Know Your Customer

Do you know who you are trying to sell to? And why? What do you know about your customer? And maybe more importantly, what do they think you should know about them? When setting your marketing strategy, you should try to learn everything you can about your customers. Getting to know them well can help you better meet their needs.

For example, one of the big online markets right now is mom bloggers. All kinds of companies are reaching out to these women, because they know that many moms control the household budget or do a majority of family shopping. Yet many companies are reaching out blindly, not really stopping to get to know more about the women. They don’t read their blogs or try to find out what interests them. And half the time they don’t even get the mom’s name right!

If you are going to reach out to a representative population of your target market, you have to do your homework. These aren’t the moms of yesteryear. They’re internet savvy. Many are skeptics. And they are heavily involved in social media. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t approach audiences like this. You absolutely should. Just make sure you learn something about their needs and wants. Only then will you be able to target your marketing more effectively.

Do your research. Find out what has worked with your audience. Talk to firms who have successfully worked with them. Pay careful attention to what they did right. And these moms aren’t shy either – many of them have already been talking about the right and wrong ways to approach them.

Once you decide how to approach your customers, make sure you have a contingency plan in place. Just in case you stumble, or somehow forgot to cover all of your bases. Because if you make a mistake, and wind up offending your customer base instead of drawing them in, you’ll need to react quickly. Even a short lag in addressing their concerns or taking care of problems can put a serious dent in your credibility. And that will make it much harder to get your audience’s positive attention in the future.

Later in the week I’ll give you some examples of some companies that stumbled, and how they reacted. Some managed to control a little of the damage, some didn’t. If you’ve seen examples where a company didn’t know their audience, or you’ve experienced it firsthand, let us know in the comments so we can discuss it.

(photo credit: morgueFile)