Do you REALLY know your customer? Do you know where they hang out and spend the most time online? Do you know their biggest problems that keep them up at night?
Do you know their biggest goals and dreams? Do you know what they do for a living? Do you know their favorite hobby and how they spend their leisure time? How about how they order their favorite coffee at Starbucks?
Many savvy marketers will tell you that you “must know your customer.” Yes, this is true.
However, very few marketing experts, agencies or consultants in the industry will actually tell you HOW to research and learn the details about your customer! They want you to pay them the big bucks for a little help in this area.
My agency, Marketing Nutz helps businesses of all sizes research their audience, prioritize their market segments and buyer personas for incredible results with digital, content and social media marketing. We do this through a combination of methods that may include online research, surveys, social media network insights, focus groups, interviews and the list goes on. Every customer is different as is their budget and appetite for taking an audience first approach to their marketing.
Good news! Today I am not holding back. I am sharing with you the top 15 most simple ways you can research and learn more about your target customer. These are methods you can start using today. Most of them require zero investment other than your time. And even the time needed for many of these methods is not too much and definitely worth the investment.
Investing in learning about your target customer is one of the best things you can spend your time on as a marketer.
Unfortunately too many business leaders, business owners and even savvy marketers skip this step. They want to go straight to the content writing, email marketing, social media posting and gaining what they think will be amazing brand awareness, leads and sales.
Here's the thing… you can scream the loudest and get attention…maybe… for the short term.
However, if you want real business outcomes in the form of brand awareness, meaningful website and blog traffic that converts to real paying customers, then you need to do more than shout. You need to connect with your audience in human ways. You need to spark their curiosity in a way that they want to learn more about how you can help and serve them.
You can't do any of this if you don't KNOW your customer.
If you want to improve the performance of ALL of your marketing, then you MUST know more about your target buyer than your competition does.
Targeted Marketing is Human Science, Not Rocket Science
When you truly KNOW your customer you can be the one who serves them the highest value. You can then speak to them in a language and tone they understand and that resonates with them.
When you don't know your customer or you have the mindset that everyone is your customer then you end up talking to nobody.
Targeting everyone is essentially targeting nobody. Too many marketers are afraid of narrowing down their target market. They keep their target market segments too broad and as a result they spread themselves too thin from a resource and budget perspective.
They are then not able to properly research, inspire and connect with the RIGHT customer. It's a vicious cycle of mediocre marketing.
Less is truly more in the online, social, digital and always connected online world of today. Your dream customers are not waking up in the morning thinking… “oooooh… I can't wait for all the brands who are going to spam me in my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn news feeds today.”
NO! They want value. They want meaning. They want human connection.
Target Customer Research in a Nutshell
This comprehensive target customer research guide includes the following:
- 15 Simple Ways to Research Your Dream Target Customer
- Podcast with details of all 15 customer research methods (hint: you can start using these today!)
- Additional supporting resources such as our Buyer Persona Worksheet, 5-Day Buyer Persona Bootcamp Virtual Training and our Content Calendar Editorial Template
Take a listen to the 285th episode of the Social Zoom Factor Podcast to learn the Top 15 Methods to Research Your Customer for FREE
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:
- Top 2 things you must do BEFORE starting customer research
- Top 15 simple and easy methods to conduct customer research on zero budget
- How to create a target customer profile
- What is audience marketing
- What is an audience first marketing strategy
- What is target marketing
- What is a buyer persona
- How to leverage natural conversation for customer research
- How to leverage email marketing for customer research
- Tips to conduct focus groups on little or not budget
- Importance of social listening to learn about your customer
- How to leverage online communities to research your dream customers
- How to leverage digital user behavior to understand your customers buying and digital engagement patterns
- How to tap into industry reports for customer research
- Why Google is your best friends for customer research
- Top tools to research top trends about hot content your customers loves right now
Supporting Resources
- Buyer Persona Worksheet (editable templates to clearly define your target customer)
- 10 Reasons You Need an Audience First Marketing Strategy
- The Top 10 Things You Must Know About Your Customer (ebook / marketing guide)
- Audience Marketing Prioritization Worksheet
- Content Calendar Template
- Social Profit Factor Training Academy – go at your own pace in our virtual digital and social marketing training academy designed to empower marketers and business leaders to achieve their personal and business goals
How to Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast
Need help taking your brand to the next level? Social Profit Factor Training Academy and Marketing Nutz Can Help!
Need some extra help to help you define and prioritize the right target audience and buyers for your products and services? Our agency, Marketing Nutz, our training and consulting agency can help! No long term contracts, no complicated agency engagements. We can quickly get into the roots of your business helping you maximize every dollar and minute you spend on marketing, content and advertising your business.
Like to do it yourself!? Our training academy,Social Profit Factor can help you ignite your content and brand architecture to grow your online tribe and business with social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. Before you even think about posting that video on Facebook you must know who you are, what your audience needs from you and how your efforts are going to deliver value for your audience and your business.
You need a structured plan to be successful using social media. Social Profit Factor will help you develop your plan with goals, objectives and priorities within 30 days!
Sign up now and get started building your audience first marketing program for more leads and the right customers!
Take Action: Download my Buyer Persona Template Pack (editable templates for B2B and B2C)
