This guide is based on Mixergy’s course with Cindy Alvarez.

Cindy Alvarez saw that KISSmetrics’ limited user base could only generate limited revenue, so she expanded it and increased the number of buying users by 16%. It was all done using her customer targeting system, so we invited her to teach you how to do it.

Cindy is the product manager of KISSmetrics, which helps entrepreneurs identify, understand, and improve the metrics that drive their businesses.

Here are the actionable highlights from the course.

1. Differentiate your product to set it apart from the competition

Cindy says that KISSmetrics is the only company that lets customers scale metrics, regardless of how big their website gets.

Take Action:
Assess what makes your company or product different, and use it as your unique selling proposition.

2. Identify your ideal customer so you’ll know who to target

Cindy says the users who will find KISSmetrics most useful are chief technology officers, product managers, and marketers.

Take Action:
Figure out which types of customers will benefit from your product, and identify the ideal business model, company size, and maturity of the customers you should be targeting.

3. Highlight your product’s benefits to encourage prospects to buy

Cindy says product managers can get actionable metrics and comprehensive reports from KISSmetrics, which helps them make better decisions.

Take Action:
Figure out how your product will make your prospects’ lives better, and use it to market your product.

4. Interview prospects to find out what their pain points are

Cindy contacted Quora users who posted about analytics and asked them about their client interactions to find out what they had problems with.

Take Action:
Find prospects on Twitter, Quora, or LinkedIn, then ask them what they’re doing in their niche, who’s involved with operations related to your product, what they’d do if they could do anything, and what obstacles are preventing them from doing it.

5. Create profiles so you can target each customer group

Cindy built three user personas and used them to market KISSmetrics: Jeff, the technical co-founder; Chelsea, the semi-technical product manager; and Naveen, the marketer.

Take Action:
Create detailed personas of your target users based on the answers you got from interviewing prospects, and use them to build marketing strategies that target each group.

6. Write things down so you can remember and validate them

Cindy takes notes of what prospects tell her, like validations, arguments, and surprising points, and uses them to test hypotheses and identify outliers.

Take Action:
When you talk with prospects, write down any validating points or responses that are striking or surprising.

7. Use customer feedback to know what features to add

Cindy said many prospects complained about the difficulty of conducting customer research, which led to the development of KISSinsights.

Take Action:
Take note of pain points or suggestions that prospects bring up repeatedly, then use them to tweak your product or develop a new product or feature.

Written by Hazel Chua, based on production notes by Jeremy Weisz