28 Feb How to Find out the Wants and Needs of your Customers

Marketing can be an expensive venture…especially if your marketing efforts are not targeted. You figuratively throw money in the trash when you do this. So naturally the question becomes, “How do you develop a targeted marketing campaign?” Easy. You get to know your customer base. 
You find out demographic information about them like gender, age, location, income, and even marital status. Psychographic information like personal interests and lifestyle would be valuable information as well.
You attempt to understand the channels they most frequently use. Do they prefer Twitter or Facebook? Do they cruise Instagram or Tumblr? This is important information as it will help you understand your audiences’ consumption and sharing habits.
You pay attention to analytics in order to understand their web surfing patterns. What keywords did they use to find your content? What pages did they visit on your website? What pages did they leave your website from? Were they referred to you from another place? Having this knowledge will help you fine-tune the content you distribute and also remove ineffective content that clouds your site.
At this point you might be wondering how exactly you collect this data. Thankfully, there are some amazing tools out there that will help you on your journey to customer enlightenment.
The easiest tool you can use is social media. Just connect with your clientele base on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, etc. Pay attention to their commentary. Listen to tidbits they reveal about their daily lives and use this as an opportunity to think of ways to improve their lives (product creation). You’ll be surprised with how much people are willing to help you understand about them. In reality, all you have to do is ask.
Another valuable tool in the connection tool belt is analytics programs. Examples of analytics programs are Google Analytics, Chartbeat, Clicky, GoSquared, Mint, and Open Web Analytics just to name a few. These tools will help you understand how people got to your site and their behavior while there. You can also use alexa.com and the Google Chrome plugin “Follow” to understand the demographic information of the people visiting your site.
Finally, survey platforms are an extremely valuable tool. You can create surveys using programs like Qualtries, Survey Gizmo, and Survey Monkey to create customized multiple choice questionnaires. The beauty of these programs is that you can also ask open-ended psychographic questions to really get to know your customer base. You can ask anything in these questionnaires, so use the power wisely.
Getting to know your customer base is incredibly important for your business. Just because your business is online doesn’t mean you should not foster a relationship with them. They should know you and you them. This is how you turn prospects into customers and then into raving fans. That should be the goal of any business…to foster a fan base like no other. That is how your business will become successful. So get to know your audience. It takes work, but the fruits of your labor will be massive.