At Interact, we like to keep things simple. It’s part of our ethos as a company. By making the grunge work of setting up quizzes simple (“making it boring”), customers can focus their energy and creativity on bringing more value to their audience.
In approaching the subject of our ideal customers, the simplest analogy for us is to equate our ideal customers to cars. Specifically Volkswagen Auto Group, who also own Audi, Porsche, and Lamborghini.
Before we get into our ideal customer profiles, we need to define our NOT ideal customer profiles.
Customers who are NOT Ideal for Interact: Tire Kickers
This is a perfectly fitting analogy because it comes from the car world. Here’s the definition.
In sales, a tire kicker is a prospect who appears interested in buying a product or service but never actually commits
–Zendesk
For us at interact, not committing essentially boils down to, are you looking for a high-quality quiz product that comes at a reasonable monthly or annual cost? If not, then we’re not the right fit. There are a few types of tire kickers we frequently encounter.
- The “Build my business for me” person: This person wants us to help them build their business, from scratch. That includes defining their ideal customer, building their website, getting customers, and branding, among other things. We are a quiz software only so we can’t help with those items.
- The “I just want to see it” person: This person wants to see more and more examples of quizzes, they want us to build their quizzes, but never commits to an actual subscription. We weed them out by requiring a subscription to use the software.
- The “Do everything for me” person: This person wants us to do everything for them, which includes setting up integrations, website connection, etc. we build quizzes for people with AI assistance but we draw the line there because otherwise we will be stretched to thin to help other customers effectively.
- The “Teach me how to use software” person: This person wants us to spend time on the phone or video call teaching them how to use our software, and often times other softwares they use. We can’t afford this time because at some point the customer will have to learn to use softwares otherwise we will get stuck always teaching them and we can’t offer good service to our other customers.
- The “I want everything for free because I’m just starting out” person: This person expects everything to be free because they are just getting started and if “They can just use it for free now, they’ll pay eventually.” There are some businesses where this model may work, but because quizzes require organic traffic to work effectively it’s not a good strategy for our business and the vast majority of this customer type never end up paying so we can’t work with them in a mutually beneficial way.
Our Four Ideal Customer Types and how they relate to pricing plans
At Interact we have four types of customers who write in to us about quizzes.
For every 10 customers who find us, here’s how it breaks down.
- Volkswagen (5/10 customers). This equates to our Lite plan which is our lowest pricing plan, but still offers a comprehensive set of features for most small businesses. Interact offers easy-to-implement quiz solutions for small businesses who are in the Volkswagen category. It’s also a high-volume game.
- Audi (4/10 customers). This equates to our Growth plan, which is made for emerging brands who have gotten past the initial growth curve and are now building steadily. Interact thrives in this space as a partner for quiz marketing by helping our Audi customers implement quizzes quickly and within their brand experience.
- Porsche (.9/10 customers). This equates to our Pro plan, which is built for businesses who are ready to implement quizzes across their business.
- Lamborghini (.1/10 customers). Lamborghini customers fall into the custom category and we refer these out to our business partners who can handle customization needs.
What our Ideal Customers Want, How we Best Serve Each One
What Customers are Looking for.
- Volkswagen: Looking to implement a quiz on site/social as quickly as possible with minimal effort, start collecting leads.
- Audi: Looking to use quizzes on site and across other platforms, want deeper level of personalization and voice injected into quiz.
- Porsche: Looking to implement quiz funnels that go beyond just the typical, with email sequences and campaigns attached at either end of the funnel.
- Lamborghini: Looking to use quizzes for complex recommendation systems
How we match those needs.
- Volkswagen: We find the right quiz template or get an AI-Generated quiz to the customer in 30 minutes or less of our time.
- Audi: We consult with the customer and get an AI-Generated quiz for them based on their brand, or we import their existing written quiz into our system in under 1 hour of our time.
- Porsche: We discuss the marketing strategy the customer is looking to implement, figure out if we can help them, then either assist where needed or refer them to our customization partners. We spend less then 1.5 hours of our time ideally.
- Lamborghini: We quickly <15 minutes, determine what the customer needs, then make a referral to one of our customization partners.
How we ensure a great experience for each type of customer
- Volkswagen: Keep it simple, move quickly. For our Volkswagen customer, the small business owner or early hire, time is the most scarce asset they have. Our job is to help them get up and running with quizzes as quickly as possible with a template or an AI Quiz. Getting to proof of ROI is super important so the customer can know whether it’s worth it to continue pouring their valuable time into quiz marketing. For us we need to keep very clear boundaries on our time with each Volkswagen customer in order to ensure we can assist everyone, too much time spent with one Volkswagen customer means five others will get very poor service.
- Audi: Delve deeper, focus on personalization. Audi customers are more established in their businesses, they know more of what they need to see out of each marketing asset they create, and are more likely to have already committed some time to exploring quizzes when they come to us. We want to match that time commitment and we offer more of our time to each Audi customer. The focus with our Audi customer is to delve into how they operate their business and to make sure the quiz they create, or we create for them with AI, truly reflects their business.
- Porsche: Porsche businesses are dialed in. They know exactly what they need from quizzes when they come to us, and our job is to quickly identify if we can supply what they need, and if not we refer to a customization partner so the Porsche customer can get to their quiz goal as quickly as possible. If we are able to meet their quiz needs then we help the Porsche customer remove any roadblocks to get going as quickly as possible.
- Lamborghini: Interact is not a Lamborghini-catering business. But, we have developed relationships with customization partners who can fine-tune quiz funnels to the needs of Lamborghini customers. Our job when a Lamborghini customer comes to us is to quickly help get them connected to the customized solution that will meet their needs.
Defining Characteristics of Each Customer Type
Volkswagen
- Committed: The business could be new or established, but the key is that they’re committed to building their company for at least two years.
- Curious: Interact customers are curious to try new marketing strategies
- Patient: Ideal interact customers understand there is no “magic pill” to grow a business
- Creative: Quizzes are a fun, creative medium, our best customers like to think outside the box
- Low Ego: Ideal interact customers keep ego at bay and focus on building, growing, creating lasting businesses.
Audi
- Everything in the Volkswagen +
- Expanding: Audi customers are wanting to grow their businesses whether that means more customers for one product or introducing new products/services
- Focused: Audi customers know what they want and are looking for solutions to get their
- Flexible: Ideal customers have a goal in mind but are open to different ways of getting there
Porsche
Everything in Volkswagen, Audi +
- Dialed in: Porsche customers have systems fully baked and are finding new ways to plug into their systems
- Experimental: Porsche customers have a fine-tuned business but are always experimenting with that’s next
- Fast: Porsche customers move quick and discard what doesn’t work.
Lamborghini
- Architects: Lamborghini customers are architects, they have an idea in mind and want to bring it to life exactly as they envision it
- Established: Lamborghini customers have been around and know what they want to do next
- Customized: Lamborghini customers need everything in their businesses to be fully customized and outfitted exactly to their liking
Addendum: Marquee Customers/Partners
In the 1990’s, Porsche was struggling and declining in value. They developed a deep partnership with Toyota’s Production System and aligned the two companies in operational style. The result was sustained growth for the next two decades through today.
Deep partnerships and marquee customers have an outsized impact on our business because we spend more time with these people and even build for and accommodate their needs. Choosing incorrectly can steer our ship in the wrong direction, and when it’s gone in the wrong direction it takes a long time to turn back because we’re a fairly big ship and if you’ve ever seen a big ship try to turn quickly you know that does not work.
What Marquee Customer/partner means
These are the folks who we want to work very closely with to shape the future of Interact quizzes. Understanding what they need from the product and how to make it more effective for their goals. They’re also businesses we would want to collaborate with on case studies and co-marketing if it makes sense for both businesses.
Two must-have attributes of Marquee customers/partners
- Multiple categories of content on their website
- Monthly traffic of 50k+ (organic)
Let me highlight three marquee customers at interact to illustrate.
Check #1
If we go to their websites we can see that each has multiple categories of content.
Check #2
If we check similarweb.com for traffic levels, each of their sites is above 50k/month in traffic.
Why these criteria for Marquee customers/partners?
Because it aligns with how Interact operates as a company. We too have multiple categories of content. I.E.
- How-to content
- Case studies
- AI tutorials
- Quiz templates
- Etc.
And our traffic is above 50k/month to our website.
Of course there are lots of other reasons that go into building a business that operates in this manner, and sometimes the approach itself makes for a non mutually beneficial partnership. But, typically the proof is in the pudding, and if a business is built in a way where they have multiple categories of content on their website and that website is above 50,000 monthly visitors, there is a high likelihood it will make a mutually beneficial marquee customer/partner.
Keep Ideal Customer Profiles Simple
Honestly if we can’t keep our ideal customer profiles on one page we’ve gone too far and need to slow our roll. We can always go back to the basics and throw out all the jargon we build up over time and keep things simple again. Especially as we grow as a company this is hyper-important.