the basic traits, behaviors, and attitudes of your target customers. • What key characteristics or needs describe your bullseye customers? | • Make it a priority to buy organic, local, etc. • Shop at farmers markets. • Busy. Feel pressed for time. • Use food delivery services. | • Medicare enrollees • Age 67-75 • Has used telehealth in last year. • Has smartphone. • See 2-3 specialists. | • Security teams at publishers and banks. | |
5 | New vs. existing users | Consider how much knowledge users will have about your company or product when they first encounter your new concept. For example, when designing a new onboarding flow, people who are new to your product will provide more useful feedback. • Are you designing for people who already know and use your product, or for people who are new and not familiar with your product? | • Existing customers for at least 6 months. • Place orders at least weekly. | • New customers who aren't familiar with company. | • Existing users who've been using product for at least 6 months. | |
6 | B2B: Sector or industry | B2B companies often focus on (and avoid) organizations in specific industries due to their unique needs, requirements, or regulations. • What sector(s) or industries will be most receptive to your offering? • Which industries or types of business should be excluded? | N/A | N/A | • Publishers • Banks | |
7 | Use of related or competitive products | Your target customers’ expectations, habits, and needs are often shaped by the other products they’ve used. • Which related or competitive products should participants have (or not have) used? • Which related or competitive products should they know about? | • Use other food and grocery delivery apps, such as Amazon Fresh. | • Regularly uses own smartphone apps to communciate with friends and family. • Has used Zoom or other video conferencing in last year. • Have seen doctor via computer or smartphone in last year. | • Use Cisco Umbrella, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks or similar. | |
8 | Disqualifying personal experiences | Past experiences can shape people’s attitudes and reactions to your product. Brainstorm circumstances that might bias people against your product. For example, a person who has gone through bankruptcy or identity theft may not be the bullseye customer for a new fintech service. • Are there any relevant personal experiences that might make them an unlikely customer? | • No extensive or unusual dietary restrictions. • Household does not dine out or eat takeout more than they eat their own food at home. • No history of serious customer service complaints or issues with the service. | • Has not had a negative telehealth experience. • Don't have overall negative attitudes towards technology. | N/A | |
9 | Disqualifying professional experience | Be wary of input from people who know much more than your ideal customer about the industry or underlying details. Also check your company’s policy on giving government workers research incentives. • Which companies or industries should they have NOT worked for before? • Do they work for local, state, or city government? | • Have not worked in the food industry, grocery, delivery, app design, ecommerce or logistics. • Don't work for local, state or federal government. | • Has not worked in healthcare or health insurance or HR. • Has not worked in tech. • Not eligible for VA healthcare benefits. | • Have not previously worked for competitor. • Team has not raised significant customer support issue or complaint. | |
10 | Titles, roles, and responsibilities | Describe your bullseye users’ specific background and level of expertise. You probably expect your ideal user to have a certain level of professional experience or knowledge in your area. People’s roles and responsibilities in an organization or household will affect their points of view and needs. You won’t want to talk to individual contributors about tools that managers or execs use. • What type(s) of professional experiences are required? Role in household? Job titles? Individual contributors vs. managers? Years of professional experience? | • Works full-time • Owns or shares responsibility for grocery cooking for household. • Does not need to be primary cook in household. • Not required to be parent. | • Retired • Responsible for own healthcare decisions and expenses. • Does not require assistance with ADLs (Activities of Daily Living). | • Security analyst, application security, field ops • At least 5 years of experience. • End users-- not managers or directors | |
11 | Geography | Location can affect users’ context and other circumstances (e.g. weather, norms, density, professional culture, regulations) in ways that may not always be obvious. When possible, gather input from representative customers in the market(s) that are your top priority. • Where are your most important markets? | San Francisco | Seattle and Portland | N/A | |
12 | Buyers vs. end users | Many products are purchased by someone other than the people who actually use them. Select the people who are in the best position to answer your high priority product questions. For example, if you’re focused on users’ work and needs, talk to end users. If you have questions about the purchase process, talk to the buyers. • Do you want to talk to buyers or end users? | N/A | N/A | End users | |
