How to Better Understand Your Customers
September 4th, 2008 | Author: Vera Raposo
Serving your customers should be foremost in any business owner’s mind but how do you know if you’re doing a good job? How do you know what you can improve upon?
Researching your customers is an important step to ensure your marketing message is communicated effectively. However understanding your customers can be a real challenge.
Here are three great ways to get inside their minds:
#1 Eavesdrop. This is easy if you own a brick and mortar business, however online eavesdropping is a bit more difficult. Social marketing has made it possible to go where your market goes. Research online membership sites, blogs, forums and chat rooms on your subject matter and listen to what your potential clients are saying. Better yet, create your own forum or chat room on your own business website to give you instant information about what your customers need and want.
#2 Ask them. Feedback from your customers is a valuable asset and there are a number of ways to obtain feedback. Post an online survey or quiz or even send a simple email asking for feedback can provide a wealth of information. To increase your response rate, give away a free report or coupon. No matter how you get the feedback, read it all carefully and implement the changes they are looking for.
#3 Test and track. Analytics often provide great customer insight. You can easily see what web pages are viewed most often and how long a visitor stayed on your site, both of which may give insight to what they find valuable. The same can be said of an article that has thousands of click throughs and is forwarded many time; that article is valuable to your customer so you should provide more information like that.
Completing this customer research may sound boring but it’s a necessary step to improving your business. It’s also a great task to be outsourced! Getting inside your customer’s mind will help you create the best marketing messages and provide the best and most profitable products or services.
Posted in 4 Responses to “How to Better Understand Your Customers”
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Good insight on the importance of understanding your customers. I know with my business I’ve had the best results by sending them a few brief questions to answer and then offering them a gift for completing the form. I guess that’s called a bribe, but it seems to work.
Rick Armstrong
http://www.Marketing-From-Home.com/blog
Hi Vera!
I agree with every word you have said in this post; market research is an essential part of any business; as is statistical analysis.
I make greeting cards and wedding stationary for personal, family and public use; ie I want to sell them. Consequently I have set up a web site and have achieved Google page ranking on my blogs; all of which link to the site.
From the very first day I set up my site I have had an on-line survey and an option to join and receive regular updates by e-mail. To date I have received only a handful of completed survey’s and the only members I have had are friends/family/tester!
I have also run a small competition; admittedly this was badly planned and done on the spur of the moment. I ran this on a couple of blogs including the one on the site and one of my cyber friends was the only entrant!
My clicks are growing each month on all of the blogs and the website and I have had some great compliments from folk; including those whose business is advertising. However I would really like a hundred clicks a day and conversions…
I admit that so far this has suited me; as I have been building my repertoire of skills; learning so much more than I ever dreamt of during this time (12 months or so). Despite my wishes and hopes in the early days; I wasn’t ready for success but now I am!
I have just entered into an agreement with yourlocal.ie on-line advertising registry. I have also been e-mailing the competition & other Wedding businesses galore with a view to supplying them.
I still have high hopes and spend most of my time working on this business; one way or the other, however; I can’t help thinking that I have got something wrong. Is it that cards and wedding stationary is such a niche market that Ireland isn’t really ready for them yet? The craft industry has only just got a toe hold in this country over the past two years or so…
Polly Pierce
Rick – Incentive works that’s for sure.
Polly – Thanks so much for posting. You’re right the whole craft industry hasn’t hit everywhere yet and I think it’s great that you are working on it.
There are tons of things that you can do to get the word out about your business. I would certainly also look into who your competition is and what they are offering.
Try not to focus on clicks but how to make your site better and approachable for sales. You want people to trust that you are a worthy source, they won’t do that if your site is a mish mash. (I haven’t seen your site yet just so you know).
Alice has said here before too, that focusing too much on how many RSS subscribers you have doesn’t help your sales. I would say the same for clicks, yes it’s important to track your conversion but if the sales are few then that makes it difficult to test or track anything.
I hope this helps you.
Thanks for that Vera!
I keep plugging away and have certainly been getting more visitors in the last couple of weeks; from several sources.
As they seem to be spending more time on the website and returning I suspect that they’re a bit like I can be: a lurker! Like a lot of people I like to know that I can trust a site before I commit myself and this is how I do it.
So fingers crossed that I am on the right track and can adapt my service to the needs of potential clients…