WHO ARE THEY?

So when we ask ourselves that question, be sure not to fall into the generic category of associating your consumer with the typical male/female, name, usually email address and credit card info that we usually rely on to differentiate consumers from each other.

When you ask yourself,  WHO ARE MY CUSTOMERS? Consider these questions:

⁃ Are they in a relationship/single?

⁃ Do they have children?

⁃ Are they married/divorced/single/common-law?

⁃ What is there career path?

⁃ How old are they?

By developing a more in depth profile of your consumer you will be able to, more easily, identify the decision making processes that your customer goes through and potential things that will make them hesitant about buying your product or service.

WHAT DO THEY BELIEVE? How do they think?

Now, you may be asking yourself – how am I supposed to know how my potential customer thinks? By asking, observing, and developing a buying pattern. How can I begin to do that? By asking the right questions:

⁃ How did they find out about you/your service/product?

⁃ Did they share your social post that led them to the conversion?

⁃ Were they searching for the product or browsing and stumbled upon it?

⁃ How do they solve problems? (Avoid/Tackle/Blame)

⁃ What are their values? (Political/Personal)

⁃ What brands do they trust and why?

By asking these questions, you can begin to develop a psychological persona of your customer base, that will allow you to come up with solutions, that will make the buying process easier for them, which in turn will help you create more conversions through your website. Google Analytics can help you answer these questions, but placing surveys with incentive to complete on your website is also another.

WHERE DO THEY LIVE?

Don’t be afraid to go a little Big Brother on your customers, everyone is doing it. Haha! Seriously though, with all the resources out there such as Statistics Canada and Google Analytics, we have an abundance of recorded information about people in your target market, available at your fingertips. Not keen on doing research about this kind of things? Don’t have the time? Hire a professional! It is very beneficial to know where your customer lives and works because it is vital in advertisement placements and making sure you are reaching the right people.

Some questions to ask yourself and your customers to gather that information:

⁃ What is their home address?

⁃ Where do they work?

⁃ Do they use transit/walk/drive?

⁃ It is rural/urban or a combination, Rurban?

⁃ Who is your competition in this location?

⁃ Where did they grow up?

WHAT DO THEY WANT?

I saved the “best” for last. Well, the best in the sense that you have to have most of the information above to develop a sense of how your target audience lives there life. Some questions and area’s I would encourage you to consider are the following:

⁃ How do they spend their money? Do they save money or spend money?

⁃ Do they travel?

⁃ Are they risk takers?

⁃ Are they loyal to brands?

These questions may seem a little repetitive, but by this time, after asking all the questions before – you can begin to form a persona of who they are, how they think, where they live, and how they live.

From there, you can start catering your business platforms to perform like your target market wants it to. Make sure your advertising and SEO and PPC is catered towards the particular geographic area in which your target market lives. Enter more retail stores where your customer shops. Begin to make an Integrated Marketing Communications plan that reflects your target market’s wants/needs/desires and watch your business succeed! Not sure how to develop a successful Integrated Marketing Communications plan? Contact a professional. The benefits will outweigh the cost, every time.

In a competitive business world like the one we are living in today, you need every edge to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER IS GETTING TO KNOW YOUR BUSINESS!