customer research ebooks

The UK Guide to Identifying Your Target Customer: Work Out Who Actually Buys, and Prove It Before You Spend Anything

Most small businesses do not have a marketing problem. They have a target-customer problem, and they have disguised it as one by spending money. This guide opens with the fact nobody wants to say out loud — in the first half of 2026 more UK businesses closed than opened, and closures took £3.3bn more turnover out of the economy than new start-ups put in — then gives you the method that fixes it in thirty days on one sheet of paper, with no research budget and nothing to buy. Nine chapters, six named frameworks: the Target-Less Test, the 7-rung Evidence Ladder, the Four Roles, the Five Dimensions, the Harvest, the Fit Score, the Channel Ledger and the Honest Arithmetic. You will find out how solid your current picture really is, why the blocker in a deal is the person nobody researches, which five segmentation dimensions actually change what you do on a Tuesday, how to mine your own inbox and reviews for the words customers really use, how to choose one segment and commit to it, what the UK rules now permit you to send — including the PECR fine that rose to the greater of £17.5m or 4% of worldwide turnover on 5 February 2026 — and whether the market is genuinely big enough at your prices. Ends with a day-by-day 30-day plan and a one-page Target Customer Canvas. Every figure was checked against its original source on the day of publication: ONS, the Information Commissioner's Office, the Competition and Markets Authority, Ofcom and legislation.gov.uk. Written for UK business owners, in plain English, by PracticaleBooks.com.