How Do You Work Out Your Customers’ Needs?

How do you know what your customers want?

That’s a dilemma that faces every business.

If you can’t tailor your products or services to your target audiences’ needs you’re in trouble. If they aren’t the perfect fit they won’t fly off the shelves.

Many companies make the mistake of assuming their customers want the same things they want.

Big mistake.

I really enjoy cycling, in fact some of my clients also enjoy cycling but that doesn’t mean they all do.

Your customers aren’t a mirror image of you

Making decisions about social media use and marketing based on your own personal beliefs and preferences is a recipe for disaster.

If you want your business to succeed you must research your market and work out what they want, how they want it presented and what they’re willing to pay.

Even when considering dabbling in social media you have to work out where your customers are ‘hanging out’ because if you interact in the wrong place, you’ll simply be talking to yourself.

Some common misconceptions are:

• MDs of B2B companies thinking that as they don’t use social media, their customers don’t either. Yes they do—you just have to work out how they’re using it and where they are.

• Companies that use Facebook tend to update their status during the day whereas most of their ‘fans’ don’t log on until the evening or weekend.

• Sticking with Facebook, just because someone ‘liked’ your page doesn’t mean they want to be bombarded with promotional emails from you. Guess what? The ‘like’ button is not an ‘opt-in’ button.

No matter what business you’re in –retail, IT, manufacturing, copywriting, shipping etc., the only way you can discover what your customers want is to ask them (or survey them).

A scientific approach wins every time, guesswork doesn’t.