13 | B2B: Scale of organization | The size and scale of an organization often affects how people work together, the tools they use, and how they adopt new products and services. • What size organization would be the best fit? Number of employees? Number of customers? Funding? Revenue? Amount or type of data? | N/A | N/A | • Large enterprise companies. F1000 • >5000 employees | |
14 | Structure and distribution of teams | If you are doing research for a product that supports collaboration, teamwork, or communication within an organization, identify the appropriate team structure(s) to get feedback from. • Does it matter whether an organization’s teams are centralized vs. distributed across multiple offices? • Will your users work together in an office, remotely, or hybrid? | N/A | N/A | • Co-located, centralized security teams | |
15 | Income and budgets | Rather than explicitly asking about income, which can seem invasive and may not actually tell you what you want to know, look at specific aspects of their lifestyle and spending habits (e.g. neighborhood, occupation, hobbies, vacations, cars they drive, where they shop, brands), which are often better signals about their attitudes and behaviors related to money. • How much disposable income do your target users have? • What are their spending habits? • How cost-sensitive are they? | • Own upscale car brands • Shop at Whole Foods, Andronico's, Draegers or other high-end grocery store. • Hobbies and vacations indicate significant discretionary income. • Work full-time in jobs that typcially pay well. | • Worried about being able to afford 2-3 years of long-term care. • Retired - no W-2 income. | • Companies that have large budgets for IT and security. | |
16 | Life and work settings | If you’re doing research on a product that’s linked to a particular setting, lifestyle, or type of household (e.g. transportation, kitchen appliance, storage solutions), think about the context where your bullseye customers live or work. • Is your product/service primarily geared towards people living or working in urban, rural, or suburban settings? In apartments or single-family homes? Households with children, roommates, or mixed-generation? | • Adults without children at home. • Live in urban setting. | • Live in city or suburb (less than 20-minute drive from city). • Live in own home. • Do not live in assisted living or other congregate setting. | N/A | |
17 | Trigger events | Changes in consumers’ personal lives (such as marrying, retiring, changing residences, becoming a parent) and organizations (such as raising a series A, hiring a new exec, expanding to new markets, adopting new tech) often signal a shift in customers’ needs and interests. • What recent events or changes would make a prospect more (or less) receptive to your product? | • No recent event that will significantly alter eating and shopping patterns, such as hiring a personal chef, starting meal subscription service or weight loss program, etc. | • Retired. • Received new diagnosis or was hospitalized in last 24 months. | • Hired new Chief Security Officer or CTO in last 12 months. | |
18 | VIPs | While all customers are valued, some are usually more valuable than others. Depending on the unique dynamics and stage of your business, you might want to prioritize customers and prospects based on their usage, size of account, reputation, etc. • What makes a customer or segment more or less valuable to your business now? | • Rated as "high lifetime value" | N/A | • Desirable logos for marketing. • Reputation and influence in industry | |
19 | Who’s missing? | When conducting research, try to be inclusive. Understand and try to represent the diverse demographic characteristics (ethnicity, gender, race, SES, etc.) of your target market. Be specific and require recruiting vendors to deliver on your inclusion criteria. • What are the demographics of your target market? | • 70% women • 30% POC | • 50/50 split of men and women. • 30% POC | • Include 2 color blind users | |
20 | Other disqualifying exclusions? | After you’ve defined all the above categories, brainstorm other core identifiers, experiences, or attributes that you would want to exclude when recruiting interview participants. • Can you imagine anything else you might learn in the first few minutes of a research interview or sales call that would make you say, “Oh no! This person doesn’t represent our bullseye customer.” | • Recent decrease in frequency and size of orders. • Has severe food allergies. • Produces or grows a lot of their own food. • Requires adaptive devices to use phone or computer (though this segment would be important for testing accessibility issues). | • Require daily assistance from family, friend, or caretaker. • Hate telehealth, or had bad experience. • Can't use computer and smarthphone on their own without assitance or adaptive technology. • For UX research sessions: Doesn't have computer with webcam. | • Not currently in renewal sales cycle with our sales team. | |
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