Do you really know your customers?

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Have you ever considered what your customers are really trying to achieve when they interact with your brand? While it may seem obvious, many businesses fail to understand the needs and motivations of their target audience. As a result, they struggle to create meaningful connections that increase brand recall, relevance and authority.

A company’s target audience includes its current and potential customers. To understand what your customers are really trying to achieve, you must first understand their needs and motivations. Only then can you create meaningful connections that increase brand recall, relevance and authority.”

Many businesses fail to take the time to understand their target audience’s needs and motivations. As a result, they struggle to create lasting relationships with these individuals. In order to avoid this issue, it is essential that companies make an effort to learn about their customer base.

  • What are they looking for in relation to your product type?
  • How can you best serve them?

Once you have answered these questions, you will be well on your way towards increasing brand recall, relevance and authority.

40% of startups fail because there is no market need for their product, and many others remain stagnant due to their very average appeal. So how could millions of intelligent entrepreneurs pour their lives into making such a fundamental mistake?

There are a number of reasons, but in my experience, the two primary ones are:

  • Not understanding their target market 

By focusing on understanding the needs and wants of your target market, you can create more effective marketing campaigns that speak directly to them. This is important because it builds trust and creates a deeper connection with your audience. Ultimately, this will result in more sales and greater customer loyalty.

  • Not creating a differentiated value proposition

Differentiating a product or service from its competitors can be difficult, but it’s crucial for brands who want to win over customers.

A differentiated value proposition (DVP) is one way to create a stronger connection with your target audience and stand out from the competition.

Here are four tips for creating a DVP:

    • Know Your Customers

First and foremost, you need to know your target market well. This means understanding their wants and needs, as well as their challenges and frustrations. Once you have a good understanding of your customer base, you can start developing products and services that meet those needs.

    • Build on What Your Customers Already Value

Most people tend to stick with brands they trust. If you can build a relationship with your customers by delivering on what they value already, it will make them more likely to recommend your brand to others. For example, if your customers love getting discounts on their purchases, offer similar deals exclusively through your website or social media channels.

    • Be Unique

Your customers don’t just want something that’s comparable to other brands; they want something that’s unique and special. By being creative and thinking outside the box, you can develop products and services that no other company offers. For example, instead of offering the same old warranties offered by other companies, think about how you could improve upon them or come up with new warranty terms altogether.

    • Make It Easy for Your Customers to Get Started

If someone is looking for information about a product or service, he or she is probably not going to take the time necessary to look around all of the available options before making a purchase decision.

      • Pride: Assuming we know what customers want – like the CEOs of Blackberry and Blockbuster who respectively laughed off the iPhone and Netflix.
        Brands can create products and services that meet customer needs.
        Additionally, by creating an understanding between the brand and its target audience, relationships can be built which ultimately strengthens the brand’s reputation.
      • Fear: Shying away from the awkwardness and effort of talking to customers. If that’s the case, then prepare for the pain and embarrassment of going bust.

I have watched numerous entrepreneurs waste years of valuable time and lots of money building products, iterating strategies, analyzing financials, market feedback, and 3rd party research etc., but never sitting down to speak to and truly understand their customers and stakeholders. This is like flying a plane at night with no instruments.

In my experience, surveys, traditional focus groups, A/B testing etc., are great at testing your assumptions such as

  1. Customers want physical keyboards on their phones
  2. The closer the store is to their home, the more videos people will rent.

Traditional surveys and focus groups are not well-suited for discovering customers’ underlying context, true desires, priorities and drivers. They typically rely on questions that ask respondents about their opinions or experiences rather than digging deeper to understand why they make the choices they do.

They don’t do very well in the initial discovery of customers’ underlying context, true desires, priorities and drivers, such as why the customers who say they wanted keyboards turned around and bought iPhones! These pearls of wisdom can come from having semi-structured, open-ended conversations with customers and allowing their humanness to surface.

 

Who are your customers?

The first step in understanding your customers is identifying who they are.

This includes understanding their demographics, such as age, gender, location and income level. Additionally, you’ll need to understand their psychographics – things like their lifestyle choices, interests and values. Only then can you begin to form a picture of who your ideal customer is.

As a business owner or marketing manager, it’s essential that you understand your customers. Without this knowledge, it would be impossible to create and deliver messages that resonate with them. The first step in understanding your customers is identifying who they are. This includes understanding their demographics, such as age, gender, location and income level. Additionally, you’ll need to understand their psychographics – things like their lifestyle choices, interests and values.

Only then can you begin to form a picture of who your ideal customer is.

P.s: CrawlQ helps you find your ideal customer and create content audience specific. 

What do they want?

Once you know who your target customer is, you can start to think about what they want from brands like yours. It’s important not to divide this into two separate categories:

Functional wants (such as needing a pair of shoes) and Emotional wants (wanting to feel happy).

Instead, try thinking about what the ultimate goal is for each type of want. For example , someone might buy a new car because they need reliable transportation but also because they want status or prestige

By uncovering these deeper motivators, you can more effectively market your products or services

How can you help them achieve their goals?

Now that you know both who your target customer Is and what Their goals are In relation to your product Or service category, It’s time to consider how you can help them achieve those goals.

This will require some creativity on YOUR part But if successful could be hugely beneficial for both parties involved.

Remember that people don’t just buy products, they buy solutions To problems That exist In THEIR lives

Conclusion:

Do you really know your customers? It’s a valid question for any business owner, especially those in the branding and marketing field. After all, if you don’t understand what your customers want or how they think, it will be difficult to create effective campaigns that resonate with them.

Luckily, by taking the time to get to know your target audience, you can develop a deeper understanding of their needs and desires. This knowledge will not only help improve your marketing efforts but could also lead to developing stronger relationships built on trust and respect.

Or 

You can always choose CrawlQ.