Understanding Your Audience
All businesses must understand their audience to succeed. If they don’t, then over the long term customers will simply drift away and find new and exciting propositions from competitors.
Having said that, not all customers are attracted away immediately and established firms can do lots to retain their customers, so long as they are willing to listen.
What the Customer Wants
Try not to make any long-term or strategic decisions about your business without the ‘customer in the room’ test. This really means consulting on what they want. For example, if you intend dumping a product line in favour of a newer model, then at least ask a couple of customers to try it out for you. If they approve, then go for it, but be wary if the response is not all you had hoped for.
Visit your Customers
Getting out to visit your customers can be an invaluable way of promoting your business and also getting the face time that means you can listen to what they want. Even in the business-to-business environment this is becoming increasingly hard, usually due to the demands of many people’s working days.In the retail and e-tail sectors it is virtually impossible.
Listen to your Customers
Therefore, allowing customer feedback via forms that are enclosed with goods, or from website product o reviews, is the next best option. Some business owners shy away from this, because they don’t like to see the negative feedback which you sometimes get.
However, if you don’t listen to customers who take the time to bother with negative feedback you will never improve. Understanding your audience means getting to grips with gripes, complaints and urges for improvements.
Use your Website for Customer Insights
If you have a website, use it. Always use the metrics to check where your audience landed and by which means they are navigating to you, for example from a search engine or a banner advert. This will help to improve your digital marketing strategy no end. Equally, check the page that is read prior to a purchase being made.
Perhaps, it is shipping costs page for some and for others it might be your terms and conditions. Understanding this will help you to figure out what is important to your customers and therefore help you to focus.
We are happy to answer any questions. Contact the team by phone on (01) 808 1301, or email info@emarkable.ie.
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