If you can answer this very simple question, your business is a billion times (well, rough estimate) more likely to be successful.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that providing a product or service that a customer wants is a good idea – but so many companies forget to ask themselves this one, crucial point before building their website, emailing their customers, launching their first marketing campaign.
What is the one thing your customer actually needs?
It might be to build their business online. It might be to have a safe place to send their children to nursery. It might be someone to help take their accounting and taxes off their hands. Whatever it is, if you can figure it out and target your marketing around it? You’re on to a winner when it comes to exposure, clicks and leads.
Figuring out what your customers want
You might have read my previous post about , which is integral to understanding their needs. That post will take you through how to build a customer profile and identify your target audience. After all, being a “customer-centric” business should be one of the cornerstones of every business strategy – because you wouldn’t be a business without your customers! The key is to not sell what you think they want.
To figure out what your target market are looking for, you need to do a bit of research. Invest in some whitepapers, market research reports and e-books to find out more about industry trends and which way the demand is going. This will provide a great general overview of your sector as a whole, and how you might fit into it. It’s also a good idea to do a bit of stalking. No, not literally – but online.
Listen in to the conversations your target audience are having online, in forums and on social media.
What needs do they have which aren’t being met? What would make their lives easier? This is your chance to swoop in and claim the spoils.
Creating an action plan
Knowing exactly what your customers are looking for is no good if you don’t do anything about it. It’s time to get up and do something about it!
Use their one unfulfilled need to form the basis of your marketing strategy. From print to emails and from blogging to advertising, every channel should be dedicated to providing your audience with solutions. For example, if you are a DIY shop and you’ve identified that your customers just want to feel more competent at DIY, produce a Youtube video series of how-to tutorials. Build a resource area of your website which answers common questions and demonstrates basic techniques. Create an email marketing campaign around DIY home projects for the summer. Highlight user-generated customer success stories on social, of people who have used your products and built some amazing things. That one thing should appear in every headline and every piece of copy you write. Each piece of marketing should form part of the overall puzzle.
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When that puzzles comes together? BOOM! You’ll be fending customers off with a stick.
Do you know the one thing your customers really want? Let me know in the comments below!
