Identify Your Goals and Direction

Before you can begin selling a product or building a business and empire, you must first identify and set your goals. This may seem like a strange first step in understanding your customer but answering these questions helps to set the tone.

Is there a purpose for your product, service, or idea? What problem are you attempting to solve for your customers? Who is most likely to require your product or service? How do you intend to reach this audience? Some key demographics to keep in mind when pinpointing your target audience and understanding your customer are:

• Location: Will you be targeting users by specific countries, regions, states, or even specific zip codes?
• Gender: Are you selling a product that is female-oriented, or more geared towards men?
• Age: Are you interested in reaching users based on a specific age range, or is your product and idea more applicable to a widespread audience?
• Hobbies and Interests: It is possible to craft a local and digital marketing campaign strategy with the use of specific keywords including hobbies or interests your prospective customers have in common. If you are interested in targeting a specific group of individuals who love the outdoors, hunting, or spending time on the water, using relevant keywords in your upcoming campaign will help.

Immerse Yourself in Your Customer Base

Understanding your customers requires more than knowledge of their gender, income level, and their location. In order to truly understand your customer, you must immerse yourself into their lives to discover more about their feelings, wants, and needs. Ask yourself the following questions when getting to know more about your prospective clients and customers:

• How will my customers feel when they are presented with my product, service, or idea?
• What is the price point that works best to appeal to my target market and how can I ensure that it is as affordable as possible to my entire user base?
• How do my prospective customers typically discover new products, ideas, and brands online and off? How will I grab their attention away from popular brands and competitors who are already available at an affordable rate on the market?
• What about my product or service helps me to stand out from my competitors? How can I present and promote this within ad campaigns and even within the branding of my business to better understand my customer?
• What tools can I use to listen better to my customers to gain insight into their individual wants and needs when it comes to the products and services I provide?
• How do I intend to remedy issues my current customers have with my product without maintaining a bias when doing so?

Asking yourself difficult questions and answering them honestly will improve customer retention while also providing you with a better understanding of your customer.

Use Analytics

Using data from Facebook Ads and Google Analytics can provide valuable insight into understanding your customer. When you want to better understand your audience and followers on a deeper level, turn to in-depth analytic reports. Both Facebook Ads as well as Google Analytics can pinpoint specific campaign language and headlines that stand out to your audience. Learn how to craft unique and engaging content that will pique the interest of your users while keeping them coming back for more with real-time data analytics.

Spend Time Engaging With Your Customers

Even if you are just starting a business, it is still important to understand your customers or your soon to be customers. One way to do this is to spend time engaging with customers across social media platforms, on your website or blog.

Ask questions of your audience while providing respectful, professional, and thoughtful responses to inquiries and questions you receive. Engage with users across all platforms including your website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. The more transparent you appear as a brand as well as an individual, the easier it becomes to gain followers as well as a positive reputation.

Ultimately, understanding your customer helps you to betteer utilize your marketing dollars whether traditional or digital marketing. Asking the right questions and using the right tools make it possible to understand your customers and form a long term connection. Whether your business is in Leamington or Windsor, learn how to better understand and connect with your customers to truly maximize your potential and opportunities.

Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash