March 28th, 2009
by Pamela Sherman
Walk in Your Customers' Shoes and Raise Your I.Q. for Business Success!
As business owners, we all need to be constantly reminded to step out of our company shoes and mindsets… and into our customers’ shoes and WORLDS.
“The more about customers we know, the more we can grow… by walking the walk and talking the talk!”
For today’s blog, I wanted to present some important questions to help strengthen your “CUSTOMER I.Q.”
How can you optimally reach out, market and communicate with your customers with the power of today’s web world? As we say at Web Marketing Therapy, “Have the right messages, at the right places, at the right times.”
CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE + ACTION = BUSINESS GROWTH!
The following are some questions to regularly address for business success:
1) Have you identified your target customers and their needs?
Most businesses have a variety of different customer groups. - Can you identify yours? Get to know your customer/client lists, learn more, and look for patterns, groups, common interests. Then, understand your customers’ needs, pain-points, hopes and desires. How can you further target and meet your customers’ needs today and tomorrow? Target your website for your customers. Explore your market and use the internet for research and feedback. Do you target and meet the needs of your customers well enough to take it one step further and create “Customer Enthusiasm“?
2) Do you use the real language of your customers?
Are you speaking your customer’s language? (You know, the languages spoken within different career fields, recreational hobbies/activities or social groups.) If you do, you will likely capture greater attention with connective messages and stories. What words do people use when searching for your products or services online? If you don’t know and implement them as key words, phrases and tags, it will be much harder for potential customers to find you.
3) How well are you connecting with the interests and attractions of your customers?
What are your customers interested in and what’s on their minds? How will your customers likely navigate through your website based on their interests and motivations? How can your business become more current and present in their minds? What current topics drive them or entertain them? Authentically address your customers’ interests and further express common goals and interests. Connect with and create content that’s part of their world. Remember, just like any romance, the rules of attraction also apply to business… It pays to stand out… to be authentic, enjoyable, respectful and trustworthy.
4) Is your company within your customers’ “circle of trust”?
How can you earn the trust of customers? Are you professionally and socially within the same trusted circles? Who do your customers trust and rely upon most? What associations or on-line groups do your customers join? Alliances and collaborations can help; a greater degree of trust also occurs through association. Become a trusted source for advisory and knowledge yourself, by sharing your expertise in articles, newsletters, or blogs. There are many ways to use on-line social media to boost your business by increasing awareness and peer influences.
All of the above is to help you reach out, communicate and connect with your market. To do so, you have to ask yourself… is your business where “it’s happening” and are you speaking the “right language”? Remember, “A Good Obsession is a Customer Obsession.”
Web Marketing Therapy Related Links:
- Small Business: A Good Obsession is a “Customer Obesession”
- Customer Satisfaction vs. Customer Enthusiasm
- What is Your Website’s “Authentic Sell-Ability”?
- Business Success: Use VALUE(S) as Your Springboard and Your North Star!
Categories: Ask the Marketing Therapist, Blog, Comic Relief, Daily Inspiration, Marketing Interventions, Motivational Marketing Quotes, On the Couch, Small Business, Social Media, Web Marketing Best Practices, Web Marketing Tips
Tags: Communicating to Your Customers, Customer Intelligence, Customer IQ, Knowing Your Customers, Pamela Sherman, Small Business Marketing Plans
John Moore
(March 28th, 2009 at 7:16 pm)
Tremendous post that raises the critical questions we must all consider if we want to be successful in business. It is not enough to simply provide the best products we must understand our customers needs and be able to communicate with them in their own language.
My latest post on business intelligence hits on some of these same points as well as may be worth a read: http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/dont-blame-me-the-business-intelligence-made-me-do-it/
Let me know what you think.
John
http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com
Bettina Rogers
(March 28th, 2009 at 10:50 pm)
I just returned from the Lorrie Thomas Web Marketing Therapy roundtable/seminar in Newport Beach, CA and I’m still on cloud nine! How could one person have so much energy, intelligence, and creativity?! For 6 hours we hung on every well thought out word and thoroughly enjoyed the spunk and humor with which Lorrie presented what could have been exhaustively ultra dry and boring material. Her quick wit and business saavy are quickly catapulting her to an unparalleled level of imparting the very necessary skills of today’s marketing. You rock, Lorrie! I now must go face my book and do some tweeting. Thanks for an amazing day!
Bettina
http://www.bettinaknits.com
Pamela Sherman
(March 30th, 2009 at 7:27 pm)
John,
Thank you so much for the support, comments and great share! Your added \business intelligence\ approach is really valuable –thanks for connecting! –Great Blog read!
Now is certainly an important time for delving deeper with real understanding of customers and their needs… we need to rise above with innovative new value-driven products/ services for today’s dynamic needs.
Thanks again and have a fabulous day!!!!
Pamela
Pamela
Pamela Sherman
(March 30th, 2009 at 7:48 pm)
Bettina,
We are soooo glad you enjoyed the seminar in Newport with Lorrie, WMT’s founder. –She IS an incredible speaker and true teacher, sharing valuable insights and tangibly valuable information. (I may be extra biased — as I even shifted my whole marketing career of 18 years to join her!) I believe what Lorrie and WMT are doing is simply shining an important beacon of clarity and inspiration for the REAL FUTURE of business… It’s motivating, because the more you grasp, the more you see the exciting opportunities around you to make it happen.
The wonderfully ironic and delightful thing that Lorrie and all of us experience… is how much WE ARE INSPIRED BY YOUR CREATIVE IDEAS AND THOUGHTS!
GOOD LUCK WITH ALL YOUR ENDEAVORS AND THANK YOU
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