5 Ways to Better Understand Your Customers
One way to avoid costly marketing mistakes? Stop making assumptions about the needs, preferences and buying behaviours of your customers.
We get it. It’s easy to make assumptions based on what you like in the absence of evidence telling you otherwise. A temptation to fill in the gaps, overlook what your customers aren’t telling you and before you know it, making Greg Rutherford-sized jumps to conclusions.
But the better you understand your customers, the more success you will have in meeting their needs with your products or services.
Not sure where to start? Here are our top five tips…
1. Slip on a pair of your customer’s shoes
Bias is your enemy. Or at least, the enemy of any successful digital sales, marketing or customer engagement efforts. If you’re someone who sells white sofas because you love the colour white, but your target audience is thirty-somethings with young children…they’ll probably tell you that white and toddlers aren't a good mix.
2. Not just positive, positive, positive
Positive feedback from customers can give you a real high. As well as providing great testimonials for your website and those positive ‘proof points’, it can also motivate and lead to rewards. But for every customer who makes a purchase or signs up, remember that there are likely many more who didn’t. When it comes to evidence, positive customer feedback is often a subset of a subset and should be treated with caution.
3. Leave the emotions at the door
Confirmation bias is when we interpret information in a way that confirms what we already believe to be true. We all do it day to day (yes, even you), but how can we stop it from sabotaging success? By checking the emotions and developing the skill for dispassionately examining data and evidence. This will prevent you from pouring more resources into something the evidence is telling you won’t succeed, or not making needed critical changes to your products or strategy.
4. More data, less guess work
Sometimes, you just don’t have the data, or any easy way of getting the data ahead of a decision. In this situation you have to make an educated guess and go with ‘gut feel’ or ‘experience tells me’. Well, needs must, but recognise that real customer data is absolutely essential for success, and the acquisition of it should be a priority.
5. Make customers your VIPs
Consider including a customer, or a ‘customer champion’ on your board. This is becoming increasingly common among more customer orientated businesses, and it’s a great way to gain a different perspective and keep sight of who you are building your products or services for. Whoever your customer champions are, they should feel comfortable dispensing uncomfortable truths.
Need some help understanding your customers? Want to find out more? We offer free initial consultations, so get in touch with us on 0118 4050 203 / info@cyberlogical.co.uk