How Well Do You Know Your Customers?

You are a small brand who has just started its journey into the world of online trading. Per your judgement and understanding, you have created a beautiful range of good quality products which are also priced very well. You feel you know your customers well and need to now, only market your brand to the right audience and start selling. That should be easy as you have set aside a budget for marketing and in your opinion that is good enough to make you connect with your audience. But the question is How well do you know your customers?

Why is there a need to know your customers?

You enter the world of Digital Marketing and that’s when you are confused. There are millions and millions of consumers out there and you are struggling to find out whom you should target with your limited marketing budget.

In today’s world of mobile phones and social media, it will be fair to say that the whole world is hanging online. Whether it is the Millennials or the Gen Z, they simply love to be on their phones either chatting with their friends or shopping for their favourite brands.

For a brand, this is good news, as you can sell your products to a global audience at the click of a button. However, in order to do so, it is important to ensure you are able to connect with the right audience who will like your product.

This is why it is so important to know your customers and then target them via digital marketing in a focussed approach.

Here is a simple guide to help you know your customers better.

1. Define & Study your Competition

Study your competition and understand their Target Audience. Check out their users and followers on Social Media. Check the feedback they are getting from their users. This can be a key insight for you to define and know your customers.

You can either define your target audience to be the same as your competition. OR, you can target the people who are not being serviced by your competition. That can be your niche target audience.

For example, you have launched a range of recycled bags which are quirky and trendy in design. Your competition is also doing trendy bags catering to a youth audience, but they are not doing eco-friendly range. So, you can either choose to develop a regular range of bags or build on the recycled range to cater to a niche audience who is trendy yet sensitive towards ecological issues.

Another example is, you are a Print shop and make custom printed T-shirts for corporate events. Your competition only caters to corporates above 100 employees. You can either choose to do the same or look for smaller organisations with lesser number of employees who become your niche target audience.

This is how you can identify and get to know your customers.

2. Study your Product Line and understand the people who will need the same.

Review each and every product in your line and make a detailed outline of the people who will need your product. They become your target consumers.

We will once again take the same example, i.e., you have launched a range of recycled bags which are quirky and trendy in design. So, your niche audience will be young college going youth, as only they will go for quirky & trendy designs. In addition, they should be sensitive towards ecological issues and willing to buy recycled products. This is how you need to think to get to know your customers.

3. Work out the demographics to get to know your Customer better.

Ask yourself these simple questions for your target audience.

– Gender

– Age

– Location

– Education level

– Working / studying

– Job description (if working)

– Financially dependent or independent

– Spending power

Keep adding questions to this list as you understand your business better. Answers to these basic questions will help you know your customers.

4. Work out the Psychographics of your consumer /customer

Ask yourself these simple questions regarding the personal characters of your consumers

 – Lifestyle

 – Attitude & behaviour

 – Interest & Hobbies

 – What is their mode of communication with peers

 – Do they use Social Media

 – Do they shop online

As you gain a better understanding of your brand, product and target audience, keep adding questions to this list. Answers to these simple questions will help you in getting to know your customers better.

5. Research, research & keep researching to know your customers better

Research, research and research as much as possible to know your customers as much as you can and let this be a continuous exercise. The consumer preferences and behaviour keep changing very fast these days and hence you need to keep working on your Target audience on a regular basis.

It is not always easy to know and understand your audience, but it is an essential step. Only when you know your customers, will you be able to publish content that your audience enjoys. You will only then be able to create items or services that your buyers and target customers want.

It will also assist you in converting your viewers or one-time customers into long-term clients who will become committed brand champions. So, start working through these stages to obtain a better understanding of your audience and start reaching out to the people who are most important to your business and can have the biggest impact on your bottom line.

Once you feel you have defined and understood your target audience, you are confident that you are getting to know your customers better, just go all out tapping them with your Marketing budget !!!!