My guess is that when you first sat down before your company opened up you spent a lot of time figuring out who you were going to appeal to. These were the customers you thought you would have the best chance at attracting. Those first few marketing campaigns were completely focused around this group of people. When you got postcard printing done you did it with them in mind and when you put up posters you were always considering the best locations to reach your core base of customers.



As times went on and as your company began to grow suddenly that marketing started to branch out. The concept of the core customer base was beginning to become diluted. Instead you were just focusing on anyone you thought you could sell to. Those postcard printing orders weren't really focused on any one group anymore.

And then the sales started to slow down. Your business wasn't quite as strong as it once was, and your marketing didn't seem to be doing what you wanted it to. People were slowly trickling away from you rather than towards, and no matter how much marketing you put out there no one seemed to be paying attention.

This happens to many businesses as they continue to grow. Eventually they reach the point where they don't really know who their customers are anymore because they've been spending so much time trying to appeal to the widest pool of people that they could. Most businesses have the mistake of sending out full color postcards to a very unspecialized target market thus leaking out much of their marketing efforts and budget to areas where the chances of a return are very low.

And when their marketing gets just a little too broad all of their customers begin to go elsewhere because the company doesn't really know how to market to them anymore.

You need to be sure that as you grow you keep that original focus going strong. You want to widen your customer base, but that doesn't mean you have to take your eyes away from who the people are you're going to be focusing on. The customer base might be growing, but you're guiding the growth, and still focusing on who you can deliver the best message to.

A good way to make sure you never lose focus is to sit down every year and ask yourself who your customers are. This is also a good time to set your agenda for the following year and decide where you want your business to grow and who you're going to be focusing on as well in the coming year.

You can find a number of different ways to expand your customer base while still maintaining a strong link to the original customers who got your business going strong. This is only going to be possible though if you make sure that you're always taking the time to consider who you're trying to bring in and who you're going to keep coming to your store.