The art of marketing is the never-ending challenge to answer this question: What emotional needs do my customers have that my business could fulfill? To help you find the answer, we suggest that you start by collecting information on your customers through a variety of techniques, including conducting customer surveys and performing demographic research and analysis.
“One size fits all” is not a business strategy
No business can possibly expect to be all things to all people, and any that tries will likely have portions of their business siphoned off by specialized businesses that can better meet the needs of particular customer segments. “One size fits all” business strategies don’t work because customers tend to belong to distinct product market segments that have their own set of common characteristics, and unique needs and preferences.
So, how can you optimize your profit centers and gain a competitive advantage? It really won’t be possible until you begin to notice and distinguish the common characteristics that most of your customers possess, and to match your product offerings to the needs of the customers.
Surveying what makes your customers tick
The most important thing you can do is to start collecting as much information as you possibly can about your customers. A good idea is to create a survey that will help you find out what they have in common. Are they mostly male or female? What age ranges do they fall in? What is their education level? Are they married or single? Do they have children? If so, are the children at home, or grown and gone? Most importantly, what kind of emotional gratification are they looking for in return for their money, and what do you have to offer that can meet their emotional needs?
Research tools at your fingertips
Another tactic is to conduct research about customer demographics. The U.S. Census Bureau has a treasure trove of demographics broken down by counties and major metropolitan areas. You can find the U.S. Census Bureau website at http://quickfacts.census.gov. If you do business outside the U.S., check with local government agencies to see what information they have available.
The more accurate and complete information you have about your customers, the better able you’ll be to craft a marketing strategy to meet their needs _ and to draw more of them to your business. Now doesn’t that paint a nice picture?
However , I find that I resist doing pure market research because of the time it takes. At the end of the market research you don’t expect any sales, although this reminds me that one book I read that said that some consultants get their first sale this way.
I have tried though, on prospects, not on customers. I tried with local IT Managers over the phone ‘What do you need right now more than anything else?’ (A question suggested by a book) and got nowhere. They generally answered ‘nothing.’ Later, after having a lot more of straight selling offers rejected. I mentioned it to a marketing consultant. He said it was the wrong question, and to ask what there biggest problem was. Trying this, I was amazed to find I got a much better response. However, on a test of 100 contacts of local IT Managers in companies with staff of 100-499, I got a very diverse range of responses. It was nothing like those graphs you see in trade newspapers, showing that say, 30% of the sample were interested in ’X.’ So I got nothing definite to go on. Also, when they did mention issues that were particularly appropriate for my consulting service, they weren’t interested in using an outside service. Someone has said, that companies of 100-499 employees are such very different range of companies that this was to be expected. Although I’m not sure if I could get enough companies if the range was narrowed.
It seems it might have been cleverer to ask what were their 10 worst problems and then I might have got some better correlation.
While I found your comment useful, it seems a bit too theoretical and removed from reality to me. It’s OK, if you have a lot of time to wait, but I don’t. I don’t just want to know what emotional needs my customers have that I can fulfil, I want to know what they want NOW. I realise you need to think long term as well, but surely not exclusively?
An author in a consulting book suggests telephone calls that are initially sales calls but if rejected fall back to market research questions. I am unsure if this compromise will work.
So what do you suggest might be a better way forward for me and does he E-Myth Academy recommend any publications on this?