There is only one place to start your marketing campaign

“I don’t know much about marketing and have no idea where to start” is a common statement I hear from Founders and Business Leaders who contact me for advice. The myriad of channels, technology, and jargon can easily feel overwhelming. 

The good news is that there is a clear starting point that you already know a lot about - your Customers.  

When promoting your business, product or service, everything you say and do should be tailored to your customers’ preferences and needs. The more you know about their interests and where they spend their time, the easier it is to create messaging and choose the right channels. So, before you start planning a campaign or creating ads, spend some time checking that you really understand your customers. 

Try answering the following questions before embarking on campaign planning (hint: try to answer in a few words, then include as much detail as possible to help develop your Ideal Customer Profile) 

1.       Who are your target customers? Why?

2.       Which of these customers is your ideal customer? Why?

3.       What problem (or desire) do customers have that you are going to solve (or fulfil) for them?

4.       What benefits does your product or service create for customers? And how is your offer better than your competitors’?

5.       Where do your customers spend their time? (hint: this will guide your choice of channels, so think physically and online) 

Time invested in getting to know your customers is always well spent. If you found it hard to answer any of the questions above, here are a few simple and low-cost ideas to help you improve your customer insight:

  • Go talk to your customers! This is an obvious one but is too often overlooked. Spend time on the shop floor if you are in retail, or work in customer service for a day. This will give you valuable insight on customer needs and help identify any ‘pain points’ that you can solve.

  • If your business is online, using marketing technology tools to analyse customer behaviour is a must. Use data and insight tools to understand what your customers are doing on your website, how you can improve the customer experience, and what’s influencing metrics such as conversion rates and order values. Use the insight to optimise customer journeys – steering people to the right content and making improvements where customers are being lost.

  • Use a survey to get feedback from a wide range of customers. This could be as simple as asking your key customers to fill out an online feedback form.

  • Looking at competitor websites can also give clues about what your customers are looking for. What are competitors offering that could be important to your customers? 

If you would like help with using customer insights to improve your marketing performance, please get in touch here.